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An Open Verdict, by M.E. Braddon—A Project Gutenberg eBook
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<body>
<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 67237 ***</div>
<div class="transnote">
<h3>Transcriber’s note</h3>
<p>Variable spelling and hyphenation have been retained. Minor punctuation
inconsistencies have been silently repaired. A list of the changes made
can be found <a href="#Corrections">at the end of the book</a>.</p>
</div>
<h1>AN OPEN VERDICT
<br />
VOL. I.</h1>
<div class="figcenter illowp48" id="cover" style="max-width: 40.625em;">
<img class="w100" src="images/cover.jpg" alt="cover" />
</div>
<hr class="r5" />
<div class="chapter">
<p class="center">
<span class="large">AN OPEN VERDICT</span></p>
<p class="center">
A Novel</p>
<p class="p2 center">
<span class="allsmcap">BY THE AUTHOR OF</span><br />
‘LADY AUDLEY’S SECRET’<br />
<span class="allsmcap">ETC. ETC. ETC.</span></p>
<p class="p2 center">
IN THREE VOLUMES</p>
<p class="p2 center">VOL. I.</p>
<div class="figcenter illowp77" id="illustration" style="max-width: 6.4375em;">
<img class="w100" src="images/illustration.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
<p class="p2 center">
LONDON:<br />
JOHN MAXWELL AND CO.<br />
4, SHOE LANE, FLEET STREET,<br />
1878<br />
[<i>All rights reserved.</i>]
</p></div>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
<div class="chapter">
<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS_TO_VOL_I">CONTENTS TO VOL. I.</h2>
</div>
<table>
<tr><td><span class="allsmcap">CHAP.</span></td>
<td> </td>
<td>PAGE</td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">I.</span></td>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Dulcimer has her Views</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">II.</span></td>
<td><span class="smcap">Sword and Gown</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">18</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">III.</span></td>
<td><span class="smcap">In the Parish Church</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_31">31</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">IV.</span></td>
<td>‘<span class="smcap">Dower’d with our Curse, and Stranger’d with our
Oath</span>’</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_54">54</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">V.</span></td>
<td><span class="smcap">His Italian Wife</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_73">73</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">VI.</span></td>
<td><span class="smcap">Christian Harefield’s Answer</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">VII.</span></td>
<td><span class="smcap">Mrs. Dulcimer means Business</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">VIII.</span></td>
<td><span class="smcap">The Scratchells at Home</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_133">133</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">IX.</span></td>
<td><span class="smcap">A Flinty-hearted Father</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_153">153</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">X.</span></td>
<td><span class="smcap">Two Love Letters</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_166">166</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">XI.</span></td>
<td><span class="smcap">Bella in Search of a Mission</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_180">180</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">XII.</span></td>
<td>‘<span class="smcap">Oh, think’st thou we shall ever meet again?</span>’</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_197">197</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">XIII.</span></td>
<td><span class="smcap">Sir Kenrick’s Ancestral Home</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_210">210</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">XIV.</span></td>
<td><span class="smcap">Bella Overhears a Conversation</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_219">219</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">XV.</span></td>
<td><span class="smcap">Mr. Namby’s Prescription</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_245">245</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">XVI.</span></td>
<td><span class="smcap">Bella goes on a Visit</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_262">262</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">XVII.</span></td>
<td><span class="smcap">Mrs. Piper’s Troubles</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_272">272</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">XVIII.</span></td>
<td><span class="smcap">A Witness from the Grave</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_299">299</a></td>
</tr>
</table>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
<div class="chapter">
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[1]</span></p>
<p class="center"><span class="large">AN OPEN VERDICT.</span></p>
</div>
<hr class="r5" />
<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER I.</h2>
<p class="center"><span class="allsmcap">MRS. DULCIMER HAS HER VIEWS.</span></p>
<p class="noin">‘<span class="smcap">Sir Kenrick</span> would be a splendid match for her’,
said the Vicar’s wife.</p>
<p>‘As poor as Job, and as proud as Lucifer,’ retorted
the Vicar, without lifting his eyes from a
volume of his favourite Bishop Berkeley.</p>
<p>It was the Vicar’s way in these <i>tête-à-tête</i> conversations
by the domestic hearth. He read, and
his wife talked to him. He could keep his attention
on the most intricate chain of argument, and
yet never answer Mrs. Dulcimer’s speculative assertions
or vague questionings away from the purpose.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[2]</span>
This was the happy result of long habit. The
Vicar loved his books, and his wife loved the exercise
of her tongue. His morning hours were
sacred. He studied or read as he pleased till dinner-time,
secure from feminine interruption. But the
evening was a privileged time for Mrs. Dulcimer.
She brought a big workbasket, like an inverted
beehive, into the library directly after dinner, and
established herself in the arm-chair opposite the
Vicar’s, ready for a comfortable chat. A comfortable
chat meant a vivacious monologue, with an
occasional remark from Mr. Dulcimer, who came
in now and then like a chorus. He had his open
book on the reading easel attached to his chair,
and turned the leaves with a languid air, sometimes
as if out of mere absence of mind; but he
was deep in philosophy, or metaphysics, or theology,
or antiquarianism, for the greater part of his time;
and his inward ear was listening to the mystic
voices of the dead, while his outward ear gave
respectful attention to Mrs. Dulcimer’s critical
observations upon the living.</p>
<p>‘As poor as Job, and as proud as Lucifer,’<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[3]</span>
repeated the Vicar, with his eye upon a stiffish
passage in Berkeley.</p>
<p>‘I call it a proper pride,’ said Mrs. Dulcimer.
‘And as for poverty, she would have money enough
for both. And then he has the estate.’</p>
<p>‘Mortgaged up to the hilt.’</p>
<p>‘And the title.’</p>
<p>‘Now do you really believe, Selina, that those
three letters of the alphabet, S I R, prefixed to a
man’s name, can give him the smallest possible
distinction in the estimate of any of his fellow-creatures
not lunatic?’</p>
<p>‘What is the use of talking in that high and
mighty way, Clement? I know that Mary Turner,
an insignificant little thing with red hair and a
speckly skin, who was at school with me at the
Misses Turk’s, at Great Yafford, was very much
looked up to by all the girls because her uncle was a
baronet. He lived a long way off, and he never took
any notice of her, that we could find out; but he was
a baronet, and we all felt as if there was a difference
in her on that account. I don’t pretend to
say that we were not very ridiculous for thinking
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[4]</span>so, but still you know a school is only the world
in little—and the world sets a high value on titles.
I should like to see Beatrix mistress of Culverhouse
Castle.’</p>
<p>‘Her father’s money would be convenient for
paying off the mortgages, no doubt, provided Mr.
Harefield approved of the marriage. Rather a
difficult old gentleman, I fancy.’</p>
<p>‘Difficult!’ cried Mrs. Dulcimer; ‘he’s detestable!
a wicked old tyrant. If it were not for our
friendship Beatrix’s life would be unendurable.’</p>
<p>‘Do you really think we are any good to her?’
inquired the Vicar, in his dreamily uncertain way,
as of a man who was too doubtful about the groundwork
of existence to feel any certainty about its
minor details.</p>
<p>This was his Bishop Berkeley mood, his mind
varying in hue and tone according to the book he
was reading. Just now he felt that mind was
paramount over matter, and was hardly disposed to
interest himself warmly in a young woman who
might have no existence except in his own idea
of her.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[5]</span></p>
<p>‘My dear, our house is the only notion of home
the poor child has,—the only place where she
meets pleasant people, or hears and sees pleasant
things. How can we fail to improve and develop
her? I am sure, without egotism, I may say that
I have been a God-send to that motherless girl.
Think how <i>farouche</i> she was when she first came
to us.’</p>
<p>‘Yes, she was a wild, untamed kind of creature,’
assented the Vicar. ‘Beautiful as a portrait by
Rembrandt though, with that tawny skin of hers.
I call her <i>la belle sauvage</i>. She always reminds
me of Pocahontas.’</p>
<p>‘Now wouldn’t it be a blessing, Clement, if we
could see her well married—married to a man of
position, you know—and an honourable-minded
man, like Kenrick? You know you always said
he was honourable. You could always believe him.’</p>
<p>‘True, my love. Kenrick had his good qualities.
He was not a lad that my heart ever warmed
to, but I believe he did his work honestly, and
he never told me a lie.’</p>
<p>‘Then don’t you think,’ urged the enthusiastic<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span>
Selina, ‘that he would make Beatrix Harefield an
excellent husband?’</p>
<p>‘My dear,’ said the Vicar, gravely, ‘you are the
best natured of women; but I am afraid you do a
great deal of harm.’</p>
<p>‘Clement!’</p>
<p>‘Yes, my love. Good-nature in the abstract is
undoubtedly beautiful; but an active good-nature,
always on the alert to do some service to its fellow-creatures,
is of all attributes the most dangerous.
Even the attempt of this good man, Bishop Berkeley,
to found a college in the Bermudas resulted
in waste of time and money. He would have done
better had he stayed at his Irish Deanery. The man
who does least harm in the world is your calmly
selfish person who goes through life by the narrow
path of a rational self-indulgence, and never turns
aside to benefit or interfere with the rest of the
human race.’</p>
<p>‘One of your dreadful paradoxes, Clement. How
does that agree with St. Paul’s definition of charity?’</p>
<p>‘My love, St. Paul’s charity is a supremely
passive virtue. It suffereth long, is not easily provoked,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span>
is not puffed up, thinketh no evil—all
which qualities are compatible with strict neutrality
as to one’s fellow-creatures’ affairs.’</p>
<p>‘Suffereth long—<i>and is kind</i>, you left that out,
Clement.’</p>
<p>‘Kindness there I take to imply a mental state,
and not a pushing, exacting benevolence,’ replied
the Vicar. ‘Charity poketh not its nose into its
neighbour’s business—maketh not matches—busieth
not itself with the conduct of other people’s lives—and
never doeth any harm. Good-nature does no
end of mischief—in a perfectly well-meaning way.’</p>
<p>The Vicar spoke with some soreness. Poor Mrs.
Dulcimer’s good-nature, and sometimes misdirected
energy, had been getting her into trouble for the
last twenty years. Everybody liked her; everybody
dreaded and abhorred her good-nature. She
had no children of her own, and was always full
of good advice for the mothers of her acquaintance.
She knew when babies ought to be weaned, and
when they were sickening for the measles. She
tried to heal family quarrels, and invariably made
the breach wider. She loved match-making, but<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span>
her matches, when brought to the triumphant conclusion
of licence or wedding cake, seldom stood
the test of a few years’ matrimony. She was so
eager to do the best for the young men and women
of her acquaintance, that she generally brought
ill-assorted people together, taking too broad a view
of the fitness of things, on the ground of income,
family, age, and such vulgar qualifications, and
ignoring those subtle differences which set an
eternal mark of separation upon certain members
of the human family.</p>
<p>‘I think, Selina, if I were you, I would leave
Beatrix to find a husband for herself,’ said the
Vicar, stretching out his legs comfortably before
the wide hearth. ‘She is young—there is plenty
of time. Let her come here as often as she pleases.
I like to see that Rembrandt face of hers. But
let things take their own course.</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">“There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Rough hew them as we will.”</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class="noin">Don’t you think it is almost an impertinence towards
that ever active Providence for us poor
worms to be always taking one another’s lives<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span>
under our petty protection, and trying to shape
them our way?’</p>
<p>‘Clement!’ exclaimed Mrs. Dulcimer, ruffling
her plumes a little. She wore a good deal of lace
frilling and muslin puffing about her neck and
breast, and these adornments were subject to an
occasional agitation, like the feathers of an excited
Dorking, or one of the Vicar’s golden-pencilled
Hamburgs. ‘Clement,’ cried Mrs. Dulcimer, ‘you
have a beautiful temper, but I’m afraid you are
selfish.’</p>
<p>The Vicar laid down his book with a smile of
satisfaction. He saw the opportunity for a
paradox.</p>
<p>‘My love, did you ever know a good-tempered
man who wasn’t selfish? or rather, did you ever
know a thoroughly selfish person who wasn’t good-tempered?
Your wisely selfish man knows his
own interest too well to fret and fume about
trifles. He knows that, after five-and-twenty years
of age, the supreme good in this life is repose, and
that he can never enjoy it unless he cultivates an
easy temper.’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span></p>
<p>‘Selfishness is a vice, Clement.’</p>
<p>‘That depends upon what we call selfishness.
If a strict neutrality as to my neighbour’s business
means selfishness, assuredly I am the most selfish
of men.’</p>
<p>‘The Gospel tells us we are to love our neighbour
as ourselves, Clement.’</p>
<p>‘I obey that divine precept implicitly. I never
worry myself. I never worry my neighbour.’</p>
<p>The Vicar might have gone a step further, and
said that he liked to feed his neighbour as well
as he liked to feed himself—for, in that one quality
of caring for the body as well as for the souls of
other people, Clement Dulcimer was a faithful
follower of his Divine Master.</p>
<p>‘And I’m afraid you allow things in your parish
that oughtn’t to be, Clement, sometimes,’ ventured
Mrs. Dulcimer.</p>
<p>‘My dear, God allows them. They are done
under the All-seeing Eye. If He cannot make men
better, do you suppose I can?’</p>
<p>‘You might lead them to Him, dear.’</p>
<p>‘I try my best to do that, Selina; but I don’t<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span>
drive them. That’s where I fall short, I admit.
Cyril is trying his hand at the driving process.
He’s young and energetic. We shall see how it
answers, and how long he sticks at it.’</p>
<p>‘Cyril is the most earnest young man you’ve
ever had as a curate.’</p>
<p>‘I taught him myself, and I know what he’s
made of,’ murmured the Vicar.</p>
<p>‘And there’s no denying that he has done good
already, Clement. The schools are better attended,
and there are more poor people at church on a
Sunday evening.’</p>
<p>‘Since you have such a high opinion of Cyril,
how is it that you have never thought of him as a
husband for Beatrix? A clergyman ought to marry
a fortune if he marries at all. He can put the
money out to higher interest than any one else.
He keeps a deposit account in heaven.’</p>
<p>‘But, Clement, the title!’ exclaimed Mrs.
Dulcimer, ‘and Culverhouse Castle. Such a position
for dear Beatrix.’</p>
<p>‘Ah, to be sure, the position! I suppose a
girl thinks more about that now-a-days than of her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span>
lover’s mind or person. But certainly Cyril is both
handsomer and cleverer than his cousin Kenrick.
I should like a curate with a large income, it would
be so good for the parish. And then we might
rub on without the weekly offertory Cyril is always
plaguing me to institute, and which I am convinced
will set my congregation against me. Fancy me
going up to my pulpit as a beggar every Sunday,
and my people expecting value for their money
out of my sermon. Imagine their remarks at the
church door: “Not much there for sixpence,” “A
very poor shilling’s worth,” and so forth.’</p>
<p>‘Clement,’ cried Mrs. Dulcimer, thoroughly
scandalized this time, and with all her frills in motion,
‘you ought never to have been a clergyman.’</p>
<p>‘My love, I freely admit that some easier walk
in life might have suited me better. A sub-librarian’s
place, now, in some antique library, like the
Cheetham Institution at Manchester. I should
have had my books round me, and my superior to
tell me what to do. No responsibilities, and leisure
for self-culture. But if I am a poor creature as a
parson, you supplement me so well, Selina, that,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span>
between us, I think we do our duty to the parish.
That last batch of soup was excellent. I tasted
it yesterday at old dame Hardy’s. The clear soup
we get at Lord Highflyer’s state dinners is mere
pot-liquor compared with it. Indeed, I think,’
pursued the Vicar, dreamily, as if he were meditating
a proposition of Berkeley’s, ‘that all clear
soups are more or less a mistake—tasting only of
sherry and burnt sugar.’</p>
<p>‘Always thinking of temporal blessings,
Clement.’</p>
<p>‘They are the only blessings we can fully
realize while on this side of eternity, my dear. We
may be excused if we sometimes set an undue
value on them.’</p>
<p>Mrs. Dulcimer sighed, and opened her workbasket.
There were little shirts and flannel
swathings to be made for new-comers into this
world of troubles—heirs apparent to a life of labour,
with a reversionary interest in the workhouse. The
Vicar’s wife spread her piece of linen on the table,
and began a series of problems with a parallelogram
in stiff brown paper, in order to find out how she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span>
might get the maximum of baby-shirts out of the
minimum of linen. It vexed her that her husband
should take life so lightly, and be troubled about a
few things, when she was troubled about so many.
She had no doubt that he was in the wrong, and
that she and Cyril Culverhouse understood the real
meaning of their duties a great deal better than the
Vicar.</p>
<p>Clement Dulcimer was the living embodiment
of an idea which at this time had not yet been put
before the world by Mr. Matthew Arnold. He was
all sweetness and light. He believed in culture as the
highest good. He lived among his books, and upon
his books; and those books were of the best that
the elect of this world have written. He sought no
happiness beyond his library, save in his garden and
poultry yard, which afforded his senses the gratification
of colour and sweet scents, sunshine and balmy
air. He had travelled little, and sighed but faintly
for a pleasure which he found impossible. His books
and his poor absorbed all his spare cash. There was
none left for foreign travel—so Mr. Dulcimer was
content to enjoy Greece in the pages of Thucydides,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span>
or Childe Harold—to stand on the threshold of the
sacred grove with Antigone—to know Cithæron
only on the lips of Œdipus—to see the sandy plain
of Marathon, or the walls of Thebes, with his mind’s
eye alone.</p>
<p>‘I dare say I should be disappointed if I saw the
reality,’ he murmured placidly. ‘Realities are so
disenchanting. Or I might be taken by brigands,
and poor Selina would have to sell her great-grand-father’s
silver tea-kettle to ransom me.’</p>
<p>The living at Little Yafford was a good one,
and the parish was small. It was altogether one of
those exceptional cures which are reserved for the
more fortunate sons of the Church. Mr. Dulcimer
had obtained it while he was still a young man,
the living being in the gift of his uncle, Sir Philip
Dulcimer, of Hawtree Hall and Yafford Park.
Yafford Park was rather a dreary place, with an
unwieldly barrack of the Georgian era in the middle
of it, and Sir Philip had been very glad to grant a
large lease of park and mansion to Mr. Piper, the
Great Yafford cotton-spinner, who spent a great deal
more money in little Yafford than Sir Philip would
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span>
have done, but who was looked down upon by his
neighbours on principle. Great Yafford, the manufacturing
town five miles off, was as Radical a place
as you would care to find, but Little Yafford was
essentially aristocratic, ignored the commercial
element altogether, and thought it an affliction to
be so near the tall chimney shafts of the busy town.</p>
<p>Little Yafford had perhaps some right to give
itself airs, on the strength of being one of the
prettiest villages in Yorkshire. It was like a
spoiled beauty, and felt that nothing could be too
good for it. Great bleak hills rose up between it
and the bitter east winds, a river wound in and out
of the village like a shining serpent, and licked its
green meadows and garden boundaries. The long
low stone bridge was as old as the Romans. There
was not an ugly house in the place—except that big
barrack of Sir Philip’s, and that was hidden behind
the fine old elms and oaks of the park. There was
not a neglected garden, or an objectionable pigsty.
The gentry were all well-to-do people, who bestowed
money and care upon the beautification of their
homes; while the poorer parishioners were under the
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span>
influence of Mr. Dulcimer’s sweetness and light, and
Mrs. Dulcimer’s active good-nature, and laboured
industriously to make their cottages lovely.</p>
<p>To come from stony, noisy, smoky, crowded
Great Yafford to pastoral Little Yafford, was like
coming from purgatory to paradise—an earthly
paradise of rustic beauty and placid repose, content,
and harmony. Yet Mr. Dulcimer’s last new curate,
Cyril Culverhouse, breathed many a thoughtful sigh
over the ignorances and even vice which he discovered
in this smiling village. Coming out of
some cottage door, over which the roses and honeysuckle
hung in unpruned luxuriance, his lips would
often involuntarily ejaculate the familiar words of
the evening collect—‘Lighten our darkness, we
beseech Thee, O Lord.’</p>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
<div class="chapter">
<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</h2>
</div>
<p class="center"><span class="allsmcap">SWORD AND GOWN.</span></p>
<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">At</span> various periods of his tranquil career the Rev.
Clement Dulcimer had found it convenient to add
to his income by taking a private pupil or two. He
could not have endured what he called a herd of
young men, meaning half a dozen, but he rather
liked to have a couple of intelligent young fellows
following him about through the dawdling progress
of his out-of-door life, or hanging upon his words in
the comfortable quietude of his study. He was an
excellent master for classics and theology—mathematics
he frankly abhorred—and he taught conscientiously
in his own unconventional way. The men
he coached generally came out well; but in after life
there was a tinge of eccentricity in them—a strain
imparted by Clement Dulcimer unawares—and
which in one or two cases took the unhappy form<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span>
of latitudinarianism. Spinoza on the brain, some
people called it.</p>
<p>The two pupils who had stayed longest at the
Vicarage, and occupied the most important position
in the minds of the Vicar and his wife, were
Kenrick Culverhouse and his first cousin Cyril.
Old Sir Kenrick and the Vicar had been at Oxford
together, and it seemed the most natural thing that
the baronet should send his only son and his orphan
nephew to his old chum, more especially as he could
nowhere else educate them so well or so cheaply.
Culverhouse Castle was a fine historical place in
Hampshire, which tourists went out of their way to
see, but which the late Sir Kenrick did not regard
with any enthusiasm. He had been more or less
under a cloud of money difficulties ever since he
could remember, and preferred lodgings in St.
James’s to his feudal birthplace. The moat was all
very well, and so was the massive old keep, on the
top of which the gardener had made a kitchen-garden
for gooseberries and strawberry beds; but
Sir Kenrick liked Jermyn Street and the clubs a
great deal better; and, if a man must have a castle,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span>
the King’s Bench, in which he had spent some of
the liveliest days of his youth, was much pleasanter
to his mind than Culverhouse. Lady Culverhouse
was fond of the castle, no doubt—or at any rate she
stayed there, and it was a tradition in the family
that no other air suited her, and that she was quite
rooted to the spot; a tradition which was all the
more firmly established because nobody had ever
proposed taking her anywhere else. Old Sir Kenrick
and his wife had gone to join the family ashes in
the vault under Culverhouse Church, and young
Sir Kenrick reigned in his father’s stead. All the
quicksilver in the Culverhouse veins seemed to have
run out with the last baronet. Young Kenrick was
steady and thoughtful, and the mortgages weighed
upon his spirits like a nightmare. He was always
thinking what the estate would be if those mortgages
could but be paid off.</p>
<p>It seemed to him an Eldorado. But there were
only he and his cousin and heir presumptive to
accomplish this great work. And how were two
young men, moderately gifted, to earn fifty thousand
pounds between them?</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span></p>
<p>‘Unless one of us were to break out into a Walter
Scott, or discover a new motive power to supersede
steam, I don’t see how it’s to be done,’ Kenrick said
to Mrs. Dulcimer, in one of his confidential talks
with that good-natured lady, who knew all that he
could tell her about the mortgages and the property.
‘The army won’t do it—and the church won’t do it—and
the law wouldn’t do it under thirty years’
work. Engineering might do it, perhaps, if we
could blossom into Brunels, and get contracts for
railways and things; but, you see, neither of us
has a turn for engineering.’</p>
<p>‘You ought both to marry heiresses,’ suggested
Mrs. Dulcimer.</p>
<p>‘Oh no, that’s horrid. We couldn’t do that,’
cried Kenrick. ‘That’s too contemptible.’</p>
<p>This was how Kenrick had talked at seventeen,
when he was in his state of tutelage. He was more
reticent about himself and his prospects now, at
nine-and-twenty, but Mrs. Dulcimer had forgotten
nothing, and when Kenrick looked grave, she always
thought he was brooding upon the mortgages.</p>
<p>‘I know that the dearest wish of his heart is to redeem<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span>
the family position,’ she said, and this was what
set her thinking about a marriage between Sir Kenrick
and old Mr. Harefield’s only daughter and heiress.</p>
<p>Cyril had gone into the church. He loved his
profession for its own sake, and thought very little
of the loaves and fishes. He would like to be a
bishop, no doubt, when his time came; but it was
for the sake of having a great influence and doing
things in his own way, not for social status or
income, that he would have desired a mitre. Doing
things in his own way—that was Cyril’s idea of a
perfect life. To make his church beautiful, according
to his idea of beauty, to have good music, and a
strict adherence to the rubrics in Edward the Sixth’s
Prayer-book, to infuse something of the poetry of
old traditions into the prosaic expression of a
reformed faith—to train his flock in his own way of
thinking—to create for himself an enthusiastic and
fervent congregation. These were the things which
Cyril Culverhouse believed he had been sent into
the world to do—rather than to help his cousin to
pay off the mortgages, which mattered very little, so
long as poor Ken had money enough to live upon.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span></p>
<p>Kenrick had chosen the army for his profession.
A military career offered a poor prospect of paying
off the mortgages, but it was at least a gentleman-like
line of life, and the four or five hundred a year
which could be squeezed out of the burdened estate
enabled Kenrick to live like a gentleman among his
brother officers. Honour and wealth might come to
him together, perhaps, in the distant future; and
when he was growing old, and had lost the zest of
life, he might be able to do something for Culverhouse
Castle. Cyril would be a bishop, most likely,
by that time, and they would sit over their port and
filberts in the wainscoted parlour at Culverhouse,
wagging their grey heads deprecatingly at the shortcomings
of the rising generation, condemning new
guns and novel doctrines, new lights of all kinds in
camp or temple.</p>
<p>Kenrick had served in India, and was home on
leave. He was very fond of his cousin, for they had
been brought up together, and nothing could be
pleasanter to him than to spend his holiday fishing
and shooting, reading or idling round about Little
Yafford. He had liked the neighbourhood as a lad.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span>
He loved it now for the sake of those boyish days
which were so delightful to look back upon—all the
lights in the picture remembered, all the shadows
forgotten. He had an almost filial affection for
Mr. and Mrs. Dulcimer—and the hills and moors
and wandering streams of Yorkshire had a charm
for him which was second only to his delight in
his native Hampshire.</p>
<p>The two young men were sitting by Cyril’s
hearth on this autumn evening, talking confidentially
over pipe and cigar. They had spent the day
apart, Kenrick tramping over the moors with his
gun, Cyril engaged in his parish work.</p>
<p>They were talking of Christian Harefield, the
owner of the Water House, one of the most important
places in Little Yafford, after the Park, and the
father of that Beatrix whom Mrs. Dulcimer was so
anxious to dispose of matrimonially.</p>
<p>‘One of the most disagreeable men I ever met
in my life,’ said Kenrick. ‘Miss Harefield was
driving him in her basket pony carriage—he looked
about as suitable an occupant of a pony carriage as
Mephistopheles for a go-cart—and I met them at the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span>
bottom of the hill, going up that wild road to the
moor. I wonder whether he was going to gather
the samolus, left-handed and fasting, or to cut
mistletoe with a golden sickle? Upon my word, he
looked as grim and ancient as a Druid. Beatrix
stopped the pony when she saw me, and introduced
me to her father. “This is Sir Kenrick Culverhouse,
papa,” she said, whereat the Druid grunted.
“Are you going far up the hill?” I asked, with the
originality which distinguishes these casual conversations;
“I’m afraid it will be dark before you
come back.” “Oh, we don’t mind that,” she said,
“Puck and I know our way so well.” So they went
up into the thickening mist, and I saw no more of
them. I dare say they are up there still. Do you
know if the old gentleman is quite right in his
mind?’</p>
<p>‘Yes, his mind is clear enough, so far as I have
been able to discover; he is eccentric.’</p>
<p>‘And grumpy.’</p>
<p>‘Of a gloomy turn, no doubt. He goes nowhere,
and receives no one, except Mr. Scratchell, his
lawyer and agent. He seems like a man whose<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span>
whole nature has been soured by a great sorrow.
People say that his wife’s death broke his heart.’</p>
<p>‘One would hardly suppose such a being could
ever have had a wife—much less that he could have
been fond of her. When did the lady die?’</p>
<p>‘Don’t you remember? She died while we were
at the Vicarage—about eleven years ago. There
was a good deal of talk about it at the time. Mr.
Harefield and his wife were travelling in Italy.
Beatrix and her governess were with them—she
was a child then, you know,—and Mrs. Harefield
died very suddenly—after a few hours’ illness. It
was a case of Asiatic cholera, I believe. People
who know Mr. Harefield, or rather who knew him
before that time—for he holds himself aloof from
every one now—say that he has been a changed
man since the shock of his wife’s death.’</p>
<p>‘A melancholy story,’ said Kenrick. ‘I forgive
him the discourteous grunt which was his sole
recognition of my existence. Poor Beatrix! A
sad beginning for her life.’</p>
<p>‘Yes,’ answered Cyril, with warm interest.
‘Motherless so early—with so strange and gloomy<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span>
a father. You cannot wonder that she is somewhat
different from other girls.’</p>
<p>‘Somewhat different from other girls,’ echoed
Kenrick. ‘She is a queen compared with other girls.
That is the difference. She is worth twenty other
girls—a hundred—for she has a character of her own.’</p>
<p>Cyril looked at him curiously.</p>
<p>“‘Praise from Sir Hubert Stanley!’” he exclaimed,
‘You are not often so enthusiastic, Ken.’</p>
<p>‘Because I seldom see anything to praise—in
a woman. Don’t be frightened, Cyril. I do admire
Beatrix, but only as I admire anything else in
nature that is noble and rare; and I know that you
admire her with quite another kind of admiration,
though you have not honoured me by communicating
your ideas upon the subject.’</p>
<p>Cyril knocked the ashes out of his pipe on
the old-fashioned hob, and said not a word until he
had filled it again, slowly and thoughtfully.</p>
<p>Clement Dulcimer was right when he called
Cyril the handsomer of the two cousins. His pale
clear-cut face was essentially noble. Yet it was by
no means essentially attractive. That steadfast look<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span>
and unchangeable gravity were unpleasing to many;
but, on the other hand, Cyril’s rare smile was
beautiful in all eyes. It was the sudden light of
mind brightening the whole countenance; not a mechanical
contraction of the lips revealing a fine set
of teeth, and wrinkling the eyelids agreeably. It was
a smile that meant sympathy, regard, beneficence—a
smile that comforted and cheered. The miserable
among his flock knew it well; society saw it seldom.</p>
<p>Cyril’s eyes were gray, and had that steady look
which passes for severity; his nose was slightly
aquiline, his mouth beautiful, his brow broad and high,
with hair of neutral brown cut close to the well-shaped
head, and curling crisply—hair like a gladiator’s, said
Kenrick, who rather prided himself upon the lighter
auburn of his own locks, as he also did upon the finer
line of his nose, which inclined to the Grecian, and
accorded with his low straight brow and expressionless
eyes, whose pupils seemed to have no more life and
colour than the sculptor’s dint in the marble orb.</p>
<p>Kenrick had what is called an aristocratic look,
and rather flattered himself upon those evidences
of blue blood supposed to exist in an attenuated but<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span>
open nostril, a tapering hand, and an arched instep.
These peculiarities, he imagined, declared as plainly
as Domesday Book or title-deeds that the Culverhouses
were great people on the other side of the
Channel before they honoured England by coming
across the sea with Norman William to appropriate
some portion of it.</p>
<p>‘She is a noble creature,’ said Cyril, with conviction,
when he had pressed the last shred of
latakia into the well-filled bowl, ‘but she is
Christian Harefield’s only child; and he is rich
enough and suspicious enough to impute mercenary
motives to any poor man who ventured to fall in
love with his daughter.’</p>
<p>‘Fathers have flinty hearts,’ retorted Kenrick,
lightly. ‘That’s an old saying, but sons and
daughters generally contrive to follow their own
inclinations in spite of paternal flintiness. I feel
very sure that Beatrix will choose for herself, and
marry the man she loves. She is just the kind of
girl to dash herself blindly against the torrent of
paternal wrath. It would be a grand thing for you,
Cyril. You could have the Culverhouse living—a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span>
poor benefice, but on your native soil—and live at
the Castle. I doubt if I shall ever be able to
occupy it properly,’ he added, with a regretful sigh.</p>
<p>‘I would take her without a sixpence, and work
for her and cherish her all the days of my life,’ said
Cyril, in a deep-toned voice that trembled with
strong feeling, ‘but I cannot teach her to rebel
against her father. “Honour thy father and thy
mother.” She hears me read that sublime command
every other Sunday, and am I to be the first
to teach her to set it at nought?’</p>
<p>‘How do you know that the old Druid would
object to you?’</p>
<p>‘I do not know as much directly, but Beatrix
tells me that he will oppose any choice of hers.’</p>
<p>‘Obnoxious ancient Briton! Well, Cyril, all I
can say is, if I were in love with a girl, I should
think no more of her father than Romeo did of old
Capulet, and I should sink the fifth commandment
till after I’d married her—and then she could
honour her father with a cock robin and holly bush
card at Christmas, or a pair of muffettees on New
Year’s Day, or a sugar egg at Easter.’</p>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
<div class="chapter">
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span></p>
<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</h2>
</div>
<p class="center"><span class="allsmcap">IN THE PARISH CHURCH.</span></p>
<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">The</span> Sunday evening service at Little Yafford parish
church was as fashionable in its own particular way
as an Italian opera in June. Everybody met everybody
else there. The psalms were chanted very
fairly, the anthem was always a feature, the prettiest
hymns were sung, and the sermon, whether preached
by the vicar or curate, seemed to have a peculiar
life and fervour in it that harmonized with the more
exalted feelings of the flock. The cold realism of
Sunday morning gave place on Sunday evening to a
vague enthusiasm, a spiritualized ardour. Of course
there were people for whom that lofty liturgy soared
too high—uncultured souls which demanded to be
fed on coarser diet,—but these were outside the pale,
and generally wore a style of bonnet which would
have been a blot on the subdued beauty of the
parish church, with its noble nave, long narrow<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span>
aisles, carved rood screen, and waggon roof. These
barbarians worshipped in a queer little chapel in
High Street, to which they descended a step or two
from the level of the pavement, and in which tabernacle
they might be heard singing their own particular
hymns with the utmost strength of their
untrained voices, as the Church of England people
went by, the Dissenters assembling half an hour
earlier than their conforming brethren, and generally
prolonging their service half an hour later.</p>
<p>It was a pretty scene, that parish church of Little
Yafford, in the late October evening. The clusters
of wax candles in the brazen branches threw just
enough light on column and arch to leave the
greater part of the building in shadow. The rich
colouring about the altar made a glow of splendour
at the end of the gray stone chancel. The old oak
pews, with their quaintly carved doors, reflected the
light redly on bosses that took every shape, from the
graceful <i>fleur-de-lys</i> to the dog-faced demon or blunt-nosed
cherub. The font in its distant corner gleamed
whitely below a cover of crimson cloth. Crimson
cushions in many of the pews, and the dark green<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span>
and gold adornment of pulpit and reading desk, the
old brass lectern, the new brass candelabra, brightened
the sombre stone and dark brown oak, and
made up in some wise for the loss of the stained
glories of the chancel window, dull and dead at this
hour.</p>
<p>The people came in quietly by twos and threes,
and took their places with the usual hushed and
solemn air; then the throng thickened, and the
pews began to fill; and then the bells rang more
slowly, and there came a plaintive strain of melody
from the organ, soft and subdued as a whisper. This
swelled presently into a voluntary, and became a
triumphant peal as the vestry door opened and the
surpliced choir entered the chancel, two and two,
the small boys first, and the rather clumsy-looking
men bringing up the rear. After these followed
Cyril Culverhouse, looking tall in his white raiment
and crimson hood, and lastly the Vicar, a broad and
dignified figure that seemed to have been intended
for lawn sleeves and a bishop’s gown.</p>
<p>A girl in one of the pews directly facing the
chancel looked up from her open book as Cyril took<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span>
his place in the reading desk, and then looked
quickly down again, as if the sight were too terrible.
That swift shy look, and sudden fall of the eyelids
told a secret old as Time himself. Mr. Culverhouse
was something more than the curate of Little Yafford
to that one member of his congregation. She was a
girl of striking appearance, richly but carelessly
dressed in velvet and silk, with feathers in her
bonnet, according to the fashion for that year made
and provided. She had one of those brilliant
Southern complexions—that rich mingling of carnation
and palest olive—which are alone sufficient for
good looks; but in her case this charm was heightened
by the splendour of dark Italian eyes, and the
warm brown of rippling hair. Her brow was broad
but low, her nose nondescript, her lips firmly
moulded, her teeth faultless, her eyebrows strongly
marked, and of a darker brown than her hair.</p>
<p>‘I am always afraid of Trix’s eyebrows,’ Isabella
Scratchell, the young lady’s bosom friend, used to
say. ‘They remind me of thundery weather.’</p>
<p>Miss Scratchell was sitting next her friend in the
Harefield pew to-night. She was a small slim person,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span>
distinguished by a pink and white complexion, and
insignificant blunt features of the Dresden china
type. There was a Scratchell pew in one of the
aisles, but Beatrix liked to have her friend with her,
and the Water House pew was in the more aristocratic
and fashionable situation, advantages peculiarly
agreeable to Isabella Scratchell.</p>
<p>Mr. Harefield assisted at the Sunday morning
service half a dozen times or so in a quarter, just
often enough to escape the stigma of absolute indifference
or infidelity. His handsome Italian wife
had been a Roman Catholic, and there was a feeling
among the more bigoted section of society in Little
Yafford that Mr. Harefield was generally lax in his
ideas, like the Romans when they began to import
foreign gods, and that he would not have minded
worshipping Isis and Osiris if those deities had come
in his way.</p>
<p>‘He has travelled so much, you know, my dear,’
said Mrs. Piper, of the Park, to Mrs. Dulcimer, ‘and
having married a foreigner, you see, one can hardly
expect him to be quite correct in his ideas. A sad
education for that poor girl. I am told he has<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span>
taught her Greek, and hasn’t allowed her to learn
music. But I think that can hardly be true.’</p>
<p>‘It is actually true about the music,’ cried Mrs.
Dulcimer, reflecting her friend’s look of horror. ‘He
hates the piano, and he had Mrs. Harefield’s old-fashioned
Broadwood sent up to the lumber-room in
the tower. But there is no use in thwarting a
natural gift. That poor child has taught herself by
ear, and plays and sings very sweetly. She spends
hours up in that old turret room—in the coldest
weather—wrapped in a shawl, picking out our
church music. Mrs. Harefield had an extraordinary
gift, you know.’</p>
<p>‘I never saw Mrs. Harefield. She died before
Ebenezer took the Park.’</p>
<p>‘Yes, of course. I ought to have remembered.
She was a lovely woman; and I believe that Christian
Harefield was passionately fond of her, in his way;
but it was not a happy marriage; there were quarrels.
I did my best, but not successfully. There is
an unconquerable severity and coldness in that man’s
nature; and his wife had one of those ardent, impetuous
dispositions,—you know what I mean.’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span></p>
<p>‘Exactly,’ chimed in the visitor, whose mind had
wandered a little, and who was wondering when the
Dulcimers would have a new drawing-room carpet.
The present one was threadbare, and had been ingeniously
turned and pieced, like a puzzle, odd bits
of brighter colour fitting in here and there rather too
obviously. That foolish Mr. Dulcimer spent all his
money on books, and never improved his furniture,
whereas in Mrs. Piper’s ideal house there was no
litter of books and pamphlets, but the last fashion in
carpets and tapestry table-covers, cabriole chairs and
sofas, and the newest kinds of antimacassars.</p>
<p>Although Mr. Harefield was not often to be seen
in the parish church himself, he had no objection to
his daughter’s frequent attendance there; and the
church and the vicarage afforded the only variety in
the dullest life that a well-born heiress ever led.
The music was a delight to her sensitive ear; for the
organist was a fine musician, and the organ was a
noble instrument, which had been presented to Little
Yafford in the reign of William the Third, by a city
merchant who had been born in the village, and who
came back there to die after having made his fortune<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span>
in hides and tallow. His monument, in coloured
and gilded marbles, after the florid style of the
period, adorned the chancel, and recorded his public
and private virtues, and his munificent gift of the
organ, in a long Latin epitaph, with a great many
adjectives ending in <i>issimus</i>.</p>
<p>The Scratchells had a comfortable old house in
the village, but Miss Harefield was not allowed to
visit there, although Isabella was her only friend
and companion. Isabella might come to the Water
House as often as she liked, but it was an understood
thing that Beatrix was not to go to Mr.
Scratchell’s, a distinction which Mrs. Scratchell and
Isabella’s brothers and sisters resented as invidious.</p>
<p>‘We are not good enough for the heiress,’ said
Clementina Scratchell, sarcastically.</p>
<p>‘She’s the most stuck-up young woman I ever
saw,’ said Bertie, the eldest son, a sandy-complexioned,
pug-nosed youth, who had been christened
Herbert, but who had more the air of a Samuel or a
Thomas.</p>
<p>Such remarks as these, if overheard, always
brought down the paternal wrath upon the utterer.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span>
Even Mrs. Scratchell would remark mildly that poor
people must not quarrel with their bread and butter,
and that Mr. Harefield was a very good client to
father, and that it was very kind of Miss Harefield
to be so fond of Bella, although she did look down
upon the others, which might be a little wounding to
one’s feelings, but poor people must not be proud.</p>
<p>This fact of their poverty had always been kept
before the eyes of the young Scratchells. It encountered
them at every turn. If the boys tore the
knees of their trousers in forbidden climbing of trees,
they were reminded mournfully by a desponding
mother that their parents were hard-working people,
and that these destructive habits were a direct wrong
to those toil-worn bread-winners.</p>
<p>‘It isn’t as if your father began life with a fortune,
Bertie,’ Mrs. Scratchell would say. ‘He has
to work for every sixpence, and you ought to have
thought of that before you climbed the mulberry
tree.’</p>
<p>It was in all things alike. The Scratchells were
never permitted to make any mistake as to their
place in the social scale. It was to be a subordinate<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span>
place always. They were to work for their bread, as
their father had done before them, as their mother
worked daily, from sunrise to sunset, in homely
drudgery that made no effect or impression upon the
world, and left nothing behind when life was done,
not so much as an embroidered chair cover, or a thin
volume of indifferent verses, to be admired by the
next generation. They were to work, these young
Scratchells. Their education was not given to them
for its own sake—on the sweetness and light principle—but
as a preparation for a laborious career.
Herbert was to be apprenticed to Mr. Pontorson, the
surveyor at Great Yafford. Adolphus—poor Mrs.
Scratchell had insisted upon giving her children the
cheap luxury of fine names—was promised a clerkship
in a factory. Isabella was already earning a
salary as morning governess to the little Pipers at
Yafford Park. It was not an onerous engagement,
and left her afternoons free. Mr. Scratchell thought
she ought to get another engagement to fill up her
afternoons, but as yet Isabella had contrived to avoid
this double labour. She was her father’s favourite,
and was believed to have great influence over him.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span>
It was she who was always charged with the task of
imparting any disagreeable intelligence to him, such
as the kitchen boiler having cracked, the supply of
coals being nearly run out, or Adolphus having
broken ‘another window.’ The previous fracture on
this wretched youth’s part was always so recent as
to exaggerate the iniquity of the present offence.</p>
<p>It was scarcely strange, perhaps, if from this
Spartan training the little Scratchells grew up with
the idea that poverty was life’s chief evil. Just as
the Stoics believed virtue to be the only good, the
young Scratchells believed want of money to be the
only ill.</p>
<p>‘Ah, my dears, a fat sorrow is better than a lean
sorrow,’ Mrs. Scratchell remarked, plaintively, when
she heard of the afflictions of her wealthier neighbours.</p>
<p>She could not bring herself even to pity her
husband’s patron, Mr. Harefield, who was supposed
to have had his heart broken by the untimely death
of his handsome wife. It seemed to her impossible
that so rich a man, surrounded with all the good
things of this life, could be an object for compassion.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span></p>
<p>This close acquaintance with necessity had not
endeared that stern goddess’s countenance to Isabella.
She had a secret hankering after the good
things of this life; and to her mind Beatrix Harefield,
whose solitary existence was for most people a
subject of pity, was a person to be envied. Had she
not a fine old house to live in, every room in which
was like a picture, horses and carriages at her disposal,
servants to wait upon her, and an unlimited
supply of pocket-money? It was a dull life, of
course, but Mr. Harefield would die before very long,
no doubt, and take his gloominess to a more appropriate
habitation, and then Beatrix would be the
richest woman in the neighbourhood, free to drain
the cup of pleasure to the lees.</p>
<p>Ten years ago, when Beatrix was a tall, thin-legged
child in a short black frock, recovering
slowly from a severe attack of whooping-cough, the
family doctor ventured to call attention to the
exceeding solitariness of her life, and to suggest
that some juvenile companionship should be procured
for her. It was less than a year after Mrs.
Harefield’s death, and the master of the Water<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span>
House wore an air of settled gloom which made
him, in the minds of his fellow-men, somewhat
unapproachable. The doctor made his suggestion
timidly. He was only the family practitioner of
Little Yafford, and was much humbler in his
manners and pretensions than the bakers and
butchers of that settlement; for those traders knew
that people must have bread and meat always,
while epidemics, accidents, and chronic diseases
were subject to periods of dulness, sorely depressing
to the faculty. If he had been Dr. Fawcus,
the consulting physician of Great Yafford, he would
have ordered playfellows for Miss Harefield with as
off-hand an air as he ordered boiled chicken and
barley water. But Mr. Namby made the suggestion
tentatively, quite prepared to withdraw it if it were
ill received.</p>
<p>‘The child seems dull, certainly,’ said Mr.
Harefield. ‘She doesn’t run, or skip, or scream,
like the general run of children. I have thought
it an advantage; but I suppose, as you say, it is a
sign of feebleness of constitution.’</p>
<p>‘I think that anything which would enliven<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span>
her spirits might conduce to her recovery,’ replied
the doctor. ‘She doesn’t gain strength as fast as
I should wish.’</p>
<p>‘Really!’ said Mr. Harefield, with a far-off look,
as if he were talking of somebody at the Antipodes.
‘Well, if you think it wise, we must get her a
playfellow. I have received no visitors, as you
know, since my wife’s death. In my best days I
always considered society more or less a bore,
and I could not endure to have people about me
now. But we must get a playfellow for the child.
Have you a girl that would do?’</p>
<p>The surgeon blushed. What an opening it
might have been for his daughter, had she been
old enough! Unhappily she was still in her cradle.
He explained this to Mr. Harefield.</p>
<p>‘My agent, Scratchell, has a little girl, I
believe.’</p>
<p>‘He has several.’</p>
<p>‘One is quite enough,’ said Mr. Harefield. ‘I’ll
tell him to send one of his girls to play with
Beatrix.’</p>
<p>Writing to his agent on some business matter<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span>
that evening, Christian Harefield added this postscript,—</p>
<p>‘Oblige me by sending the quietest of your girls
to play with my daughter every afternoon at three.’</p>
<p>The request was somewhat curtly put, but the
Scratchells saw in it the opening of a shining
path that led to the temple of fortune. From that
hour Isabella was exalted above all her sisters and
brothers. She was like Joseph with his coat of
many colours. All the other sheaves bowed down
to her sheaf. She had better raiment than the
others, that she might be presentable at the Water
House. She never had her boots mended more than
once. After the second mending they were passed
on to Clementina, whether they fitted or not. Clementina
protested piteously.</p>
<p>Beatrix received her new companion, and absolutely
her first playfellow, with open arms, and a
heart overflowing with love that had run more or
less to waste hitherto, or had been squandered on
ponies, dogs, and guinea-pigs. Miss Scales, the
governess, was not lovable. One might as well
have tried to love the Druid stones on the moor<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span>
above Little Yafford. Christian Harefield wrapped
himself in gloom as in a mantle, and lived apart
from all the world. So Isabella’s coming was like
the beginning of a new life for Beatrix. She was
enraptured with this little fair-haired girl, who
knew how to play at all manner of nice games
which Beatrix had never heard of, and which Miss
Scales condemned as vulgar. Happily Isabella had
been so well drilled in the needy, careful home,
that she behaved with a propriety in which even
Miss Scales could find no flaw. When questioned
by Mr. Harefield, the governess reported favourably,
though with a certain condescending reserve, of the
young guest, and, from coming for an hour or two
every afternoon, Isabella came almost to live at the
Water House, and to receive a share of Miss Scales
valuable instructions, that lady’s acquirements being
of a solid and unornamental character which Mr.
Harefield approved.</p>
<p>‘I shall have your girl carefully educated,’ said
Christian Harefield to his man of business. ‘I am
bound to make some return for her services as my
daughter’s companion. But if you want her taught<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span>
music and dancing, you’ll have to get that done
elsewhere. My girl learns neither.’</p>
<p>As well as these educational advantages Isabella
received other benefits which her youthful mind
better appreciated, in the occasional gift of a silk
frock or a warm winter jacket, purchased for her
by Miss Scales at Mr. Harefield’s desire; and when
Beatrix grew up and had plenty of pocket-money,
she was always giving Bella presents.</p>
<p>‘It’s like having a fairy godmother,’ said Flora,
the third of the Scratchell daughters, with a pang
of envy.</p>
<p>There sat the two girls in the Water House
pew this October evening, everybody in the parish
church knowing their history, and thinking it a
very pretty trait of character in Mr. Harefield’s
daughter that she should be so fond of her humble
friend Bella; for it must be understood that Mr.
Scratchell, never having been able to struggle out
of the morass of poverty or to keep more than
one maid-servant, hardly took his full professional
rank in the village, or was even regarded as a
gentleman by Act of Parliament.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span></p>
<p>It was a recognised fact that without Mr. Harefield’s
business, the collection of rents, and drawing
up of leases, and ejection of troublesome tenants,
and so on, the Scratchells could hardly have gone
on existing, outside the workhouse, the solicitor’s
practice, over and above this agency, being of the
pettiest and most desultory order.</p>
<p>Bella’s pretty little Dresden china face was bent
over her book as the choir and clergy came filing in.
But though Bella’s head was gracefully bent, she
gave a little upward glance under her auburn eyelashes,
and contrived to see that look in Beatrix’s
face which was in itself the beginning of a history.
And then the service began, and both girls seemed
absorbed in their devotions, while Mrs. Dulcimer,
contemplating them benignantly from the vicarage
pew, thought what a pretty pair they made, and
wondered whom she could pitch upon as a husband
for Bella. The poor little thing ought to be
married. She was not a great heiress like Beatrix,
but it was not the less incumbent upon some
good-natured friend to find her a husband—nay,
it was a Christian duty to do so. Matrimony<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span>
would be the poor child’s only escape from straitened
circumstances and a life of toil. Everybody
knew what a struggle these poor Scratchells had
to make for the bare privilege of living.</p>
<p>‘She’s rather pretty, and certainly graceful,’
mused Mrs. Dulcimer, while one of the wicked
kings of Israel was misconducting himself.</p>
<p>Even a clergyman’s wife’s mind will occasionally
wander, though her husband may be
reading the lesson.</p>
<p>‘I wish I could think of some one to suit her,’
said Mrs. Dulcimer to herself.</p>
<p>And then it chanced that her glance roamed
absently to the reading-desk, where Cyril’s crisp
brown hair and strongly marked brow showed above
the open Prayer-book.</p>
<p>‘The very man!’ Mrs. Dulcimer ejaculated
inwardly, in an ecstasy of good nature.</p>
<p>It is so delightful to feel one’s self the providence
of one’s neighbours. Poor Mrs. Dulcimer’s
mind was distracted during the rest of the service.
This notion about Cyril was one of those splendid
ideas which take hold of the female mind with over-mastering<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span>
power, like a brilliant scheme for turning
a silk dress, or making up last year’s exploded
bonnet into the latest fashionable shape for this
year. Vainly did the busy soul try to pin her
mind to the Prayer-book. She could not get her
thoughts away from the suitability of a match
between Cyril and Bella. There was a remarkable
fitness about it. Neither of them had any money
of their own. That made it so nice. They couldn’t
feel under any obligation to each other. Cyril
would, of course, get on well in the church.
People always did who were as earnest and well
connected as Cyril Culverhouse. And then what
an admirable wife Bella would make for a poor
man—a girl who had been brought up to pinch,
and contrive, and deny herself, and make sixpence
do the work of a shilling! It never occurred to
Mrs. Dulcimer that this long apprenticeship to
self-denial might have induced in Bella a craving
for the good things of this life, and an ardent
desire for the opportunity of self-indulgence.</p>
<p>By the time Cyril went up into the pulpit to
preach his sermon, Mrs. Dulcimer had married him<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span>
to Isabella, and settled them in a modest but comfortable
living, with the prettiest and most rustic
of vicarages, where the housemaid’s pantry would
afford ample scope for Isabella’s domestic talents,
while the ignorance of an agricultural parish would
give full play to Cyril’s energy and earnestness.</p>
<p>Cyril Culverhouse preached an admirable sermon.
He had that gift of clear and concise language, short
sentences, bold and distinct expression, appropriate
metaphor, and strong colouring, which makes certain
books in the English language stand out from all other
writing with a force and power that command the admiration
alike of the cultured and uncultured reader.
He had not the subtlety, finesse, and erudition of
his Vicar, who preached for the most part to please
his own fancy, and very often over the heads of his
congregation. Cyril’s earnestness made every sermon
an exhortation, a call to repentance and holy living.
It was hardly possible to hear him and not be moved
by him. It would have been sheer stony-heartedness
in his hearers to sit there and listen to him and make
no resolve to live better, and be touched by no pang
of compunction for past errors.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span></p>
<p>Beatrix listened with all her soul in her eyes.
Once and once only Cyril’s large gaze, sweeping
the mass of faces, caught that upward look of the
dark eyes. It seemed to him to take away his
breath for a moment, and checked the progress of a
vigorous peroration. He faltered, substituted a
word, recovered himself in an instant, and went
on; and no one knew how that one little look
had moved him.</p>
<p>The clock struck eight as the congregation came
trooping out of the church, with much greeting of
neighbours in the darkness just outside the old
stone porch. Mrs. Dulcimer seized upon the two
girls, as they were going away, with a sober-looking
man-servant, in a dark livery, in attendance on the
heiress.</p>
<p>‘You are not going home, Trix,’ cried the Vicar’s
wife. ‘You and Bella must come to the Vicarage
to supper. It’s an age since I’ve seen you.’</p>
<p>‘Dear Mrs. Dulcimer, I spent the day with you
only last Tuesday! I am quite ashamed of coming
so often!’</p>
<p>‘You foolish child, you know it is my delight<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span>
to have you. And Bella must come to-night. I insist
on Bella’s coming too.’</p>
<p>This was said with unconscious condescension.
It was, of course, a grand thing for Miss Scratchell
to be asked to supper at the Vicarage.</p>
<p>‘Papa expects me to go straight home,’ said
Beatrix, evidently anxious to accept the invitation.</p>
<p>‘My love, you know your papa never expects
anything from you. You are quite your own mistress.
Parker,’ said Mrs. Dulcimer, wheeling suddenly
and addressing herself to the footman, ‘you
will be good enough to tell your master, with my
compliments, that I am taking Miss Harefield to
the Vicarage for supper, and that you are to come
for her at ten o’clock. You understand, Parker, at
ten; and you can take a glass of ale in the Vicarage
kitchen while Miss Harefield puts on her bonnet.’</p>
<p>Mrs. Dulcimer always went into details, and
overflowed in small acts of good nature to the
inferior classes.</p>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
<div class="chapter">
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span></p>
<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</h2>
</div>
<p class="center"><span class="allsmcap">‘DOWER’D WITH OUR CURSE, AND STRANGER’D
WITH OUR OATH.’</span></p>
<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">There</span> was no pleasanter house in Little Yafford or
its neighbourhood to visit on a Sunday evening than
the shabby old Vicarage, in which Mr. and Mrs.
Dulcimer had lived happily for the last twenty years.
It was an old house—and had never been a grand
house even in its best days; indeed, there was a
legend in Little Yafford that it had once belonged to
a farm, and there was a certain homely substantiality
and solidity about it which favoured that
idea. Severe critics declared that there was not a
single good room in the house, and it must be
admitted that all the rooms were low, and that
the chimneys projected into them in a way which
modern architecture disallows, leaving a deep recess
on each side to be filled up with books, old china
or such miscellaneous goods as Mrs. Piper, of the
Park, denounced comprehensively as rubbish. The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span>
windows were casements, with leaden lattices, and
admitted as little light as was consistent with
their obvious functions. Heavy beams supported
the low ceilings, big old grates devoured incalculable
quantities of fuel, but happily coals—pronounced
for the most part as a dissyllable—co-als—were
cheap at Little Yafford.</p>
<p>The furniture was in keeping with the house, for
it was all ancient and shabby, and had a wonderful
individuality about it, which, in Clement Dulcimer’s
opinion, quite atoned for its shabbiness. Almost all
those old chairs and tables, and sofas, and brass-mounted
sideboards, and Indian cabinets, and Queen
Anne whatnots, had come to the Vicar by inheritance,
and it was to him as if he saw the friendly faces of
dead and gone kindred smiling at him from the three-cornered
bureau, or the Japanese escritoire, or the
walnut-wood chest of drawers. He even got into
the way of calling the furniture after the testators
who had left it to him, and would tell his wife to
fetch him the packet of sermon-paper out of Aunt
Tabitha, or that he had left his spectacles on Uncle
Joseph.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span></p>
<p>The dining-room on this autumnal Sunday evening
had a look of homely comfort which was cheering
to a heart not given wholly over to spiritual things.
It was a long low room, with three square casements
on the southern side, and a wide old fireplace,
bordered with blue and white Dutch tiles, at the end.
On each side of the fireplace was the deep recess
before mentioned, filled with old oak shelves, on
which were ranged the odds and ends of porcelain
and delf which had, as it were, dropped from various
branches of the family tree into Clement Dulcimer’s
lap. Aunt Tabitha’s Swansea tea set, with its
sprawling red roses on a cream-coloured ground;
uncle Timothy’s quaint Lowestoft jugs; cousin
Simeon’s Bow punchbowl; grandmamma’s Oriental
dessert-plates; a Chelsea shepherdess <i>minus</i> an arm,
a Chelsea shepherd piping to a headless sheep. There
was a good deal of rubbish, no doubt, as Mrs. Piper
declared, amidst that heterogeneous collection; but
there was a great deal more value in those cups and
plates than Clement Dulcimer suspected, or he would
have been sorely tempted to exchange them for books.</p>
<p>At the end of the room facing the fireplace<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span>
stood that fine old sideboard of the Chippendale
period, familiarly known as Uncle Joseph. Facing
the windows there was a curtained archway communicating
with the library.</p>
<p>To-night a big fire burned in the capacious grate,
a log of the old poplar that was blown down in the
last high wind blazing merrily at the top of the coals,
as if the stout old tree felt glad to make so jovial an
end. The supper table shone and glittered with old
silver and heavy diamond-cut glass, with here and
there a tall-stemmed beaker, or an engraved flask, as
old as the pictures of Teniers or Breughel. A bowl
of chrysanthemums, a ham, a game pie, a sirloin, and
a salad made a glow of colour, and promised a substantial
repast. Everybody knew that what the
Vicar gave was of the best, no cheap champagnes or
doubtful moselles, but sound claret, and the finest
beer that was brewed on this side of York.</p>
<p>The supper-hour was supposed to be nine o’clock,
and on returning from church the gentlemen had
come straight to the dining-room. Mrs. Dulcimer
and the two girls found them there when they came
downstairs after taking off their bonnets.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span></p>
<p>The Vicar was standing in front of the fire,
caressing his favourite tabby cat with his foot, as
that privileged animal rolled upon the hearth-rug. Sir
Kenrick sat in cousin Simeon’s arm-chair, a deep
velvet-covered chair, almost as large as a small
house. Cyril stood looking dreamily down at the
fire.</p>
<p>‘Welcome, young ladies!’ exclaimed the Vicar,
cheerily. ‘I thought Mrs. Dulcimer was never going
to give us our supper. Come, Beatrix, this is your
place, at my right hand.’</p>
<p>‘And Sir Kenrick will sit next Beatrix,’ cried
Mrs. Dulcimer, on manœuvring intent. ‘Bella, my
love, you next the Vicar, and Cyril must sit by me.
I want to ask him about the next missionary
meeting.’</p>
<p>They were all seated after good-natured Mrs.
Dulcimer’s desire,—Kenrick by the side of Beatrix,
gravely contemplative of the fine face with its rich
un-English colouring; Cyril looking a little distrait
as lively Miss Scratchell discussed his sermon in her
bright appreciative way, and with an air of being
quite as well read in theology as he was. A<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span>
wonderful girl, Miss Scratchell, with a knack of
picking up stray facts, and educating herself with
the crumbs that fell from other people’s tables, just
as her father’s poultry picked up their nourishment
in the open street and in other people’s stable yards.</p>
<p>‘How did you like the sermon, Sir Kenrick?’
asked Bella, smiling across the chrysanthemums, and
offering to the baronet’s contemplation an insignificant
prettiness, all dimples and pale pink roses.</p>
<p>‘As much as I like any sermons, except the
Vicar’s,’ answered Kenrick, coolly. ‘I like to hear
Mr. Dulcimer preach, because he makes me think. I
sit on tenter-hooks all the time, longing to stand up
and argue the point with him. But as for Cyril’s
moral battering-rams and catapults, and all the
artillery which he brings to bear against my sinful
soul, I’m afraid their chief effect is to make me
drowsy.’</p>
<p>‘They do other people good though,’ said Bella.
‘Mrs. Piper told me she never felt awakened till
she heard Mr. Culverhouse’s Lent sermons.’</p>
<p>‘Praise from Mrs. Piper is praise indeed,’ remarked
the Vicar.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span></p>
<p>‘Oh, but she really does know a good deal about
sermons,’ said Bella. ‘She is very fond of what she
calls serious reading; she reads a sermon every
morning before she goes to her cook to order the
dinners.’</p>
<p>‘And then she goes to the larder and looks at
the joints to see if there have been “followers”
overnight,’ suggested Kenrick; ‘and according to
her theological reading is the keenness of her eye and
the acidity of her temper. If she has been reading
Jeremy Taylor she takes a liberal view of the sirloin,
and orders a hot joint for the servants’ hall; if she
has been reading old Latimer she is humorous and
caustic, and declares cold meat too good for domestic
sinners. But if her pious meditations have been
directed by Baxter or Charnock I pity the cook.
There will be short commons in the servants’ hall
that day.’</p>
<p>Bella laughed heartily. She had a pretty laugh,
and she made it a rule to laugh at any sally of Sir
Kenrick’s. It is something for a penniless village
lawyer’s daughter to be on familiar terms with a
baronet, even though his estate be ever so heavily<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span>
mortgaged. Bella felt that her intimacy with the
Vicarage and its surroundings lifted her above the
rest of the Scratchells. Her younger sisters used
to ask her what Sir Kenrick was like, and if he wore
thick-soled boots like common people, and ever drank
anything so vulgar as beer.</p>
<p>The supper went on merrily. The Vicar talked
of men and of books, the younger men joining in just
enough to sustain the conversation. Supper at the
Vicarage, substantial as the meal was, seemed more
or less an excuse for sitting at a table talking, for a
couple of hours at a stretch. Long after the sirloin
had been carried off to do duty in the kitchen, Mr.
Dulcimer sat in the carver’s seat, sipping his claret
and talking of men and books. Beatrix could not
imagine anything more delightful than those Sunday
evening discourses.</p>
<p>But now came a message from the footman in
the kitchen to remind his mistress that it was half-past
ten. The rule at the Water House was for
every door to be locked and bolted when the clock
struck eleven. Beatrix started up, like Cinderella at
the ball.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span></p>
<p>‘Oh, Mrs. Dulcimer, I had no idea it was so
late.’</p>
<p>‘A tribute to my conversation, or a proof of your
patience, my dear,’ said the Vicar. ‘Cyril, you’ll see
Miss Harefield home. Jane, run and get Miss Harefield’s
bonnet.’</p>
<p>‘Kenrick can see Beatrix home while Cyril tells
us about the missionary meeting,’ said that artful
Mrs. Dulcimer.</p>
<p>‘My dear Mrs. Dulcimer, I can tell you about
the missionary meeting this minute,’ said Cyril. ‘I
have had a letter from Mr. Vickerman, and he will
be very happy to preach in the morning this day
three weeks, and to give a lecture in the schoolroom
in the evening.’</p>
<p>The neat little parlourmaid came back laden
with jackets and bonnets, and Beatrix and Isabella
equipped themselves quickly for their walk.</p>
<p>‘We really don’t want any one,’ remarked Beatrix,
blushing, as the two young men followed them into
the hall. ‘Parker is here to take care of us.’</p>
<p>Parker pulled his forelock assentingly.</p>
<p>‘But I am going with you all the same,’ said<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span>
Cyril, with gentle firmness, and he had the audacity
to offer Beatrix his arm before Sir Kenrick could
seize his opportunity.</p>
<p>Naturally Sir Kenrick gave his arm to Miss
Scratchell.</p>
<p>‘What will they say at home when I tell them
this?’ thought Bella.</p>
<p>She liked Cyril best, and admired him as the first
among men, but Sir Kenrick’s title made him the
more important person in her mind.</p>
<p>All the stars were shining out of the dark calm
heaven—constellations and variable stars looking
down at them from that unutterable remoteness
beyond the planet Neptune. The walk was not
long, but the way was full of beauty under that
starry sky—a road that led downhill into the
watery valley which made the chief loveliness
of Little Yafford. It was a lonely road, leading
away from the town—a road bordered on one side
by a narrow wood of Scotch firs, on the other by a
stretch of somewhat marshy common, and so down
into the valley where the Water House rose, with
black old tower, ivy-shrouded, above the winding<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span>
river. There was an old Roman bridge across the
river, and then came the gate of the Water House,
under an ancient archway.</p>
<p>Cyril walked away with Beatrix’s hand under his
arm, the footman following at a respectful distance.
Mr. Culverhouse forgot—or ignored—the fact of Miss
Scratchell’s residence lying exactly the other way,
and left Bella to be disposed of by his cousin.
Beatrix also seemed to forget all about her friend.
She did not run back to bid Bella good night. They
would meet to-morrow, no doubt, and Bella, who
was the soul of amiability, would forgive her.</p>
<p>They walked on in silence, that thrilling silence
which tells of deepest feeling. These are the
moments which women remember and look back
upon in the gray sober hours of afterlife. It is
not some girlish triumph—the glory of ball-room
or court—which the faded beauty recalls and meditates
upon with that sense of sad sweetness which
hangs round the memories of long ago. No; it is
such a moment as this, when her hand hung tremulous
upon her lover’s arm, and words would not
come from lips that were faint with a great joy.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span></p>
<p>‘Have you thought of what I said yesterday,
Beatrix?’ Cyril asked at last, in those grave tones
of his which to her ear seemed the most exquisite
music.</p>
<p>‘Did not you say it? What should I do but
think of it? When do I ever think of anything
except you and your words?’ she exclaimed, with a
kind of impatience.</p>
<p>‘And you have spoken to your father, or you
have made up your mind to let me speak to
him?’</p>
<p>‘I have done neither. What is the use of my
speaking, or of your speaking, unless you want my
father to separate us for ever? Do you think that
he will be civil to you when he knows that I love
you? Do you think he would let me marry the
man I love? No, that would be showing me too
much kindness. If we lived in the good old fairy
tale days he would send out a herald to invite the
ugliest and most hateful men in the kingdom to
come and compete for his daughter’s hand, and the
ugliest and vilest should have the prize. That’s
how my father would treat me if the age we live in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span>
would allow him, and as he can’t do quite so much
as that, he will wait quietly till some detestable
person comes in his way, and then order me to marry
him.’</p>
<p>‘Beatrix, do you think it is right and just to talk
like this?’</p>
<p>‘I can’t pronounce upon the rightness of it, but
I know it is not unjust. I am saying nothing but
the truth. Ah, Cyril, I may seem wicked and bitter
and unwomanly when I talk like this; yes, I am all
those bad things—a woman unworthy to be loved
by you, except that I am so much to be pitied. But
who has made me what I am? If you knew how I
used to try to make my father love me! If you
could have seen me when I was a little thin sickly
child creeping into his study and crouching at his
knee, to be repulsed just a little more harshly than
he would have sent away a dog! I went on trying
against every discouragement. Who else was there
for me to love?—who else was there to love me?
My mother was gone; my governess told me that
it was natural for a father to love his child—an only
child—a motherless child most of all. So I went<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span>
on trying. And I think the more I tried to win his
love the more hateful I became to him. And now,
though we meet two or three times a day and speak
civilly to each other, we live quite apart. When he
was dangerously ill last winter, I used to sit in the
corridor outside his bedroom day and night, fearing
that he was going to die, and thinking that perhaps
at the last he might relent, and remember that I
was his daughter, and stretch out his feeble arms to
me and take me to his heart. But though death
came very near him—awfully near—there was no
relenting.’</p>
<p>‘My darling, life has been very hard for you,’
said Cyril, with deepest pity.</p>
<p>She shocked him by her vehemence—but she
moved him to compassion by the depth of bygone
misery her present indignation revealed.</p>
<p>‘My father has been hard to me, and he has
hardened me,’ she said. ‘He turned my heart to
stone. It was cold and hard as stone, Cyril, till you
melted it.’</p>
<p>‘My dearest, there are many duties involved in
that great duty of honouring your father,’ pleaded<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span>
Cyril, ‘and perhaps the chief of all is patience.
You must be patient, love; the hour of relenting
will come at last. Duty and filial love will win
their reward. But you must never again speak of
your father as you have spoken to-night. It is my
duty to forbid this great sin. I could not see you
kneeling at the altar rails—and put the sacred
cup into your hands—knowing you cherished such
a spirit as this.’</p>
<p>‘I will not disobey you,’ she answered, with a
grave humility. ‘I will not speak of my father at
all.’</p>
<p>‘And you will endeavour to think of him with
kindness, as you used in the days when you were
trying to win his love?’</p>
<p>‘In those days I used to think of him with
fear,’ said Beatrix. ‘The sound of his voice or
his footstep always made me shiver. But I had
this saying in my mind, “It is natural for a father
to love his motherless child,” and I did try very
hard, very patiently, to make him love me.’</p>
<p>‘Go on trying, dearest, and the love will come
at last. Remember the parable of the unjust<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span>
judge. Human love, like heavenly love, is to be
won by many prayers. And if I am to be your
lover, and your husband, Beatrix, I can only be
so with your father’s knowledge and approval.
Dearly, deeply as I love you, I will not stoop to
win you by deceit and suppression. I would not
so dishonour you, I could not so dishonour
myself.’</p>
<p>‘Let me go then,’ cried the girl, passionately.
‘Throw me away as you would throw a withered
rose into that river,’ pointing to the dark stream
under the Roman arch—shadowy waters on which
the distant stars shone dimly,—‘you will never
win me with his consent. He will not believe in
your love for me. He will misjudge and insult
you, for he believes in no man’s truth or honour.
He has made for himself a religion of hatred and
suspicion. Why should we make him the ruler of
our lives—why should we accept misery because
he wills us to be miserable? You are quite sure
that you love me, Cyril—it is really love and not
pity that you feel for me?’ she asked, suddenly,
with a gush of womanliness.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span></p>
<p>‘The truest, fondest, deepest love man ever felt.
Will that content you?’</p>
<p>‘It does more than content me—it makes me
exquisitely happy. Then, since you love me, Cyril,
and really choose me above all other women—so
many of them worthy to be so chosen—for your wife,
you must stoop a little. You must be content to
take me without my father’s consent, or blessing,
and without his money. But we do not care for
that, do we, either of us?’</p>
<p>‘Not a jot, Beatrix. The money is a millstone
round your neck. Let that go, with all my heart.
But if you and I were to be quietly married some
day at the old parish church, darling, and were
to walk away together arm in arm into a happy,
smiling, useful future, as we might do,—can
you guess what the world would say of your
husband?’</p>
<p>‘No—unless it said he was foolish to choose so
faulty a wife.’</p>
<p>‘The world would say that the penniless curate
played a crafty game, and that, knowing Christian
Harefield would never consent beforehand to receive<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span>
him as a son-in-law, he had hazarded his chances
on a clandestine marriage, counting upon Mr.
Harefield’s being won over to receive him and
forgive his daughter afterwards. That is what the
world would say of any man, Beatrix, who married
under such circumstances; and that is what the
world shall not say of me.’</p>
<p>‘Then you value the world’s opinion more than
you value me,’ said Beatrix.</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">‘“I could not love thee, dear, so much,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Loved I not honour more,”’</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class="noin">answered her lover. ‘I shall call upon your father
to-morrow.’</p>
<p>The church clock and the stable clock at the
Water House began to strike eleven.</p>
<p>‘Good night, Cyril, you must be the manager of
our destiny, but I’m afraid you will bring about
nothing but sorrow and parting.’</p>
<p>‘I will do what is right, my dear. I will
trust in Him who rules and governs all hearts—even
your father’s when he seems hardest to you.’</p>
<p>‘Good night, Cyril.’</p>
<p>‘Good night, my best and dearest.’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span></p>
<p>He would not take her to his heart, or kiss
the proud lips that were so near his own as they
stood side by side in the shadow of the wide
archway, though the discreet Parker kept his
distance. He only took her hand and pressed it
gently, and, with a murmured blessing, left her,
just as the little low door in the archway opened,
and the light shone faintly from within, making a
kind of aureole round the bald head of the old
gardener who lived in the mediæval gateway.</p>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
<div class="chapter">
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span></p>
<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</h2>
</div>
<p class="center"><span class="allsmcap">HIS ITALIAN WIFE.</span></p>
<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">That</span> deep shadow of gloom which had fallen upon
Christian Harefield’s life seemed to have descended
also upon the house he lived in. The house—with
its low ceilings, narrow corridors, strange ins and
outs, odd corners, and black oak panelling—had
doubtless been more or less gloomy of aspect for
the last two hundred years. But an old world
gloom like this contrasts pleasantly with the movement
and bustle of glad domestic life—the flashes of
sudden colour—the glow of many hearths—winter’s
yule log and summer’s wealth of flowers—the fresh
shrill voices of young children—the hospitalities of
eventide, the passing in and out of many figures,
varied yet recurrent as the combinations of a
kaleidoscope.</p>
<p>For the last fifty years the Water House had
been known to all Little Yafford, and within a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span>
radius of twenty miles, as a grave and sober mansion,
where high jinks of any kind were as little to
be expected as a reappearance of white-robed, oak-crowned
Druids in that stony circle on the moor
which had once reeked with the blood of human
victims.</p>
<p>Old Christian Harefield, the father of the present
owner of the estate, had been distinguished for
various eccentricities, the chief of which was love
of money. He did not love it too well to spend
it on himself, but he loved it too well to waste it
upon his fellow-creatures, whom he did not love.
He was a born man-hater. No youthful disappointments,
no wrong-doing of a familiar friend, no
inconstancy of a woman, had soured his temper, or
changed the current of his life. In his nursery he
had regarded outside humanity with a cold distrust,
and had been selfish in the transactions of his babyhood.
At Eton he was known as the most respectable
of lads, and was universally detested. There
was a legend of his having given a boy he disliked
the scarlatina, deliberately and of malice aforethought;
and this was the only thing he had ever<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span>
been known to give away. At the University he
took care of himself, made his rooms the prettiest in
his quad, rode good horses, read diligently and took
his degree with ease, but he refused all invitations
to wine parties, rather than incur the expense of
returning hospitality, and he was remembered
among his contemporaries as Stingy Harefield.
When the time came for him to marry he made no
attempt to escape that ordeal, as it presented itself
to him in the form of an alliance with a certain
Jane Pynsent, a young lady whose personal attractions
were not startling, but whose father had
enriched himself by commerce, and had recently
acquired a large tract of land in Lincolnshire. The
young lady and the tract of land went in one lot,
and Christian married her, without feeling himself
guilty of that kind of sentimental folly called
‘falling in love;’ a weakness which offended his
reason in those inferior animals whom stern necessity
obliged him to acknowledge as his fellow-creatures.
From this alliance of the mercantile
classes and the landed gentry sprang an only child,
Christian the second. In his boyhood and youth<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span>
he gave indications of a nobler and wider nature
than his father’s. He was careless of money—had
his attachments among his schoolfellows and companions
at the University—gave wine parties on a
larger scale than any undergraduate of his year—read
hard—rode hard—was at once dissipated and a
student—came through his examinations with flying
colours, and left behind him a reputation which
caused at least half a dozen freshmen to ruin
themselves in the endeavour to imitate ‘Alcibiades
Harefield,’ that being the name which Christian
the second had won for himself.</p>
<p>There were hard words between father and son
when the young man went back to the Water
House with a B.A. degree, and a sheaf of bills on a
more tremendous scale than usual. His mother’s
estate had been settled upon Christian the younger,
and beyond those paternal reproaches, he suffered
very little from his extravagance. His majority,
which had been wisely, or unwisely, deferred to his
twenty-fifth birthday, would make him independent.
He stayed a month or so at the Water House—shot
on the moors—read late of nights in the sombre<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span>
library—dined out very often, and saw as little of
his father as was consistent with occupation of the
same house. After this brief experience of domestic
life he went off to the Continent, and remained
there roaming from city to city, for the next ten
years of his life, his father living on quietly at the
Water House all the time, eating and sleeping and
riding his steady cob, and generally taking care of
himself in an eminently respectable and gentleman-like
manner. In the tenth year of his son’s absence
the father died suddenly of apoplexy—a catastrophe
which seemed to most people in Little Yafford
the natural close of a selfish, self-indulgent life.
Christian appeared at the Water House in time for
the funeral, after travelling day and night for a
week. He saw his father buried, he examined his
father’s papers in Mr. Scratchell’s presence, and he
perused his father’s will drawn by Scratchell, and
leaving everything to ‘my only son, Christian Harefield.’
The will had been made directly after Mrs.
Harefield’s death, when Christian the younger was
still at Eton; and although the father and son had
not got on particularly well together afterwards,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span>
Christian the elder had not troubled himself to alter
his bequest. He was too essentially selfish to leave
a shilling away from his own flesh and blood.
Christian had not treated him well, but Christian
was in some wise a part of himself; and although
he did not care much for Christian, there was
nobody else for whom he cared at all.</p>
<p>Christian Harefield, now lord of the double
estates, went back to the Continent, where he was
heard of no more for the next five years, at the end
of which time there came a report of his marriage
with a very handsome Italian girl; but as everybody
in Little Yafford remarked, ‘there had been
no advertisement in the <i>Times</i>, which made the
whole thing seem rather odd and irregular.’ A year
or two later Mr. Harefield was heard of as living
near Florence with the lovely Italian wife and a baby,
and nine years after his father’s death he came
suddenly home to the Water House, bringing the
lovely wife, and a little girl of three years old, home
with him. He was now a man of middle age, very
grave of aspect, but courteous and not inaccessible.
Aged people at Little Yafford began to speculate<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span>
upon a change at the Water House. It would be
as it had been when the late Christian Harefield
was a child, and old Mr. and Mrs. Harefield gave
hunting breakfasts and dinners, and the old place
was kept up altogether as it ought to be—with a
great deal of company in the dining-room, and
plenty of waste and riot in the kitchen and servants’
hall.</p>
<p>Christian Harefield did not quite realize those
hopes which memory had evoked in the hearts of
the oldest inhabitants of Little Yafford; but he was
not unsocial. The Water House resumed something
of its ancient splendour: there was a large
household liberally conducted—a fine stud of horses
filled the roomy old stables. Mr. Harefield received
his neighbours cordially, and gave dinners enough
to satisfy the most exacting among his friends.</p>
<p>There had been a great many stories, for the
most part purely the work of invention; or of that
gradual cohesion of casual particles floating in
space, which is the root of all scandal. Some
people had heard, as a certain fact, that the beautiful
Italian had been a flower girl, and that Mr.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span>
Harefield had seen her selling violets in the streets
of Florence. Others were equally certain that she
had been an opera singer. Others were assured that
ballet-dancing had been her profession at the time
she attracted her wealthy lover’s attention. The
more scandalous hinted darkly that she was somebody
else’s runaway wife, and that Christian Harefield’s
marriage was no marriage at all.</p>
<p>But after Mr. and Mrs. Harefield had been living
at the Water House three months, the slightest allusion
to one of these once favourite scandals would
have been about as great a solecism as any one
in Little Yafford could be guilty of. The ancient
slanders were sunk in the Red Sea of oblivion.
Those who had been most active in disseminating
these rumours forgot all about them—could not
have taxed their memory with the slightest detail,
would have looked quite puzzled if any underbred
intruder in polite society had questioned them on
the subject, or recalled former assertions. There
was a dignity about Christian Harefield, a subdued
elegance about his lovely wife, which made such
stories as Little Yafford had formerly believed in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span>
obviously and distinctly impossible. <i>He</i> marry a
ballet-girl dancer, the proudest of men! <i>She</i> sell
penny bunches of violets, the most aristocratic of
women! All the best people of Little Yafford
visited the Water House, and swore by Mrs. Harefield.</p>
<p>She was not a woman to make her influence
widely felt even in that quiet circle. Beauty and
elegance were her chief gifts. She was passionately
fond of music—played exquisitely, in a style
which was poetic rather than brilliant—sang sweetly—but
not with the power of voice or splendour of
execution which would have justified the story of
her having been a prima donna. She had graceful
manners, and distinction of bearing; but the leading
spirits in Little Yafford—Mrs. Dulcimer, Lady Jane
Gowry, and an old Mrs. Dunraven—decided that she
had not much mind.</p>
<p>‘She can only look lovely, my dear, and curtsey
in that foreign way of hers, which reminds me of
my young days, when ladies behaved like ladies,
and good manners had not begun to get obsolete,’
said Lady Jane to her dear Mrs. Dulcimer. ‘She<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span>
can only look elegant, and sit at her piano, and suffer
us to admire her, just as we should if she were the
Venus de Milo in the Louvre. I don’t think she
has much more feeling or passion than that one-armed
statue; but she is quite as lovely, and I
suppose that is enough for Mr. Harefield.’</p>
<p>Everybody agreed that Christian Harefield was
devoted to his wife, and that it was a happy
marriage. But for his little girl he had evidently
no very warm regard. As time went on, and no
second baby appeared, the father began to feel himself
personally injured by the sex of his only child.
She ought to have been a son. Here was the great
Harefield property in danger of travelling out of
the direct line, and belonging to some spurious
Harefield, who should only assume that good old
name by Royal Letters Patent. And it seemed to
Christian—large-minded and cosmopolitan as he
considered himself—that it would be a loss to
English society if real Harefields should become
extinct in the land. This idea that his daughter
was a mistake grew upon him, and by slow degrees
began to go hand in hand with another idea—of a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span>
far more injurious and dangerous nature—and that
was the fancy that his wife loved the child better
than she loved him. Those tender maternal
caresses which the gentle Italian lavished on her
little girl galled her husband almost as much as if he
had seen them given to a rival. This was the first
arising of that sombre passion which was afterwards
to turn all his life to poison. He first learnt the
meaning of jealousy when he sat by his own fireside
watching the lovely face opposite him smiling down
upon Beatrix. He had never cared for children in
the abstract, never had perceived any special poetry
or beauty in young lives and small round rosy faces,
and he could see nothing to love or admire in
Beatrix, who, at this stage of her existence, was
small and sallow, ‘a little yellow thing, all eyes
and mouth,’ as he himself described her. It was
a constant irritation to him to see such blind unreasoning
affection squandered upon so unlovely an
object.</p>
<p>He spent one winter and a spring at the Water
House, and then carried his wife away with him to
Baden, and from Baden went to Florence for the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span>
winter, leaving Beatrix in charge of a conscientious
and elderly governess at Little Yafford. The child
was almost heart-broken at the loss of that loving
mother, but no one except Miss Scales, the
governess, knew anything about it, and Miss
Scales wrote Mrs. Harefield cheery letters, telling
her that dear little Trix was getting tall and strong,
and had just gone into words of two syllables.</p>
<p>Mr. and Mrs. Harefield came back to the Water
House, and spent the summer and autumn at home,
and gave parties and made themselves generally
agreeable. Then came winter and a migration to
the South, Beatrix staying behind with Miss Scales
as before. This winter she went into words of three
syllables, and made small excursions into various
foreign grammars, taking to Italian naturally, as a
duck hatched by a hen takes to the water.</p>
<p>This kind of life went on till Beatrix was ten,
Mr. and Mrs. Harefield’s sojourn at the Water House
growing briefer each year, and by degrees there
arose a feeling in Little Yafford that Mr. and Mrs.
Harefield were not quite the happiest couple in the
world, that there were more clouds than sunshine<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span>
in that small home circle. These things make
themselves known somehow. It was hinted that
there were quarrels. Mrs. Harefield had a distressed
look sometimes. Beatrix was rarely found
in the drawing-room with her mother when people
called. Good-natured Mrs. Dulcimer discovered
that the little girl was always cooped up in the
schoolroom, or sent out for dreary walks with her
governess, and felt herself called upon to interfere
and draw Mrs. Harefield’s attention to this neglect
of maternal duty; but Mrs. Harefield, mildly graceful
as she was at all times, received the remonstrance
with a placid dignity which rebuked the
good-natured busybody.</p>
<p>There was trouble of some kind evidently at the
Water House, but no one in Little Yafford could ever
get face to face with the skeleton. Italian friends of
Mrs. Harefield’s appeared upon the scene, but Little
Yafford was not invited to meet these foreigners.
Then came autumn, and another migration to warmer
lands, and this time Miss Scales and Beatrix went
with the travellers.</p>
<p>‘That is more as it should be,’ said Mrs. Dulcimer,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span>
triumphantly. ‘So you see, after all, Clement,
my remonstrance had some effect.’</p>
<p>‘If ever I find that any act of interference with
other people’s conduct of their own affairs has a good
effect, I will reverse the whole theory of morals
which I have made for myself in relation to my
neighbour,’ answered Mr. Dulcimer, with unaccustomed
energy.</p>
<p>This last journey was fatal. Six weeks after the
travellers left the Water House, Little Yafford was
startled by the tidings of Mrs. Harefield’s death.
She had died suddenly, at a little roadside inn in
the Apennines, the loneliest spot of earth she could
well have found for life’s closing scene. She had
gone there alone with her husband on their way from
Venice to Rome, leaving Beatrix and her governess
at Venice. Mr. Harefield was distracted, and had
gone off to wander no one knew where, after sending
his child and the governess home to the Water
House. Little Beatrix appeared there by and by,
a silent and almost ghost-like child, whose small
face looked unnaturally white above the dense
blackness of her frock.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span></p>
<p>‘It’s absolutely heart-rending to see a Christian
gentleman’s child look so like one’s idea of a vampire,’
exclaimed compassionate Mrs. Dulcimer, and
she tried to lure the little girl to the Vicarage with a
view to petting and making her happy; but Miss
Scales guarded her pupil as jealously as if she had
been a griffin in a fairy tale keeping watch and ward
over an enchanted princess.</p>
<p>It was the universal opinion in Little Yafford—a
kind of foregone conclusion—that Mr. Harefield
would wander for years, and return to the Water
House after a decade or two, with long gray hair and
a bent backbone, and the general appearance of a
pilgrim. He disappointed everybody’s expectations
by coming back early in the spring and taking up
his abode permanently in the grave old house, which
now put on that mantle of silence and gloom which
had never been lifted from it since.</p>
<p>Under this shadow of gloom, encircled by this
perpetual silence and monotony, Beatrix had grown
from childhood to womanhood. You could hear the
dropping of the light wood ashes in a distant room
as you stood in the hall at the Water House, or the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span>
chirping of a winter robin in the garden outside the
windows, or the ticking of the dining-room clock, but
of human voice or motion there was hardly anything
to be heard. The kitchens and offices were remote,
and the servants knew the value of good wages and
a comfortable home too well to let any token of their
existence reach Mr. Harefield’s ears. The master of
that silent house sat in his library at the end of the
low corridor, and read, or smoked, or mused, or wrote
in solitude. Sometimes he took his daily ride or
walk in all weathers, for months at a stretch; at
other times he would remain for several weeks
without leaving the house. He received no guests—he
visited no one, having taken the trouble,
immediately after his return, to let people know
that he had come to the Water House in search of
solitude, and not sympathy.</p>
<p>Scratchell, his lawyer and agent, and Mr. Namby,
the family doctor, were the only two men freely
admitted to his presence, and of these he saw as
little as possible. He allowed Bella Scratchell to be
with his daughter as much as Beatrix pleased to
have her, but, save on Sundays, he never sat at meals<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span>
with them or honoured them with his society. His
hours were different from theirs, and they had Miss
Scales to take care of them. What could they want
more?</p>
<p>One day, when Beatrix was between sixteen and
seventeen, Mrs. Dulcimer met the misanthrope in
one of his solitary walks on the Druids’ moor, and
ventured, not without inward fear and trembling, to
attack him on the subject of his daughter’s solitary
life.</p>
<p>‘It must be very dull for Beatrix at the Water
House,’ she said.</p>
<p>‘I dare say it is, madam,’ answered Christian
Harefield, with austere civility, ‘but I don’t mind that.
Dulness is good for young women, in my opinion.’</p>
<p>‘Oh, but, dear Mr. Harefield,’ cried the Vicar’s
wife, emboldened by his politeness, ‘there you differ
from all the rest of the world.’</p>
<p>‘I have not generally found the rest of the
world so wise, my dear madam, as to distress myself
because its opinions and mine happen to be at
variance,’ Mr. Harefield answered coldly.</p>
<p>Mrs. Dulcimer felt herself baffled. This stony<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span>
urbanity was too much for her. But she remembered
Beatrix’s pale joyless face as she had seen it in
the chancel pew last Sunday, and made one more
heroic effort.</p>
<p>‘Mr. Harefield, I am not going to ask you to
change your own habits——’</p>
<p>‘That would be wasted labour, madam——’</p>
<p>‘Or to ask people to the Water House——’</p>
<p>‘I would not do my friends so great a wrong——’</p>
<p>‘But you might at least let Beatrix come to me.
We are very quiet people at the Vicarage,—Clement
is absorbed in his books—I in my workbasket. There
would be no gaiety for her, but there would be the
change from one house to another, and we lie higher.
You must be damp at the Water House. I know
Beatrix has suffered from neuralgia——’</p>
<p>‘A new fashion among young ladies, like the
shape of their bonnets. I never heard of it when
I was young——’</p>
<p>‘Oh, it was called toothache then, but it was just
as excruciating. Then you really will let her come?’
pursued Mrs. Dulcimer, pretending to make sure of
his consent.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span></p>
<p>‘Clement Dulcimer is a gentleman I greatly
respect, and you are the most amiable of women.
I cannot see why I should forbid my daughter
coming to you if you like to be troubled with her.
But I must make it a condition that you do not take
her anywhere else—that she is to come to your house
and yours alone.’</p>
<p>‘Most assuredly. I shall consider your wishes
upon that point sacred,’ protested Mrs. Dulcimer,
delighted with her success.</p>
<p>She called on Beatrix the next day, and carried
her off to the Vicarage. The girl had been carefully
educated by conscientious Miss Scales, and knew
everything that a girl of her age is supposed to
know, except the theory of music. She could have
enlightened the Vicar about latitude and longitude,
and the subjunctive mood in various languages.
But she had all the deficiencies and peculiarities of
a girl whose life had been lonely. She was proud
and shy—what the Vicar called <i>farouche</i>—and it was
a long time before her new friends could set her at
ease. But when she did expand they grew very fond
of her, and that new life at the Vicarage was like<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span>
the beginning of her youth. She had never felt
herself young before. Miss Scales’ prim perfection
had been like a band of iron about her life. Her
father’s gloom and hardness had weighed upon her
like an actual burden. She had waked in the night
sobbing, startled from some dim strange dream of an
impossible happiness, by the recollection that she
had a father who had never loved her, who never
would love her.</p>
<p>This hardness of her father’s had gradually hardened
her feelings towards him. She had left off
hoping for any change in him, and with the cessation
of hope came a stream of bitterness which overwhelmed
every sweet and filial sentiment. As she
grew from child to woman, her memories of the
past took a new shape. Well-remembered scenes
acted themselves over again before her mental vision
under a new and more vivid light. She began to see
that there had been unhappiness in her mother’s life,
and that her father had been the cause of it, that the
cloud had always come from him.</p>
<p>Brief episodes of that bygone life flashed back
upon her with a cruel distinctness. She remembered<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span>
herself leaning on her mother’s shoulder one evening
as Mrs. Harefield sat at the drawing-room piano
weaving the sweet tangle of Italian melody she loved
so well. It was a summer twilight, and the windows
were all open, the garden was full of roses, the river
was shining under the setting sun.</p>
<p>She remembered her father’s coming in suddenly,
and walking up to the piano. He took her by the
wrist with a hard strong hand that hurt her a little.</p>
<p>‘Go to your governess,’ he said. ‘I want to talk
to your mother.’</p>
<p>And then, before she could reach the door, she
heard him say,—</p>
<p>‘So you have seen Antonio again.’</p>
<p>Those words haunted her curiously now that she
was growing a woman. Who was Antonio? She
could remember no one in the history of her life to
whom that name belonged. It was an Italian name—the
name of one of those Italian friends of her
mother’s who came and went in those memory pictures,
like figures in a dream. She could not distinguish
one from the other. They had all pale dark
faces, like ivory that had been long shut from the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span>
light, and dark gleaming eyes, and hair like the
shining wings of the rooks in the tall old elm tops
yonder. But she could not recall any one of them
who had impressed her, a wondering child of seven,
more than the rest.</p>
<p>Yes, there was one—the one who sang so beautifully.
She could remember sitting on her mother’s
lap one evening before dinner, the room dimly
lighted, no one present but her mother and the
Italian gentleman. She remembered his sitting at
the piano and singing church music—music that
thrilled her till, in a nervous ecstasy, she burst into
tears, and her mother soothed her and carried her
away, saying something to the strange gentleman in
Italian as she went towards the door, and he got up
from the piano and came to them and stopped on the
threshold to bend down and kiss her, as she had
never been kissed before in all her life. She could
remember the kiss now, though it was ten years ago.</p>
<p>And he spoke to her mother in Italian, a few
hurried words that seemed half sorrow and half anger.</p>
<p>Was that Antonio?</p>
<p>Her mother’s rooms had never been opened by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span>
any one but Christian Harefield since his return to
the Water House after that last fatal journey. There
was something ghostly in the idea of those three
rooms facing the river, those three locked doors in
the long oak gallery. Beatrix passed those sealed
doors always with a thrill of pain. If her mother
had but lived, how different life would have been
for her! There would have been sorrow perhaps,
for she knew there had been sorrow in the last
year of her mother’s life, but they two would
have shared it. They would have clung to each
other closer, loved each other more fondly because of
the husband and father’s unkindness.</p>
<p>‘What would papa matter to me if I had
mamma?’ she thought. ‘He would be only a
gloomy person coming in and out, like the dark brief
night which comes in and out among the summer
days. We should not have minded him. We should
have accepted him as a part of nature, the shadow
that made our sunshine brighter.’</p>
<p>Often and often she sat upon a bench on the
river terrace, leaning back with her arms folded
above her head, looking up at those seven blank<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span>
windows, darkly shuttered, three windows for the
spacious old bedroom, one for the narrow dressing
closet, three for the pretty morning-room which she
remembered dimly, a white panelled room, with
pale blue curtains all worked with birds and flowers
in many coloured silks, black and gold Japanese
cabinets, a tall chimney-piece with a curious old
looking-glass above it, let into the wall, pictures,
and red and blue china jars, a faint odour of pot
pourri, a piano, a frame for Berlin woolwork, with a
group of unfinished roses that never seemed to grow
any bigger.</p>
<p>‘Dear room,’ she said, ‘to think that I should
live so near you, pass your door every day, and yet
remember you so faintly, as if you were a dream!’</p>
<p>Once a curious fancy flashed upon her as she sat
in the evening glow, looking up at those windows.</p>
<p>‘Perhaps Antonio’s picture is in that room.’</p>
<p>She could just recollect a miniature in a velvet
case, which she had opened one day, the picture of a
gentleman. She had only glanced at it, when her
mother took the case from her and put it away.
The complexion was more beautiful than Antonio’s,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span>
supposing the gentleman who sang the church
music to have been Antonio; but people’s complexions
in portraits are generally superior to the
reality.</p>
<hr class="tb" />
<p>Kind as her friends at the Vicarage were,
Beatrix never talked of these old memories. The
past was a sealed book. Not for worlds could she
have spoken of it—not even to Bella, with whom
she conversed as freely, in a general way, as a little
girl talks to her doll.</p>
<p>The new home life at the Vicarage brightened
her wonderfully. Her reserve wore off as she grew
accustomed to that friendly household. She was
enraptured with Mr. Dulcimer’s library. Here, on
the Vicar’s well-stocked shelves, she found those
Italian poets her mother must have loved—prose
writers too—quaint old romances, bound in white
vellum, on curious ribbed paper, printed at Venice
two hundred years ago. She spent many an hour
sitting on a hassock in the sunny bow-window,
with a pile of those old Italian books on the floor
beside her, while the Vicar sat at his big table<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span>
annotating Berkeley, or making excursions into the
world of science.</p>
<p>Here she read the Bridgewater Treatises, and
got her first grand idea of the universe. Here her
young mind soared away from the narrow track
along which Miss Scales had conducted it, and
entered the regions of poetry and delight. And
here—in this sunny old room, with its walls of
hooks—young Love took her by the hand, and led
her across the threshold of his wonder-world.
Here she first met Cyril Culverhouse, and learnt
how fair a thing piety may seem in a bright young
soul, eager to do some good in its generation.
Religion hitherto, as interpreted by Miss Scales,
had appeared to her a hard and difficult business,
which no one could take to except under severest
pressure—a system of punishments and penances
invented for the torment of mankind. But in
Cyril’s teaching how different it all seemed! Religion
became a sentiment to live or die for.
Without it happiness or peace of mind seemed
impossible.</p>
<p>‘Your mother belonged to the old faith, perhaps,’<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span>
he said, one day, when they were talking of High
and Low Church.</p>
<p>Beatrix gave a faint shiver.</p>
<p>‘I don’t know,’ she answered, sadly. ‘Mamma
never talked to me about religion. I was too young,
perhaps.’</p>
<p>Cyril found her curiously ignorant of all that
was most vital in religion, and his first interest in
her arose from this very ignorance of hers. He
was so glad to set her right—to get her out of the
narrow Scales track, Miss Scales being essentially
Low Church, and scenting Roman encroachment
in an anthem or a surplice. The interest soon
deepened, but he could hardly have told when it
first grew into love. Perhaps that might never
have come, if Beatrix’s fresh young soul had not
gone out to meet his unawares, so that ere he
knew himself a lover he found himself beloved.</p>
<p>The thought was full of rapture, for at this
stage of their friendship she seemed to him the most
perfect among women—the lovely embodiment of
youth and innocence, and noble yearnings, truthfulness,
purity, all things fair and holy. But the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span>
consideration that she was Christian Harefield’s
heiress dashed his joy. He saw himself in advance—branded
in the sight of men—as the clerical adventurer
who, under the guise of religion, had
pushed his own fortune.</p>
<p>Then it was—while it was still a new thing for
them to talk of their mutual love—that he told
Beatrix her father must be informed of their
attachment.</p>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
<div class="chapter">
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span></p>
<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</h2>
</div>
<p class="center"><span class="allsmcap">CHRISTIAN HAREFIELD’S ANSWER.</span></p>
<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">The</span> Monday after that Sunday evening supper at
the Vicarage dragged more heavily than any day
Beatrix could remember since that never-to-be
forgotten awful day when—a little child in a strange
city—she was told of her mother’s death. To-day
she felt that a blow was impending—a stroke that
must shatter the rosy chain that bound her to her
bright new life. The strictness of Miss Scales’
rule had been relaxed since Beatrix’s eighteenth
birthday. The lady was now rather companion and
duenna than governess; but Miss Scales was conscientious,
and did not care to take her salary
without earning it, so she had urged upon Beatrix
that a young lady of eighteen was in duty bound to
go on improving her mind, and Beatrix had consented
to two hours’ daily reading, on a rigid system.
English history one day—Roman another—Grecian<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span>
another—Travels on the fourth day—<i>Belles-lettres</i>,
represented by the dullest books in the English
language, on the fifth—and French, as exemplified
in an intensely proper novel, on the sixth. And
all this reading was to be carefully done, with a
good deal of reference to the best authorities—all
obsolete, and improved upon by the newest lights to
be obtained from the last discoveries published a
year or two before the battle of Waterloo. That
her favourite authorities could be superseded was
a possibility beyond Miss Scales’ mental grasp.
She had learned out of those books, and would
continue to teach out of them to her dying day.</p>
<p>Upon this particular Monday the English historians
hung somewhat heavily. Hume was dull—and
Rapin furnished no improvement upon him.</p>
<p>‘Really, Miss Scales dear,’ said Beatrix at last,
with a stifled yawn, ‘I don’t think I am appreciating
Joan of Arc at all properly this morning.
She was much too good a person to be yawned
over like this; and if she really was burnt at
Rouen, and did not get out of that cruel Beaufort’s
clutches, and marry and have ever so many
children afterwards——’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span></p>
<p>‘Joan of Arc—married—and the mother of a
family! Beatrix, what are you dreaming of?’
cried the scandalized Miss Scales, her little gray
ringlets quivering with indignation.</p>
<p>‘Mr. Dulcimer says she did, and that there are
documents to prove it.’</p>
<p>‘Mr. Dulcimer is a horrid person to tell you
such stories; and after this I shouldn’t be at all
surprised at his going over to Rome.’</p>
<p>‘Would you much mind my putting up the
books, Miss Scales love?’ asked Beatrix, in the
coaxing way in which she was wont to address
her duenna. ‘My mind isn’t equal to grasping
such heroism as Joan’s to-day.’</p>
<p>‘You have been looking absent-minded all the
morning, certainly.’</p>
<p>‘I do feel rather head-achy.’</p>
<p>‘Then you’d better take a seidlitz powder—and
be sure you put in the blue paper first——’</p>
<p>‘No, thank you, dear, I’m really not ill. But I
think a turn in the garden would do me good.
I’ll read ever so much to-morrow, if you’ll let me.’</p>
<p>‘If I’ll let you, Beatrix! When have <i>I</i> ever stood<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span>
between you and the improvement of your mind?
But I hope you won’t get hold of Mr. Dulcimer’s
crotchets. Joan of Arc not burned at Rouen,
indeed! What is the world coming to? And Archbishop
Whately has written a pamphlet to prove
that there was no such person as Napoleon,
though my father saw him—with his own eyes—on
board the <i>Bellerophon</i>, in Plymouth roads.’</p>
<p>Beatrix waited for no further permission to
put the dingy old books back upon their shelves,
and go out bare-headed into the autumnal garden.
It was a good old garden at all times—a wide
stretch of lawn following the bend of the river—a
broad gravelled walk with moss-grown old stone
vases at intervals—and a stone bench here and
there—flowers in profusion, but of the old-fashioned
sort—rare shrubs and trees—plane and tulip, and
Spanish chestnut that had been growing for centuries—one
grand cedar stretching wide his limbs
over the close-shorn sward—a stone sundial with
a blatantly false inscription to the effect that it
recorded only happy hours—and for prospect, the
Roman one-arched bridge, with the deep narrow<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span>
river flowing swiftly under it,—these in the foreground;
and in the distance across the river the
heterogeneous roofs, chimneys, and gables of Little
Yafford, with the good old square church tower
rising up in their midst, and behind this little
settlement the purple moor sloping far up towards
the calm grey sky.</p>
<p>It was a scene so familiar to Beatrix that she
scarcely felt its great beauty, as she walked up and
down the river terrace, thinking of Cyril and the
interview that was to take place to-day. She was
not hopeful as to the result of that interview.
There were hard thoughts in her mind about her
father.</p>
<p>‘He has never given me his love,’ she said to
herself. ‘Will he be cruel enough to take this love
from me—this love that makes life a new thing?’</p>
<p>While Beatrix was pacing slowly to and fro
along the quiet river-side walk, Cyril was coming
down the sloping road to the Roman bridge, thinking
of what he had to do. It was not a pleasant
mission by any means. He was going to beard the
lion in his den—to offer himself as a husband for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span>
the richest heiress in the neighbourhood. He,
Cyril Culverhouse, who had not a sixpence beyond
his stipend, and who yet came of too good a family
to be called an adventurer. He had never spoken
to Mr. Harefield, and he was going to him to ask
for his daughter’s hand. The position was difficult,
but Cyril did not shrink from facing it.</p>
<p>He went under the archway into the grassy
quadrangle, where the low stone mullioned windows
faced him with their dull blank look, as of windows
out of which no one ever looked. There was a
low door in a corner, studded with iron nails—and
a bell that would have been loud enough for
a means of communication with a house a quarter
of a mile away. This noisy bell clanged out unmercifully
in the afternoon quiet.</p>
<p>‘He will never forgive me for ringing such a
peal as that,’ thought Cyril.</p>
<p>The staid old butler looked at him wonderingly
when he asked if Mr. Harefield was at home.
Visitors were rare at the Water House.</p>
<p>‘He is at home,’ answered the butler, dubiously,
as much as to say, ‘but he won’t see you.’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span></p>
<p>‘Will you say that I wish to see him—upon
particular business?’</p>
<p>The butler led the way to the drawing-room,
without a word. He had heard Mr. Culverhouse
preach, at odd times, though himself a member of
the Little Yafford Baptists, and had too much
respect for his cloth to express his opinion as to the
uselessness of this proceeding. He led the way to
the drawing-room and left Cyril there.</p>
<p>It was a pretty room, despite the gloom that
had fallen upon it. A long old room, with oak
panelling, a richly carved cornice, and a low ceiling,
a few good Italian pictures, a tall pillared marble
chimney-piece, broad Tudor windows looking
towards the river, deep recesses filled with books,
and chairs and sofas of the Louis Seize period,
covered with Gobelins tapestry.</p>
<p>But there was no sign of occupation—no open
piano—not a book out of its place—not a newspaper
or pamphlet on the tables. Everything was in
perfect order, as in a house that is shown and not
lived in.</p>
<p>This was the first time Cyril had been under<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span>
the roof that sheltered Beatrix. He looked around
him for some trace of her presence, but he saw
no such trace. Did she inhabit this room? No,
it was evidently a room in which no one lived.</p>
<p>He went to one of the windows and looked out.
He could just see the lonely figure at the end of the
river walk, bare-headed under the sunless sky—a
figure full of grace and dignity, to his eye, as it
moved slowly along, the face turned towards the
bridge.</p>
<p>‘Poor child, she is watching for me, perhaps,’
he thought with tender sadness, ‘waiting and
fearing.’</p>
<p>‘My master will be pleased to see you, sir,’
said the voice in the doorway, and Cyril turned to
follow the butler.</p>
<p>He followed him down a corridor that went
the whole length of the house. The butler opened
a deep-set oak door, thick enough for a gaol, and
gravely announced the visitor. It was a very
solemn thing altogether, Cyril felt.</p>
<p>He found himself in a large low room, lined
from floor to ceiling with books on carved oak<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span>
shelves. A sombre brownness prevailed throughout
the room. All that was not brown leather
was brown oak.</p>
<p>Three low windows looked into a courtyard. A
pile of damp logs smouldered on the wide stone
hearth. Cyril had never entered a more gloomy room.</p>
<p>The master of the Water House stood before
the hearth, ready to receive his visitor—a tall,
powerfully built man, in a long cloth dressing-gown,
like a monk’s habit, which made him look taller
than he really was. The hard, stern face would
have done for one of Cromwell’s Ironsides; the
grizzled black hair worn somewhat long, the large
nostrils, iron mouth and jaw, dark deep-set eyes,
and heavily lined forehead were full of character;
but it was character that was calculated to repel
rather than to invite sympathy.</p>
<p>‘You have asked to see me on particular
business, Mr. Culverhouse,’ said Christian Harefield,
with a wave of his hand which might or
might not mean an invitation to be seated. He
remained standing himself. ‘If it is any question
of church restoration, Mr. Dulcimer ought to know<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span>
that my cheque-book is at his command. I take no
personal interest in these things, but I like to do
what is right.’</p>
<p>‘It is no question of church restoration, Mr.
Harefield.’</p>
<p>‘Some of your poor people burned out, or
washed out, or down with fever, perhaps? I hear
you are very active in good works. My purse is at
your disposal. Pray do not scruple to make use of
it. I do so little good myself, that I am glad to
practise a little vicarious benevolence.’</p>
<p>He seated himself at a large oak table covered
with books and papers, and opened his cheque-book.</p>
<p>‘How much shall it be?’ he asked, in a business-like
tone.</p>
<p>Cyril was looking at him thoughtfully. There
was something noble in that iron-gray head, surely—a
grand intelligence at least, if not the highest type
of moral good.</p>
<p>‘Pardon me, Mr. Harefield,’ said the curate, ‘you
are altogether mistaken in the purpose of my visit.
I came to ask no favour for others. I am here as a
suppliant for myself alone. I know and love your<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span>
daughter, and I have her permission to tell you that
she loves me, and only waits your approval to
accept me as her future husband.’</p>
<p>Christian Harefield started to his feet, and
turned upon the suppliant.</p>
<p>‘What, it has come already!’ he cried. ‘I knew
that it was inevitable; but I did not think it would
come quite so soon. My daughter is not nineteen,
I believe, and she is already a prey for the first
gentlemanly adventurer who crosses her path——’</p>
<p>‘Mr. Harefield!’</p>
<p>‘Mr. Culverhouse, <i>I</i> was married for my money.
My daughter shall escape that misery if any power
of mine can shield her from it. We will not bandy
hard words. You profess to love her—a raw, uncultured
girl whom you have known at most six
months—I will give you credit for being sincere, if
you like—for believing that you do love her—and I
can only say that I am sorry your fancy should have
taken so inopportune a direction. My daughter
shall marry no man who is not so entirely her equal
in wealth and position that I can feel very sure he
takes her for her own sake.’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span></p>
<p>‘I expected something of this kind from you,
Mr. Harefield.’</p>
<p>‘You can never know my justification for this
line of conduct,’ replied Mr. Harefield. ‘I marked
out this course for myself long ago, when my
daughter was a child. I will spare her a deception
that turned my life to gall. I will spare her disillusions
that broke my heart. I am speaking
openly to you, Mr. Culverhouse, more freely than I
have spoken to any man, and I beg that all I have
said may be sacred.’</p>
<p>‘It shall be so,’ answered Cyril. ‘You think you
can protect your daughter from the possibility of a
sorrow like that which has darkened your own life.
But do you not think that Providence is stronger to
guard and save than you can be, and that it might be
wiser to let her obey the instinct of her own heart?’</p>
<p>‘As I did,’ cried Christian Harefield, with a
laugh. ‘Sir, Providence did not guard or save me.
I was a man—of mature years—and thought I knew
mankind by heart. Yet I walked blindfold into the
trap. Would you have me trust my daughter’s
instinct at eighteen, when my own reason at thirty<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span>
could so betray me? No, I shall take my own
course. If I can save a silly girl from a future of
ruined hopes and broken dreams, I will so save her,
against her own will. I have never played the
tender father, but perhaps in this my sternness
may serve my daughter better than a more loving
father’s softness. If Beatrix marries without my
approval she will be a pauper.’</p>
<p>‘I would gladly so take her,’ cried Cyril.</p>
<p>‘And teach her to disobey her father! you, who
read the commandments to her in church every
other Sunday, would teach her to set one of them
at nought!’</p>
<p>It was Cyril’s own argument. He blushed as
he heard it.</p>
<p>‘Must you withhold your love because you withhold
your money?’ he asked. ‘You say that your
own marriage was unhappy because you were a rich
man. Let the weight of riches be lifted from your
daughter’s life. She does not value them—nor do I.’</p>
<p>‘What, a Culverhouse—the son of a spendthrift
father—a parson, too! You can afford to despise
riches?’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span></p>
<p>‘Yes, because I look round me and see how
rarely money can bring happiness. Perhaps there
is not much real and perfect happiness upon earth;
but I am very sure that what little there is has
never been bought with gold. Leave your estate
away from your daughter—leave it where you
please—devote it to some great work. Let me have
Beatrix without a sixpence—let me be your son—and
if it is possible for affection to brighten your
later life you shall not find it wanting.’</p>
<p>‘It is not possible,’ answered Harefield, coldly.
‘I never desired affection except from one source—and
it was not given me. I cannot open my heart
again—its doors are sealed.’</p>
<p>‘Against your only child?’</p>
<p>‘Against all flesh and blood.’</p>
<p>‘Then, if you withhold your love from Beatrix, it
would be only right and reasonable to withhold
your fortune, and leave her free to accept the
love which may in some measure atone for the
loss of yours.’</p>
<p>‘You must have a monstrous good opinion of
yourself, Mr. Culverhouse, when you set your own<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span>
value above that of one of the finest estates in this
part of Yorkshire.’</p>
<p>‘I have no exalted opinion of my own value, but
I have a very low estimate of the blessings of wealth.
For such a woman as Beatrix a great estate can only
be a great burthen. She has been brought up in
solitude, she will never be a woman of the world.
She does not value money.’</p>
<p>‘Because she has never had to do without it,
and because she has seen very little of what it can
do. Launch her in the world to-morrow, and in one
year she will have learned the full value of wealth.
No, Mr. Culverhouse, I cannot accept your judgment
in this matter. If I have withheld my affection
from my daughter, so much the more reason that I
should give her the estate which, as my only child,
she is entitled to inherit. And it shall be my
business to obtain for her such an alliance as will
place her husband above the suspicion of mercenary
motives.’</p>
<p>‘And in arriving at this decision you put your
daughter’s feelings out of the question. You do not
even take the trouble to make yourself acquainted
with her sentiments.’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span></p>
<p>‘No. I trust to time. I regret that she should
have been so soon exposed to a peril which I had
not apprehended for her just yet. If I had, I should
have been more on my guard. I must request you,
as a man of honour, to hold no further communication—either
personally or by letter—with my
daughter, and I shall be under the painful necessity
of forbidding any more visiting at the
Vicarage.’</p>
<p>‘You are asking too much, Mr. Harefield. No
man with common sense would submit to such an
exaction as that. I will do more than most men in
my position would be willing to do. Your daughter
is young and impulsive, unversed in worldly knowledge.
I will promise to wait for her till she is of
age, and to hold no communication with her in the
interval. Two years hence, if your wishes have
conquered, I will submit to my fate. I will make
no claim. But if she still thinks as she thinks
to-day, I shall claim my right to address her on equal
terms. But it is my duty to remind you that your
daughter has some strength of will—that she is a
creature of impulse, not easily to be dragooned into<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span>
subservience to the ideas and plans of another—even
though that other be her father.’</p>
<p>‘I shall know how to govern her impulses, sir,
and to bring a stronger will than her own to bear
upon her follies. I have no more to say—except
that I rely upon your promise, and consider your
acquaintance with my daughter at an end from
this hour.’</p>
<p>Cyril had hardly expected anything better than
this, yet the actual discomfiture was no less difficult
to bear. To be told that he must see Beatrix no
more, knowing as he did that the girl he loved
returned his love with fullest measure, and was
willing to fling every tie to the winds for his sake!
And then her ties were at best so feeble. The father
she was ready to defy for his sake was a father who
had never loved her, who freely confessed his lack
of affection for her. Not much, perhaps, to forfeit
such a father’s favour for the sake of a lover who
loved her with all the strength of his strong nature.</p>
<p>Cyril could not bring himself to say, Disobey
your father, fling fortune to the winds, and be my
wife. Duty forbade him, and consideration for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span>
Beatrix was on the side of duty. The day might
come when she would upbraid him with the loss of
her father’s cold liking, and her loss of fortune. He
saw himself, far away in the future, a disappointed
man—a failure—high hopes unrealized, labours unsuccessful,
aspirations blighted; saw himself struggling
single-handed against misfortune, and with
Beatrix by his side. Might she not—if life went
badly with him—repent her choice? And what
was the bitterness of the present—the loss involved
in doing right—compared with that sharper bitterness,
that greater loss, which might follow in the
future upon doing wrong?</p>
<p>‘My first and last visit to the Water House, I
dare say,’ he thought, as he paused for a minute in
the quadrangle, to look up at the ivy-clad walls, the
massive stone mullions and Tudor gables. A fine
old house if its associations had been bright and
pleasant, but, looked at as the dungeon of unloved
youth, it appeared dismal as an Egyptian tomb.</p>
<p>He saw an open door in the cloistered side
wall—a door leading to the garden, and thought
how natural it would be for him to go there in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span>
search of Beatrix—thought how happily he would
have gone to seek her if Mr. Harefield’s decision
had favoured their love—if he had given them ever
so little encouragement, ever so small a right to look
hopefully towards the future. Now all was blank—a
dull, dead despair.</p>
<p>He went under the archway, and the outer door
shut behind him with a hollow clang in the
twilight.</p>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
<div class="chapter">
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span></p>
<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</h2>
</div>
<p class="center"><span class="allsmcap">MRS. DULCIMER MEANS BUSINESS.</span></p>
<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">When</span> a benevolent idea entered the mind of the
good-natured Mrs. Dulcimer, there immediately
began a process of incubation or hatching, as of a
patient maternal hen intent on the development of
her eggs. Like that domestic fowl, Mrs. Dulcimer
gave her whole mind to the task, and, for the time
being, thought of nothing else.</p>
<p>The notion of a marriage between Cyril Culverhouse
and Bella Scratchell was now incubating.
Bella, of whom Mrs. Dulcimer had not thought
much hitherto, was now taken under her wing, a <i>protégée</i>
whose provision in life was an actual duty.</p>
<p>Mrs. Dulcimer talked about her to the parlourmaid,
while she was dusting the drawing-room
china. The servants at the Vicarage were all old
retainers, who by faithful service had become
interwoven in the very fabric of the family life.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span>
The Vicar and his wife could hardly have believed
that home was home with strange faces round them.
Crisp, the man of all work, and Rebecca, the confidential
maid, were as much an integral part of
life as the dark ridge of moorland, and the gray
church tower, the winding river, the Vicar’s library,
and the faithful old pointer, Ponto, which had not
stood to a bird for the last seven years, but held
the position of friend and familiar, and lived in a
land overflowing with milk and honey.</p>
<p>‘What a nice young lady Miss Scratchell is,
Rebecca!’ said Mrs. Dulcimer, as she flecked a grain
of dust off a Chelsea shepherdess with her feather-brush.
The Vicar’s wife was rarely seen between
breakfast and noon without a feather-brush in her
hand. ‘Have you remarked it?’</p>
<p>‘She ain’t so handsome as Miss Harefield,’
answered Rebecca, frankly, ‘but she’s a deal affabler.
They give her a very good character at the
Park—always punkshall, and a great favourite with
the children.’</p>
<p>‘She is just the sort of girl to do well in life,
Rebecca. She ought to get a good husband.’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span></p>
<p>Rebecca gave a loud sniff, scenting mischief.</p>
<p>‘That’s as Providence pleases, ma’am,’ she retorted,
rubbing the fender with her chamois leather;
‘marriages is made in heaven.’</p>
<p>‘Perhaps, Rebecca. But a poor man’s daughter
like Bella Scratchell has a very poor chance of
meeting an eligible person. Unless it is in this
house, I don’t think she sees any one worth speaking
of.’</p>
<p>‘There’s the Park, ma’am,’ suggested Rebecca,
rubbing the fender almost savagely.</p>
<p>‘Oh! at the Park she is only a dependant—quite
looked down upon, you may be sure; for
though Mrs. Piper is a good creature, she is a
thorough <i>parvenue</i>. Miss Scratchell never sees any
of the Park visitors, you may be sure. She only
lunches at the children’s dinners. They don’t even
ask her to play the piano at their parties. They
have a man from Great Yafford. Now don’t you
think, Rebecca, that Mr. Culverhouse would be a
nice match for Miss Scratchell?’</p>
<p>Rebecca wheeled round upon her knees and
confronted her mistress.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span></p>
<p>‘Oh, ma’am, I wouldn’t if I was you!’ she
exclaimed, energetically. ‘I wouldn’t have act or
part in it. You won’t get no thanks for it. You
never do. Nobody’s never thanked for that kind
of thing. You didn’t get no thanks from Mr.
Parker and Miss Morison, and look at the trouble
you took about them. There isn’t an unhappier
couple in Little Yafford, if all folks say is true,
and I believe every time they quarrel your name
comes up between ’em. “If it hadn’t been for
Mrs. Dulcimer I shouldn’t have been such a fool
as to marry you,” says he. “My wretchedness
is all Mrs. Dulcimer’s doing,” says she, “and I wish
I was dead.” That’s a dreadful thing to have on
your conscience, ma’am, after taking no end of
trouble to bring it about.’</p>
<p>‘Nonsense, Rebecca! Is it my fault the Parkers
are quarrelsome? Mary Morison would have quarrelled
with any husband.’</p>
<p>‘Then she ought never to have had one,’
ejaculated Rebecca, renewing her savage treatment
of the fender. ‘But I recollect when you thought
her perfection.’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span></p>
<p>‘I allow that I was deceived in Miss Morison,
Rebecca,’ replied the Vicar’s wife, meekly. She
was very fond of Rebecca, and not a little afraid
of her. ‘But you see Miss Scratchell is quite
another sort of person.’</p>
<p>‘Company manners,’ said Rebecca, scornfully.
‘They’ve all got ’em. It’s the outside crust. You
can’t tell what’s inside the pie.’</p>
<p>‘I am sure Miss Scratchell is a good girl. See
how she has been brought up. The Scratchells have
to study every sixpence.’</p>
<p>‘Does that make people good?’ inquired Rebecca,
speculatively, gathering up her brushes and
leathers into her box. ‘I don’t think it would
improve my disposition. I like the sixpences to
come and go, without my thinking about ’em.’</p>
<p>‘Ah, but, Rebecca, consider what a good wife a
girl brought up like that would make for a poor
man. Mr. Culverhouse has nothing but his curacy,
you know.’</p>
<p>‘I should ha’ thought a rich young woman
would ha’ suited him better. There’s Miss Harefield,
with her large fortune, would be just the thing.’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span></p>
<p>‘Nonsense, Rebecca! Mr. Harefield would never
consent to such a marriage. Sir Kenrick is the
proper husband for Miss Harefield; he can make her
mistress of one of the finest places in Hampshire.’</p>
<p>‘Oh, that’s it, is it?’ said Rebecca, with something
approaching a groan. ‘Sir Kenrick and Miss
Harefield, and Mr. Culverhouse and Miss Scratchell!
Ladies’ chain and set to partners—like the first
figure in a quadrille. You’ve got your hands full,
ma’am, and I suppose it’s no use my talking; but
if you wasn’t too wise a lady to take a fool’s
advice, I should say don’t have nothink to do
with it.’</p>
<p>And with this oracular speech Rebecca took
up her box, with all her implements of war, and
left the drawing-room.</p>
<p>‘Rebecca is a good creature, and an original,
but dull,’ thought Mrs. Dulcimer. ‘I never can
make her see things in a proper light.’</p>
<p>After the early dinner, and the Vicar’s departure
for his daily round among his parishioners—a
sauntering, easy-going visitation at all times—Mrs.
Dulcimer set out in her best bonnet and sable-bordered<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span>
mantle to make some calls. The sable
mantle was well known in Little Yafford as a
kind of insignia of office. When Mrs. Dulcimer
wore it she meant business, and business with
Mrs. Dulcimer meant the business of other people.
Her bonnets were known also, with their different
grades of merit. She had a bonnet for the landed
gentry, and a second best bonnet for the tradespeople,
and last year’s bonnet, done up by Rebecca,
for her visits amongst the poor.</p>
<p>To-day she wore her landed gentry bonnet, and
her first visit was to the Park.</p>
<p>Whether a man who has made his money in
trade, and has taken somebody else’s mansion and
park, can be considered to belong to the landed
gentry, is an open question; but Little Yafford
gave Mr. Piper the benefit of the doubt, and as
there were not many rich people in the village, he
ranked high.</p>
<p>Mrs. Piper was at home, and delighted to see
her dear Mrs. Dulcimer. There is no more lively
companion than a good-natured busybody, except
an ill-natured one. Mrs. Dulcimer’s conversation<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[127]</span>
lacked the pungency and acidity, the cayenne and
lemon with which your cynical gossip flavours his
discourse, but she was always well posted in facts,
and, if too much given to pity and deplore, had
at least plenty to tell.</p>
<p>The two matrons had the drawing-room all to
themselves—a large and splendid apartment, furnished
in the ugliest style of the later Georges,
but glorified by the Piper family with Berlin
woolwork and beaded cushions, ormolu inkstands,
Parian statuettes, Bohemian vases, malachite envelope-boxes,
and mother-o’-pearl albums in great
profusion.</p>
<p>Mrs. Piper was a devoted mother, and, on the
children being inquired for, began a string of praises.</p>
<p>‘Elizabeth is getting on splendidly with her
music,’ she said; ‘you’ll be quite surprised. She
and Mary play the overture to “Zamper.” You’d be
delighted.’</p>
<p>‘Miss Scratchell taught them, I suppose?’</p>
<p>‘Oh dear no! Miss Scratchell superintends their
practice; but they have a master from Great Yafford,
Mr. Jackson, the organist—a very fine musician.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[128]</span>
Isabella is a very nice player,’ said Mrs. Piper, with
a patronizing air. She had never got beyond ‘Buy
a Broom’ and ‘The Bird Waltz’ in her own day,
but was severely critical now. ‘But I couldn’t
think of having my girls taught by a lady. They
don’t get the touch, or the style, or the execution.’</p>
<p>‘What a sweet girl Bella is!’ exclaimed Mrs.
Dulcimer, who had come to the Park on purpose
to talk about Miss Scratchell.</p>
<p>She was not going to work blindly this time, or
to lay herself open to such reproaches as Rebecca
had assailed her with on account of the Parker and
Morison marriage. She would find out all about
Bella before she set to work; and who so well
able to inform her as Bella’s employer?</p>
<p>‘Yes,’ replied Mrs. Piper, ‘I am very well
satisfied with Bella Scratchell. She’s the first
governess I’ve had that has given me satisfaction—and
I’ve had seven since we’ve lived at Little
Yafford. She’s very young for such a position—with
clever girls like mine, who are much beyond
their years, especially; and when Mr. Scratchell
first applied for the situation I felt I couldn’t<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span>
entertain his proposal. “Give her a trial, Mrs.
Piper,” he said, “you don’t know how she’s been
educated. She’s had all the advantages Miss
Harefield has had, and she’s known a great deal
better how to value them.” So I thought it over,
and I agreed to give Bella a trial. She couldn’t
well be worse than the others had been, I considered,
and I gave her the chance. Of course it
would be a great opening in life for her to come
here. Not that we make our governess one of the
family. I don’t hold with that, no more does Piper.
Miss Scratchell comes and goes quietly, and keeps
her place. She is very useful and domesticated, and
when I’ve been ill I’ve found her a great comfort
in looking after the servants for me, and helping
me to go over the tradesmen’s books; for you know
what poor health I’ve had of late years, Mrs. Dulcimer,
and what trouble I’ve had with my servants.’</p>
<p>Mrs. Dulcimer sighed a sympathetic assent.</p>
<p>‘If I’m alone she stops to luncheon with me; if
I’m not, Bella superintends the children’s dinner,
and after that she can go home as soon as she
likes. The rest of the day is her own.’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span></p>
<p>‘It must be rather dull for a young girl like her,
never seeing any society,’ suggested Mrs. Dulcimer.</p>
<p>‘I shouldn’t think Mr. Scratchell had brought
up his daughters to expect society, if you mean
parties and that sort of thing,’ replied Mrs. Piper,
severely. ‘My children ought to be society enough
for a young woman in Bella’s position.’</p>
<p>‘Of course. She would naturally be very fond
of them,’ assented the Vicar’s wife. ‘But I was
thinking with regard to her marrying; a girl who
has nothing to expect from her father ought to
marry.’</p>
<p>Mrs. Piper was averse from match-making.
She had married well herself, and was rather
inclined to regard matrimony as a luxury intended
for the favoured few—like a cockade on a coachman’s
hat, or a range of glass houses in one’s
garden.</p>
<p>‘I hope Bella is not thinking of a husband,’
she said, disapprovingly. ‘For my part, when a
young woman begins husband-hunting, I always
think her useless for everything else. I should
be very sorry to have Elizabeth taught by a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span>
governess who was thinking of husbands. The
dear child would get ideas, and, with her intelligence——’</p>
<p>Mrs. Dulcimer’s good nature took fright immediately.</p>
<p>‘Oh, I do not believe Bella has ever given a
thought to such a thing,’ she exclaimed. ‘She is
quite wrapped up in her teaching, and so fond of
your dear girls. But I rather think that Mr.
Culverhouse admires her very much, and you
must allow that it would be a suitable match.’</p>
<p>‘I should have thought Mr. Culverhouse had
more sense. Why, he could no more afford to
marry than his brother can afford to live at
Culverhouse Castle.’</p>
<p>‘He has talent and energy, and is sure to
succeed, and with such a well-trained economical
wife as Bella——’</p>
<p>‘Well, I am sorry to find that Bella has got
marriage and love-making into her head. I shall
expect to see a difference in her with the
children——’</p>
<p>‘Oh, but I assure you——’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span></p>
<p>In vain did poor Mrs. Dulcimer protest. Mrs.
Piper had a fixed idea that a governess ought to have
nothing to do with the tender passion. Had she
not turned away Miss Green for no other reason than
because that unfortunate young person wrote long
letters to a young man in New Zealand, to whom she
had been engaged for seven years, and to whom she
expected to be engaged for seven years more, before
he would be rich enough to marry her?</p>
<p>‘It was such a distraction to her mind, you see,
my dear,’ Mrs. Piper told her intimate friends. ‘I
couldn’t possibly allow it.’</p>
<p>Mrs. Dulcimer left the Park, after having done
her <i>protégée</i> some injury, with the best intentions.
From the Park she went to the village, and stopped
at Mr. Scratchell’s door.</p>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
<div class="chapter">
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span></p>
<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
</div>
<p class="center"><span class="allsmcap">THE SCRATCHELLS AT HOME.</span></p>
<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">Mr. Scratchell</span> occupied a large red brick house
at the beginning of the village street, a house
that had once been one of the best, if not the
best in Little Yafford, but which, in its present
degenerated state, looked a very shabby habitation as
compared with the smart Gothic villas of the Great
Yafford professional men and tradesmen who had
retired into gentility at Little Yafford. It had
been built by a wealthy brewer, and still adjoined
a thriving brewery. But as the age grew more
civilized, the brewer removed his domestic life from
the immediate vicinity of his vats and casks to a
stuccoed mansion in fifteen acres of meadow land,
<i>par excellence</i> Park. There was a good garden
behind the substantial roomy old house, and more
outbuildings than the Scratchells had any worthy
use for—but which made a wilderness or playground<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span>
for the children, and for Mrs. Scratchell’s
poor little family of fowls, which always had a
shabby uncombed look, as of neglected poultry,
but which laid more eggs than Mrs. Piper’s pampered
Dorkings and Cochin Chinas.</p>
<p>Here the Scratchells had lived for the last
twenty years, Mr. Scratchell holding his tenement
upon a repairing lease, which seemed to mean that
he was to grub on in the best way he could in
dilapidated premises, and never ask his landlord
to do anything for him. Perhaps when the lease
ran out there would be complications; but Mr.
Scratchell hoped that, being a lawyer himself, he
should be a match for any lawyer his landlord
might set upon him, and that he should find a
loophole whereby to escape the question of dilapidations.</p>
<p>It was a gaunt, dreary-looking house in its
present state of decay. The garden was all at the
back, and the front of the house came straight upon
the village street, an advantage in the eyes of the
younger Scratchells, as the few passers-by who
enlivened the scene came within half a yard of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[135]</span>
their inquisitive young noses, which were generally
glued against the window-panes in all intervals of
leisure.</p>
<p>The Scratchell girls did not go to school.
That was a luxury which their father’s limited
means could not afford them. They were educated
at home by their mother, in that desultory and
somewhat spasmodic form which maternal education,
where the poor house-mother has a multitude
of other duties, is apt to assume.</p>
<p>Taking all things into consideration, it must be
allowed that Mrs. Scratchell did her work very well.
She turned the four girls into the shabby old schoolroom
at eleven o’clock every morning—after they
had helped her to make the beds, dust the rooms,
and wash the breakfast-things. She set them down
to their French exercises or their ciphering, their
maps or their English analysis, while she went to
the kitchen to see after the dinner, which generally
meant to cook it, and at twelve she came into the
schoolroom with her huge motherly workbasket—full
of stockings to be darned, and under garments
to be pieced—some of them arrived at a stage<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[136]</span>
when piecing seemed little short of the miraculous—and
sat down to hear her children read history
or polite literature in their shrill monotonous voices,
while the busy needle never ceased from its
labour.</p>
<p>Pinnock’s Goldsmith and darning cotton must
have been curiously interwoven in poor Mrs.
Scratchell’s mind, and it must have been a little
difficult for her to dissociate the embarrassments of
Telemachus from the intricacies of her domestic
patchwork.</p>
<p>In this wise, however, the young Scratchell
girls contrived to get educated, perhaps pretty
nearly as well as the general run of girls, at home
or abroad. The humble and old-fashioned education
which Mrs. Scratchell had received herself
she handed down to her daughters. She could
not teach them German, or Italian, for she had
never learnt those languages. She could not ground
them in the Latin tongue, for in her day Latin
had been considered an exclusively masculine
accomplishment. She could not teach them the
use of the globes, for she had no globes; nor<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span>
natural science, for she scarcely knew what it
meant. But she made them plough laboriously
through Noel and Chapsal’s French grammar, until
they knew it thoroughly. She taught them English,
and Roman, and Grecian history till they could
have set you right upon the dates and details of
any great event you could mention. She made
them very familiar with the geography of this
globe, and the manners and customs of its inhabitants;
and she taught them a good deal about
common things, which might or might not be useful
to them in after life.</p>
<p>Upon this particular afternoon Mrs. Scratchell
and her five daughters were assembled in the
schoolroom busied with a task of all-absorbing
interest. They were making their winter dresses,
and the threadbare carpet was strewed with shreds
and patches of dark blue merino, while the somewhat
stuffy atmosphere was odorous with glazed
lining.</p>
<p>It was a shabby old panelled room, from whose
wainscot almost all the paint had been worn and
scrubbed away in the progress of years. But<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span>
though the paint was mostly gone a general drabness
remained. Narrow drab moreen curtains hung
beside the straight windows—an oblong mahogany
table, with those treacherous contrivances called
flaps, occupied the centre of the room, and was
now covered with bodices, and sleeves, and pockets,
and skirts, in various stages of being. There was
an old horsehair sofa against the wall, loaded with
books, slates, and desks which had been thrust
aside to make room for the more agreeable pursuit
of dressmaking. There were a dozen chairs of
various shapes and make, the odds and ends of a
sale-room or a broker’s shop. No ornament or
beautification of any kind had ever been attempted
in the schoolroom. The apartment was unpretendingly
hideous; and yet the Scratchell children
were fond of it, and looked back to it in after
years as the dearest room in the world. Perhaps
the only thing that could be called good in it was
the wide old fireplace, with its blue and white
Dutch tiles, basket grate, and capacious hobs, which
were so convenient for cooking toffy or roasting
chestnuts.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[139]</span></p>
<p>Bella was at work with her mother and sisters.
She had a natural gift for dressmaking, as she had
for many things, and was the general cutter out and
contriver, and the family arbiter upon fashion. It
was she who decided how the sleeves were to be
made, and whether the skirts were to be plain or
flounced.</p>
<p>She sat among them this afternoon, her busy
scissors crunching and grinding over the table,
cutting and slashing with quite a professional ease
and audacity.</p>
<p>‘What a correct eye and what a steady hand
you have, Bella!’ said her mother, admiringly. ‘It’s
quite wonderful.’</p>
<p>‘I’d need have something, mother,’ sighed Bella,
‘as I’ve no money.’</p>
<p>‘True, my dear. There’s a great deal wanted
to make up for the loss of that. One feels it
every day.’</p>
<p>‘Every day,’ echoed Bella. ‘Why not say
every hour, every moment? When doesn’t one
feel it? It is a steady gnawing pain, like toothache.’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[140]</span></p>
<p>‘But Providence has made you so bright and
clever, dear. That’s a great consolation. There’s
Miss Harefield now, I don’t suppose <i>she</i> could make
herself a dress.’</p>
<p>‘I doubt if she could thread a needle,’ said
Bella. ‘But I’d change places with her any day.’</p>
<p>‘What, Bella! and be almost alone in the world?
Without a mother—or sisters—or brothers!’</p>
<p>Bella did not say whether she would have
borne this latter loss, but she looked at the four
lanky girls in shabby frocks and grubby holland
pinafores, dubiously, as if her mind was not quite
made up as to their value in the sum of life.</p>
<p>Just then there came a sharp double knock at
the street door, and the four girls rushed to the
window and glued their noses against the panes, like
four small jelly-fishes holding on by suction.</p>
<p>Bella ran across the room and pushed her four
sisters on to the floor in a tumbled heap of brown
holland and faded green merino.</p>
<p>‘You horrid vulgar creatures!’ she exclaimed to
these blessings. ‘Don’t you know that a visitor
can see you? Gracious!’ she exclaimed, ‘it’s Mrs.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span>
Dulcimer, and in her best bonnet. Run up and
change your gown, mother, and do your hair up
better. I can go and receive her. I’m tidy.’</p>
<p>Bella was more than tidy. She would have
been presentable anywhere, with her shining plaits
of fair hair, her fresh pink and white complexion,
perfectly fitting black silk dress, and neat collar
and ribbon. Bella was a young woman who would
have moved heaven and earth for the sake of a
good gown, and who knew how to take care of
her clothes and make them last twice as long as
other people’s—an invaluable wife for a poor
curate, surely, as Mrs. Dulcimer thought.</p>
<p>Bella went smiling into the best parlour. It
was a very shabby old room to be called best,
but it was always kept clean and tidy, and Bella
had taken a good deal of pains with it, and had
even spent a little of her hardly-earned money to
brighten it. The faded chintz was enlivened with
starched muslin antimacassars. There was a rustic
basket of ferns and flowers in each of the
windows, there were a few little bits of Oriental
china, the relics of bygone prosperity, on the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[142]</span>
narrow mantelpiece, there were some water-colour
fruit and flower pieces of Bella’s on the walls,
neatly framed, and hung with smart blue ribbons,
instead of the commonplace picture cord.</p>
<p>Mrs. Dulcimer had taken an approving survey
of everything, while waiting for Bella’s appearance.</p>
<p>‘Mamma will be down in a minute,’ said Bella,
when they had shaken hands. ‘She has been
working at our blue merino dresses, and her hands
were all over dye. She is so pleased at the idea
of your coming to see her.’</p>
<p>‘It is such a time since I have called on her.
I feel quite ashamed. But I have so many calls
to make.’</p>
<p>‘Yes, and you are so good to every one.
Mamma is so grateful for your kindness to me.’</p>
<p>‘It is nothing, Bella. I only wish I could be
kinder. You are such a good industrious girl.
I wish I could see you comfortably settled in
life.’</p>
<p>Bella blushed and smiled. Mrs. Dulcimer’s
mania for match-making was notorious. It was an
amiable propensity, but did not always work well.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span></p>
<p>‘Don’t worry yourself about me, dear Mrs.
Dulcimer. I have no wish to get settled. I should
be sorry to leave poor mamma. I can help her
in so many little ways, you know.’</p>
<p>‘Yes, my dear, I know what an excellent
daughter you are. A good daughter will always
make a good wife. But in a large family like
yours the sooner a girl marries the better. Let me
see, now, how many sisters have you?’</p>
<p>‘Four.’</p>
<p>‘Four! good gracious! Five girls in one family!
That’s quite dreadful! I can’t see where five
husbands are to come from. Not out of Little
Yafford, I am afraid.’</p>
<p>‘But, dear Mrs. Dulcimer, we are not all obliged
to marry.’</p>
<p>‘My poor child, what else are you to do? There
is nothing between that and being governesses.’</p>
<p>‘Then we must all be governesses. I had
rather be a tolerably contented governess than a
miserable wife.’</p>
<p>‘But you might be a very happy wife—if you
marry the man who loves you.’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[144]</span></p>
<p>Bella blushed again, and this time more deeply.
Did Mrs. Dulcimer know or suspect anything?
Bella’s heart thrilled strangely. To be loved, how
sweet it sounded! To have her life all at once
transformed to something new and strange, lifted
out of this dull level of poverty-stricken monotony,
in which it had crept on for all the years she
could remember!</p>
<p>‘I must wait till the true lover appears, Mrs.
Dulcimer,’ she answered quietly, though the beating
of her heart had quickened. ‘I have never met
him yet.’</p>
<p>‘Haven’t you, Bella? You may have met him
without knowing it. I have an idea that Cyril
Culverhouse is very fond of you.’</p>
<p>Now if Bella had heard Mrs. Dulcimer express
such an idea in relation to any one but herself,
she would have given the notion exactly its
just value, which would have been nothing—for
it was Mrs. Dulcimer’s peculiar faculty to evolve
ideas of this kind from her inner consciousness—but,
applied to herself, the notion had a startling
effect upon Bella’s nerves and brain.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span></p>
<p>Could it be? Cyril—her ideal preacher—the
man whose earnest eyes had made her tremble
strangely, at odd times, when her own eyes met them
suddenly. Cyril, the only being who had ever made
her feel the littleness of her own views and aspirations,
and that, despite all her gifts, she was a very
poor creature. That Cyril could care for her—value
her—love her—it was too bright a dream! She
forgot that he was little better off than herself—that
he could do nothing to lift her out of her dull life of
aching poverty. She forgot everything, except that
it would be the sweetest thing in the world to be
loved by him.</p>
<p>‘Indeed, Mrs. Dulcimer, you must be mistaken’,
she said, her voice trembling a little. ‘Mr. Culverhouse
has not given me a thought—he has never
said one word that——’</p>
<p>‘My dear, he is too honourable to say anything
until he felt himself in a position to speak plainly,
and that would hardly be till he has got a living.
But the Church will not be such slow work for him
as it is for most young men, you may depend. He
has great gifts.’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span></p>
<p>‘He has indeed,’ sighed Bella.</p>
<p>This idea of a living opened quite a delicious
picture before the eye of fancy. Bella saw herself a
vicar’s wife—a person of importance in the village—like
Mrs. Dulcimer—inhabiting some pretty vicarage,
full of old china, and modern furniture, surrounded
with smiling lawns and flower-beds, instead of the
gooseberry bushes, cabbage rows, and general utilitarianism
and untidiness of the Scratchell garden.
And with Cyril—her Cyril—for the companion of
her days. Imagination could paint no fairer life.</p>
<p>‘I don’t say that anything has been said, my
love, even to me,’ said Mrs. Dulcimer. ‘But I am
long-sighted in these matters. I can see very far
ahead.’</p>
<p>This was true, for Mrs. Dulcimer’s apprehension
had often been so far in advance of fact that she had
seen inclinations and nascent loves that had never
existed—and had sometimes worried the victims of
these fancied affections into ill-advised matrimony.
Most of Mrs. Dulcimer’s happy couples began, like
Benedick and Beatrice, with a little aversion.</p>
<p>Mrs. Scratchell now appeared, smooth as to her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[147]</span>
hair and shiny as to her complexion, and with an
unmistakable appearance of having just changed
her gown. She saluted the Vicar’s wife with the
old-fashioned curtsey which had been taught her in
her boarding-school days, and seemed almost overcome
when Mrs. Dulcimer shook hands with her.</p>
<p>‘I’m sure I don’t know how I can thank you for
all your goodness to Bella,’ said the grateful mother.</p>
<p>‘Indeed, I want no thanks, Mrs. Scratchell. We
are all very fond of Bella at the Vicarage. She is so
bright and clever. What a help she must be to you!’</p>
<p>‘She is indeed. I don’t know what we should
do without her. She’s the only one of us that can
manage her father when he’s out of temper.’</p>
<p>‘What a good wife she would make for a man
of limited means!’</p>
<p>‘She would know how to make the most of
things,’ answered Mrs. Scratchell, with a sigh; ‘but I
really think I’d rather my daughters kept single all
their lives than that they should have to cut and
contrive as I have had. I’ve not a word to say
against poor Scratchell. Poverty tries all our tempers,
and his has been more tried than most men’s.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[148]</span>
He’s a good father, and a good husband, and I’ve as
good children as any woman need wish to have; but,
for all that, I’d rather my daughters should never
marry than that they should marry like me.’</p>
<p>‘Oh, Mrs. Scratchell,’ cried the Vicar’s wife,
shocked at this slander against her favourite institution.
‘Surely now, as a wife and mother, you
have fulfilled woman’s noblest mission. You ought
to be proud of having brought up such a nice family
and managed things respectably upon so little.’</p>
<p>‘Perhaps I ought,’ sighed Mrs. Scratchell. ‘But
I don’t feel anything, except very tired. I was forty-one
last birthday, but I feel as if I were eighty.’</p>
<p>Mrs. Dulcimer did not know what to say. Life
had been so easy for her. All good things had fallen
unsolicited into her lap. She had never known an
ungratified want, except her yearning for a new
drawing-room carpet. This glimpse of a pinched,
overworked existence came upon her like a revelation.</p>
<p>‘But you must be so proud of your fine family,’
said Mrs. Dulcimer, bent on being cheerful; ‘so many
of them—and all well and thriving.’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[149]</span></p>
<p>‘Yes,’ sighed the house-mother, ‘they grow very
fast, and they have fine healthy appetites. It’s
better to pay the baker than the doctor, as I always
say to Mr. Scratchell when he complains, but the
bills <i>are</i> very heavy.’</p>
<p>‘Now mind, Bella, I shall expect to see you often
at the Vicarage,’ said Mrs. Dulcimer, with her sweetest
smile. ‘You are not to wait for Miss Harefield to
bring you, but you are to come and see me, you
know, in a friendly way—and bring your work. I
know you are clever at fancy work.’</p>
<p>‘She is clever at everything,’ said the mother,
with a doleful pride. ‘I never knew such hands as
Bella’s. She can turn them to anything.’</p>
<p>‘Bring your work of an afternoon then, Bella,
when your mother can spare you, and come and sit
with me. Mr. Culverhouse often drops in after tea.’</p>
<p>And then with much hand-shaking and cordiality,
kindly Mrs. Dulcimer took her leave, and went
home happy, her mind glowing with triumphant
benevolence, feeling that she had employed her
afternoon in a manner that St. Paul himself must
have approved.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[150]</span></p>
<p>‘It’s all very well for Clement to talk about
charity being a passive virtue,’ she reflected. ‘Passive
good nature would never get that girl
comfortably married. Five daughters, and the
father without a sixpence to give them! Poor
dear girls! Husbands must be found for them
somehow.’</p>
<p>Bella Scratchell felt curiously fluttered after the
Vicar’s wife was gone. The noise of the home tea-table,
those rough boys, those boisterous unkempt
girls, with hair like horses’ manes, and an uncomfortable
habit of stretching across the table for
everything they wanted, seemed a shade more trying
than usual.</p>
<p>‘Now then, Greedy,’ cried Adolphus, the second
boy, to his sister Flora. ‘I would scrape the pot if
I was you. Yah!’ looking into an empty marmalade
pot. ‘Not a vestige left. I say, Bella, you might
stand a pot of marmalade now and then.’</p>
<p>The boys were in the habit of making random
demands upon Bella’s private means, but were not
often successful.</p>
<p>‘I’m sure you want no temptation to eat bread<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span>
and butter,’ she said. ‘It would be sheer cruelty
to ma.’</p>
<p>What bliss to be away from them all! This
noisy circle—the odour of Dorset butter—the poor
mother’s worried looks, and frequent getting up to
see after this and that—the scolding and disputing—the
domestic turmoil.</p>
<p>A lonely old bachelor, looking in through the
window at the firelit room, might perchance have
envied Mr. Scratchell his healthy young family
might have thought that this circle of eager faces,
and buzz of voices, meant happiness; yet for Bella
home meant anything but happiness. She was
heartily tired of it all.</p>
<p>She pictured herself in that ideal vicarage, with
the only man she had ever admired for her husband.
She was thinking of him all through the confusion
of tea-time—the clinking of tea-spoons and rattling
of cups—the spilling of tea—an inevitable feature
in every Scratchell tea party—the fuss about the
kettle, with much argumentation between Mrs.
Scratchell and the maid of all work as to whether it
boiled or did not boil—the scrambling for crusts,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span>
and general squabbling—through all she was thinking
of Cyril’s earnest face—hearing his thrilling
voice close at her ear.</p>
<p>‘Can it be true?’ she asked herself. ‘Can it be
true that he cares for me—ever so little even? Oh,
it would be too much—it would be heaven!’</p>
<p>Here Bertie’s cup of hot tea came into collision
with his sister’s elbow, foundered and went down,
amidst a storm of shrill young voices and maternal
expostulation.</p>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
<div class="chapter">
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[153]</span></p>
<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</h2>
</div>
<p class="center"><span class="allsmcap">A FLINTY-HEARTED FATHER.</span></p>
<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">Beatrix</span> walked up and down by the river, till the
gray day grew darker and duller, and the first
shadows of evening began to show blue behind the
gables and chimney stacks and square church tower
of Little Yafford. Her heart beat faster as the
time went on. Every minute might bring her a
summons to the library to hear her father’s decision.
Or Cyril would come into the garden to seek her,
perhaps. But the light grew grayer—evening was
at hand, and there was still no summons.</p>
<p>‘Can he have gone away without seeing me?
Cruel,’ she thought.</p>
<p>Miss Scales came running out, with her shawl
over her head, full of reproaches about the risk of
evening air.</p>
<p>‘Do you know if papa has had any visitors, Miss<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[154]</span>
Scales, sweet?’ asked Beatrix, taking her governess’s
arm affectionately.</p>
<p>‘My dear, when does your papa ever have
visitors?’</p>
<p>‘Then there hasn’t been any one.’</p>
<p>‘I have been in my own room all the afternoon!’</p>
<p>‘Then you couldn’t have seen any one if they
had come,’ said Beatrix. ‘Why didn’t you say so
before?’</p>
<p>‘My dear Beatrix, you have not your usual
amenity of manner,’ remonstrated the governess.</p>
<p>‘I beg your pardon, dear, but I have such a
frightful headache.’</p>
<p>‘If you would only try a seidlitz——’</p>
<p>‘No, it will be better by and by. Let us go
in——’</p>
<p>‘You shall have a cup of tea, dear.’</p>
<p>They went in together, and Beatrix pleaded
exemption from the formality of dinner, on account
of her headache. She went to her room, and threw
herself on her sofa, and took up the first book that
her hand lighted on, amidst a litter of books and
papers on the old-fashioned writing-table.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[155]</span></p>
<p>It was Dante. That melodious language which
had been her mother’s native tongue had always
been dear to Beatrix, though it was only Miss
Scales’ English lips from which she had learned it.
Her mother had rarely spoken Italian in her
presence. She had tried her best to become an
Englishwoman.</p>
<p>She turned over the familiar pages of the ‘Inferno’
till she came to the story of Paolo and Francesca.</p>
<p>‘Perhaps my mother’s history was like that,’ she
said. ‘She may never have loved my father. Poor
Francesca! And Dante had known her when she
was a happy, innocent child. No wonder that he
should write of her with infinite pity.’</p>
<p>Her thoughts wandered back to that dream-like
time of childhood, in which her mother had been the
chief figure in the picture of life. Poor mother!
There was some deep sorrow—some inexpressible
grief and mystery mixed up with those early years.</p>
<p>Miss Scales brought her some tea, and was full of
affectionate fussiness.</p>
<p>‘Dearest, kindest Miss Scales, if you would only
go and have your dinner, and leave me quite alone,’<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[156]</span>
Beatrix entreated. ‘I know that perfect quiet will
cure my headache.’</p>
<p>‘I’ll only stop till you have finished your tea, my
dear. Oh, by-the-bye, your papa did have a visitor
this afternoon. Quite an event, is it not? Mr.
Culverhouse called, and was in the library for the
best part of an hour, Peacock tells me. I suppose
it was about the schools, or the church, or something.’</p>
<p>‘I suppose so,’ said Beatrix.</p>
<p>Thank Heaven, Miss Scales did not suspect anything.
Beatrix could bear anything better than
people’s sympathy. There was much of her father’s
reserve in her nature. She had never made a confidante
of Isabella Scratchell, of whom she was so
fond.</p>
<p>Miss Scales went away to eat her lonely dinner.
That meal was served for the governess and her pupil
at half-past five o’clock in the cedar parlour—a pretty
old room looking into the garden. Except on Sundays,
when there was a dreary make-believe family
dinner, Mr. Harefield dined alone at seven o’clock
in the spacious dining-room.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[157]</span></p>
<p>It would not be good for his daughter to dine so
late, he said; and he could not dine earlier. On this
pretext he contrived to secure to himself the solitude
which his gloomy soul loved. He was a man who
took no pleasure in eating or drinking. He consumed
his food in an absent-minded manner, for the
most part with an open book beside his plate, and
could not have told any one what he had had for
dinner half an hour after he had dined.</p>
<p>Left to herself Beatrix lay upon the sofa, broad
awake, with her arms folded above her head, still as
a statue—waiting for her doom. That hung in some
measure upon her father’s decision of to-day. But
it was a resolute young soul which stood thus face to
face with destiny—a soul capable of desperate
things. Every line in the girl’s face told of decision.
The firm lips were closely locked, the large dark eyes
looked steadfastly forward, as if looking into the
future and facing its worst issues.</p>
<p>At eight o’clock there came a gentle tapping at
the door.</p>
<p>‘Oh, if you please, miss,’ said the housemaid,
‘master wishes to see you in the library.’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[158]</span></p>
<p>‘It has come,’ thought Beatrix, rising from the
sofa. She paused for an instant as she passed the
cheval glass to survey herself from head to foot. She
was dressed in dark blue cloth, plainly made, fitting
her like a riding habit—a close linen collar clasped
with a gold button. The tall, full figure had more of
womanly pride than girlish grace.</p>
<p>‘Yes,’ she said to herself, ‘I am like my mother.
Perhaps that is why he hates me. And yet, if he
had not loved her better than anything on earth,
why should he be so miserable?’</p>
<p>This was a problem that Beatrix had often tried
to solve. The loss which had blighted her father’s
life must have been the loss of one deeply loved. Yet
Beatrix’s memory of her mother’s last year on earth
could recall no evidence of a husband’s love.</p>
<p>Her father was standing with his back to the fire,
when she went into the library, just in the same attitude
as that in which he had awaited Cyril Culverhouse.
He had changed his long gray dressing-gown
for a frock coat. That was the only alteration.</p>
<p>There was but one lamp in the room—a large
reading lamp with a crimson velvet shade which<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[159]</span>
threw all the light on Mr. Harefield’s table. The
rest of the room was in semi-darkness, fitfully illuminated
by the wood fire.</p>
<p>Mr. Harefield did not waste time upon any ceremonious
preamble.</p>
<p>‘I have had an application for your hand,’ he
said, his daughter standing before him, facing him
steadily.</p>
<p>‘Yes, papa.’</p>
<p>‘You know of it, I suppose?’</p>
<p>‘Yes, papa.’</p>
<p>‘And you approve of it?’</p>
<p>She hesitated for a moment, remembering her
last conversation with Cyril.</p>
<p>‘I am deeply attached to Mr. Culverhouse,’ she
said, her voice trembling a little at the daring confession,
‘and he is the only man I will ever marry.’</p>
<p>‘Indeed! That is coming to the point. How
old are you, Beatrix?’</p>
<p>‘Nineteen.’</p>
<p>‘And you have made up your mind already that
there is but one man upon earth you can love—that
you will marry him, and no other?’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[160]</span></p>
<p>‘Yes, papa,’ she answered, looking at him with
those dark intense eyes of hers—so like other eyes,
long since quenched in eternal night.</p>
<p>‘Yes, papa, I am very sure of that. Fate may be
too strong for me—I feel sometimes as if I were born
for an evil destiny. I may not marry Cyril, perhaps;
but I will never marry any one else.’</p>
<p>‘Do you know that when I am dead—if you do
not offend me—you will be a very rich woman?’</p>
<p>‘I have never thought about it, papa.’</p>
<p>‘Think about it now, then. If you marry to
please me you will have an estate large enough to
make you an important personage in the world. If
you marry Cyril Culverhouse you will not have sixpence.
I will leave all I have in the world to found
an asylum for——’</p>
<p>A coarse word was on his lips, but he checked
himself and substituted a euphuism,—</p>
<p>‘An asylum for nameless children.’</p>
<p>‘Papa, I should be sorry to offend you,’ said
Beatrix, with a quiet resoluteness that took him by
surprise, ‘but the consideration of your wealth would
not influence me in the least. I have seen that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[161]</span>
money cannot bring happiness,’ she went on, unconsciously
repeating Cyril’s argument, ‘and I can let
the chance of being rich slip by me without a pang.
I have quite made up my mind to marry Cyril—to
share his poverty, and be his patient, hard-working
wife—if he will have me.’</p>
<p>‘You deliberately announce your intention to disobey
me!’ cried Mr. Harefield, pale with indignation.</p>
<p>‘You have never given me love. Cyril loves me.
Can you expect me to obey you at the sacrifice of
that love? Do you think it is reasonable, father?’</p>
<p>‘Ah!’ sighed Christian Harefield, ‘it is in the
blood—it is in the blood! It would not be natural
for her to love me.’</p>
<p>He paced the room two or three times, through
the sombre shadows, leaving Beatrix standing by the
hearth. Then he came slowly back, and seated himself
in the large arm-chair beside the fire.</p>
<p>He bent over the logs and stirred them into a
blaze. The broad yellow light leaped up and filled
the room with brightness. The grinning faces in the
carved bookcases came to life, the tarnished gilding
of the books seemed new again.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span></p>
<p>‘Now listen to me, Beatrix,’ he said, without
looking up from the fire. ‘You complain that I
have given you no love. Well, perhaps your complaint
is not baseless. The fountain of my affections
was poisoned at its spring—years ago. If I had
loved you my love would have been baneful. Better
that I should lock my heart against you, that you
should grow up at my side almost as a stranger, near
and yet far off. You have so grown up, and, according
to my lights, I have done my duty to you as a
father. Now comes the question of obedience. You
repudiate my claim to that. I will put the question
in another way. I appeal to your self-interest. Mr.
Culverhouse loves you, you think. Very probably
he does. You are young, handsome, and considering
it to his advantage to fall in love with you, he may
have found the task easy. But be assured that he
loves the heiress better than he loves the woman—that
he looks to your fortune as a stepping-stone to
his advancement. He is ambitious, no doubt. All
these Churchmen are. They assume the religion of
humility, and yet languish for power. Every
country vicar is at heart a Pope, and believes in his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span>
own infallibility. Mr. Culverhouse knows that a
rich wife is the shortest cut to a deanery.’</p>
<p>‘Put him to the test,’ cried Beatrix. ‘Let him
take me without a sixpence.’</p>
<p>‘Yes, he would do that, believing that time
would take the edge off my anger, and that I should
end by leaving you mistress of my estates. He
would speculate upon the chances of the future, and
then when I died and left you nothing, you would
have to pay for his disappointment. A life of
poverty and complaint, discontent, and upbraiding.
Be reasonable, Beatrix. Let the bitter experience of
my <span class="err" title="original: live">life</span> govern yours. Great inequality of fortune
between husband and wife means that one of the
two is dupe or victim. Wait till a suitor approaches
you who has advantages to offer equal to those you
can give. You are tired of this gloomy home—you
want to spread your wings and fly. Be patient for a
little while. For your sake I will come out of my
shell. I will take you to great cities. You shall see
the world, and make your own choice, but make it
wisely. This first choice of yours is only a girl’s
fancy, and means nothing.’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[164]</span></p>
<p>‘It means life or death, papa,’ she answered,
firmly. ‘I shall never change.’</p>
<p>‘And you deliberately refuse to obey me?’</p>
<p>‘Yes, I refuse to sacrifice my happiness at your
bidding. If you had loved me it would have been
different. Your love would have filled my heart.
But my heart was as empty as a desert. I had
nothing but the memory of my mother, and that was
full of sorrow——’</p>
<p>‘Hush!’ said Christian Harefield. ‘Do not speak
of your mother.’</p>
<p>‘Why should I not?’ exclaimed Beatrix,
haughtily. ‘She was good, and pure, and noble. My
heart tells me that. Nothing you could say against
her would shake my faith in her. I love her memory
better—better than anything upon this earth—except
Cyril.’</p>
<p>She said this softly, and for the first time since
she had entered her father’s presence a maidenly
blush dyed her face.</p>
<p>‘Go,’ said Christian Harefield, ‘you and I are as
likely to agree as fire and water. Go. I have no
more to say to you. Take your own course.’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span></p>
<p>She went to the door without a word, but, with
her hand upon the lock, paused, faltered, and came
slowly back to the hearth. Unconsciously she repeated
the conduct of Desdemona after her rebellious
marriage. She knelt at her father’s feet, took his
hand, and kissed it.</p>
<p>‘Forgive me for disobeying you,’ she pleaded.
‘The sacrifice you require is too great.’</p>
<p>He answered not a word, but when she had reached
the door he said, ‘So long as you are in my house,
and under age, I shall insist upon obedience. You
are to go no more to the Vicarage—understand that.’</p>
<p>‘Very well, papa.’</p>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
<div class="chapter">
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span></p>
<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</h2>
</div>
<p class="center"><span class="allsmcap">TWO LOVE LETTERS.</span></p>
<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">Proudly</span> as Beatrix had carried herself while she
was face to face with her father, her firmness gave
way all at once when she left him, and she burst
into a flood of tears.</p>
<p>She went upstairs, intending to go straight to her
own room. She did not want to exhibit her grief
before kindly Miss Scales. She shrank from her
governess’s sympathy—would not for worlds have
told her secret, or bared her wounds, or allowed
Cyril’s affection to be canvassed or criticised. She
wanted no one’s sympathy or advice, and had fully
made up her mind as to her future course.</p>
<p>‘If he will be steadfast to me I will be true to
him,’ she said within herself. ‘I laugh at the thought
of poverty if it is to be shared with him.’</p>
<p>In the dimly lighted corridor she stopped suddenly,
with a start of surprise. Something had happened<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span>
which she had never known to occur before. The key
was in the lock of her mother’s room,—that sealed
chamber, the picture of which was more dimly
painted on her memory than a dream of past years—the
room she had so languished to see.</p>
<p>Without a thought of whether it were right or
wrong she ran to her room at the other end of the
corridor, fetched a candle, and went back to her
mother’s door.</p>
<p>The door was unlocked. She took out the key,
went in, and locked the door inside, to secure herself
from interruption.</p>
<p>‘Dear room,’ she said, looking round in the dim
light. ‘Yes, I remember it better now—and mamma
sitting there in that low chair by the fire—and I
lying on that white rug with my toys scattered
about. Ah, what happy days! The soft fleecy
whiteness used to remind me of snow. And then
when I was tired of play mamma used to take me
into her lap and sing to me. Oh, how I loved her!
No, there is no love like that—no love so sweet, so
strong, so holy! Mother, if you could come back to
me for a few short years I would give up Cyril. I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span>
would sacrifice that newer love for the old one—for
the old love was dearer, sweeter, closer, better.’</p>
<p>She flung herself on her knees beside the empty
chair, and sobbed out her passionate grief. It seemed
to her almost as if there were sympathy in that
contact—a kind of sympathy which comforted her
soul. To these dumb things which breathed of her
mother’s presence she could pour out her sorrow, she
could lay bare her heart. No pride restrained her
here.</p>
<p>So she remained for a long time, till her passion
had almost worn itself out in weeping. Then she
rose and looked round the room, and then slowly
examined each once familiar object, candle in hand.
The dust lay white upon everything, and the spider
had spun his gauzy draperies from curtain to curtain.</p>
<p>Yes. Everything was as she had faintly remembered
it. There stood the Japanese cabinets, with
their rich raised work representing dragons, and
birds, and fishes, and golden trees, and golden bridges,
and golden temples, all golden on a shining black
ground. How often she had stood before one of
those cabinets, admiring the strange creatures!</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[169]</span></p>
<p>‘Are they all gold when they are alive, mamma?’
she had asked once, ‘and do they swim in black
water?’</p>
<p>There stood the frame, with the Berlin wool roses
which she had watched slowly creeping into life
under her mother’s white hands. She lifted the
tissue-paper covering, and looked at the flowers, with
awe-stricken eyes. All these empty years had
scarcely faded them—and yet the hands that had
wrought them were dust.</p>
<p>The centre table was covered with books, and
desks, and dainty workbaskets, all the trifles of a
woman’s daily life—just as Mrs. Harefield had left
them.</p>
<p>Beatrix opened a blotting-book. There was a
letter begun in a woman’s hand—her mother’s doubtless.
The sight of it thrilled her, for it was the first
scrap of her mother’s writing she had seen since she
was old enough to distinguish one style of penmanship
from another.</p>
<p>The letter was dated in the year of her mother’s
death.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[170]</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p class="right">
‘<i>The Water House, September 10th, 1840.</i></p>
<p>
‘<span class="smcap">Dear Mrs. Dulcimer</span>,
</p>
<p>‘We should have been very pleased to
come to you on the 22nd, but Mr. Harefield has
made up his mind to leave for Italy on the 18th, so
you see it would be impossible. Thanks for your
kind advice about little Trix. I agree with you that
she is far from strong, and I am happy to tell you
that Mr. Harefield has consented to my taking her
with me this year. A winter in the South will——’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Here the letter broke off. Mrs. Dulcimer had
called, perhaps, and rendered its completion unnecessary.
Beatrix could just remember that Mrs.
Dulcimer used to call rather often in those days.</p>
<p>The key was in one of the Japanese cabinets.
Beatrix unlocked it, and looked inside. There were
two rows of shallow drawers, with tarnished silver
handles. In the first she opened there was a velvet
covered miniature case which Beatrix recognised
with a start. It was the one which her mother had
taken out of her hand one day.</p>
<p>She opened it and looked at the pictured face
exquisitely painted on ivory. It was such a face as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[171]</span>
one sees in the pictures of the old Italian masters—darkly
beautiful—the lips proud and firm—the
nostrils exquisitely chiselled—the eyes Italian.</p>
<p>‘Was this Antonio?’ Beatrix asked herself,
‘and who was he? And why was his influence
evil in my mother’s life?’</p>
<p>She pursued her examination of the room.
What was this small brass inlaid casket on a table
between the windows? It was a neat little
medicine chest with stoppered bottles. She took
them out one by one. They were for the most
part empty. But one, labelled laudanum, poison,
was three parts full. She put them back into their
places and shut down the lid. ‘I wonder whether
mamma used to take laudanum, as I have done
sometimes, to kill pain?’ she said to herself.</p>
<p>The morning-room opened into the dressing-room,
which communicated with the bedroom.</p>
<p>But the door between the morning-room and
dressing-room was locked. Beatrix could explore no
further.</p>
<p>She unlocked the door, restored the key to its
place on the other side, and returned to her own<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[172]</span>
room. She looked at her watch, and found that it
was half-past ten. She had been an hour in that
chamber of the dead.</p>
<p>She locked the door of her own room, just in
time to escape a visitation from Miss Scales, whose
gentle tapping sounded on the panel five minutes
afterwards.</p>
<p>‘Are you going to bed, dear?’ inquired the
duenna.</p>
<p>‘Yes, Miss Scales, love. Good night.’</p>
<p>‘Good night, dear.’</p>
<p>Beatrix stirred the fire. The autumn nights
were getting chill and shivery. It seemed as if
the river became an embodied dampness at this
time of the year, and stole into the house after
nightfall, like a spectre.</p>
<p>She took out her desk, and in that firm and almost
masculine hand of hers began a letter to Cyril.</p>
<p>‘Dearest,’ she began.</p>
<p>No other name was needed. He was her dearest
and only dear.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>‘<span class="smcap">Dearest</span>,—My father has told me his decision.
It is just as I said it would be. He will bestow<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span>
no blessing upon our love. He has sworn to disinherit
me if I marry you. He is quite resolute,
and will never change his mind, he assures me.
Nothing you or I could do would soften him. If
you marry me you will marry a pauper. I am to
be penniless.</p>
<p>‘Is your mind made up, Cyril? Are you true
and steadfast? If so you will find me firm as
rock. Poverty has no terrors for me. I would
marry you, dearest, if you were a farm labourer
with a dozen shillings a week. I would work,
drudge, and wash and mend, and be your happy
wife. I have told my father as much as this. I
have told him that I renounce his money and his
lands—that I am ready to be your wife whenever
you choose to claim me—that the loss of all he
has to leave cannot make me swerve by one hair’s
breadth from my purpose.</p>
<p>‘Do you think me bold, Cyril, or unwomanly,
for writing thus frankly? If you do please pardon
me, as Romeo pardoned Juliet, because I have not
“more cunning to be strange.” Write to me, dearest.
I am forbidden to go to the Vicarage any more<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[174]</span>
while I remain under my father’s roof; so I have
little hope of seeing you. Write and tell me what
you wish.</p>
<p class="center">
‘Your ever affectionate</p>
<p class="right">‘<span class="smcap">Beatrix</span>.’
</p></blockquote>
<p>What was Cyril Culverhouse to do on receiving
such a letter as this of Beatrix Harefield’s, after
his promise to her father that he would hold no
further communication with her? To leave such a
letter unanswered was impossible to any man. To
break his word and answer it in an underhand
manner was impossible to Cyril Culverhouse.</p>
<p>The woman he loved declared herself all his
own. She held the sacrifice of fortune as a feather
weighed against his love. She was ready to be
his wife, unfettered, unburdened by the wealth
which had never entered into his views or
desires. The loss of that wealth would weigh as
lightly with him as it did with her. But could
he be so selfish as to take this impetuous girl at her
word? Could he say to her, ‘Sacrifice all things
for my sake, fortune and duty, your father’s estate<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span>
and your father’s regard. Disobey and defy your
father at my bidding?’ Could he, whose mission
it was to teach others their duty, so far violate his
own?</p>
<p>Cyril told himself that he could not do this
thing. He was a man who had built his life upon
principle, and though, in this case, passion urged
him strongly to do wrong, principle was stronger,
and insisted upon his doing right.</p>
<p>He asked advice from no one—not even from
his cousin Kenrick, who had found out the secret
of his heart.</p>
<p>This is what he wrote to Beatrix within three
hours of the delivery of her letter, hours which he
had given to deepest thought:—</p>
<div class="blockquot">
<p>‘<span class="smcap">My Best and Dearest</span>,—How can I thank
you enough for your noble letter, and for its dear
assurance that fortune ranks no higher in your
esteem than it does in mine? How can I answer
you conscientiously, and with a strict adherence
to the hard path of duty—and not seem to
answer coldly?</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span></p>
<p>‘If I could answer you as my heart prompts
I should say, “Let us begin our life journey at
once.” I have no fear of the issue. Were I a
fatalist, I should feel myself strong enough to
conquer adverse fate, with you by my side. Believing
as I do in a Divine goodness governing and
guiding all things, I can survey the future with
infinite reliance, feeling certain that all things will
be well for us if we only cleave to the right.</p>
<p>‘It would not be right, dearest, for me to profit
by the impulse of your warm heart, which prompts
you to make so large a sacrifice for my sake. You
are but just emerging from childhood into womanhood,
and you can hardly measure the losses you
are at this moment willing to incur. Let us wait a
few years, love, and if time and experience confirm
your present purpose, most proudly and gladly will
I take my darling to my heart, free from the
splendid burden of wealth. Let us wait at least
till you are of age, and then, if you are still true
to your purpose of to-day, you will be justified in
choosing for yourself. No father has the right to
impose his wishes upon a child where a life’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[177]</span>
happiness or misery is at stake, but he has the right
to do his uttermost to prevent an unwise choice.
Your father has done me the injustice to think me
a fortune-hunter. He might be justified in thinking
me something less than an honourable man, if
I were to take advantage of your guileless nature,
which knows not worldly prudence or the thought
of change.</p>
<p>‘Love, I dare not write more than this. I
dare not let my heart go out to you, as it would,
in fondest words. I want to write soberly, wisely,
if possible. Wait, dear love, for two little years,
and, with God’s help, I shall have won a better
position in my profession, a home which, although
humble compared with your father’s house, may
be not unworthy of a true and loving wife.</p>
<p>‘During those two years of waiting we shall have
to live apart. I have promised your father that
I will make no attempt to see or communicate
with you till after your twenty-first birthday.
Even to convey this letter to you I shall have
to appeal to his generosity. I shall not break that
promise. Dear as my work in Little Yafford has<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[178]</span>
become to me, I shall leave this place as soon as
I can hear of an eligible curacy elsewhere. Hitherto
my work has been only a labour of love. Henceforward
I am a man anxious to succeed in my
profession. I do not mean that I am going to
sacrifice my Divine calling to the desire to win a
home for my sweet wife,—only that I shall, so
far as may be justifiable, seek to improve my
position.</p>
<p>‘Farewell, dearest. Remember that while I
hold myself bound to you, I leave you free; and,
if the future should show you a fairer life than
that which I can give you, you have but to send
me one line, “Cyril, the dream is ended,” and I
will submit, as to the will of God.</p>
<p class="center">
‘Yours till death,</p>
<p class="right">‘<span class="smcap">Cyril Culverhouse</span>.’
</p>
</div>
<p>This letter Cyril enclosed in an envelope, addressed
to Mr. Harefield, with the following note:—</p>
<div class="blockquot">
<p>‘<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—I promised not to write to your
daughter until after her twenty-first birthday.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span>
She has written to me, and I cannot leave her
letter unanswered. I must appeal to your kindness
therefore to give her the enclosed letter, read
or unread, as it may please you. There is not a
word in it that I should blush for you to read, yet
I shall be grateful if you deliver the letter unread.
I cannot think that you will refuse to make this
concession, as, if you do so, you will place me in
the position of having received a noble and self-sacrificing
letter from your daughter, and of leaving
it wholly unacknowledged.</p>
<p class="center">
‘Your obedient servant,</p>
<p class="right">‘<span class="smcap">Cyril Culverhouse</span>.’
</p>
</div>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
<div class="chapter">
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span></p>
<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.</h2>
</div>
<p class="center"><span class="allsmcap">BELLA IN SEARCH OF A MISSION.</span></p>
<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">While</span> taking charge of Bella Scratchell’s destiny,
Mrs. Dulcimer’s busy mind had not forgotten the
interests of her older <i>protégé</i>, Sir Kenrick Culverhouse,
whose mortgaged estate was to be set
free by means of Beatrix Harefield’s fortune. She
was quite pleased with herself for the brilliant idea
of disposing comfortably of Cyril by handing him
over to Miss Scratchell, and thus leaving Sir
Kenrick without a rival in the field.</p>
<p>‘That foolish husband of mine would have
been trying to make a match between Beatrix
and his favourite Cyril,’ she said to herself. ‘But
if I can put it into Cyril’s head that Bella
Scratchell is very fond of him, he is almost sure
to fall over head and ears in love with her. Men
always do. I have not forgotten Benedick and
Beatrice.’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[181]</span></p>
<p>All Mrs. Dulcimer’s good intents with regard
to Sir Kenrick and the mortgages were suddenly
frustrated by a letter from Beatrix, which at once
surprised and puzzled her.</p>
<div class="blockquot">
<p>‘<span class="smcap">Dearest Mrs. Dulcimer</span>,—My father has
forbidden me to visit your pleasant house any
more. I am to have no more happy hours in
dear Mr. Dulcimer’s library, or with you in your
pretty garden. I cannot tell you the reason of
his harsh conduct. It is nothing that concerns
you or Mr. Dulcimer. It is for a fault of my
own that I am henceforward denied the happiness
I found in your friendship and society.</p>
<p>‘Pray think of me kindly, and remember that
I shall be always, as long as I live,</p>
<p class="center">
‘Your grateful and affectionate</p>
<p class="right">
‘<span class="smcap">Beatrix</span>.’
</p>
</div>
<p>Here was a dead lock. Poor Kenrick’s hopes
were nipped in the bud. Happily Kenrick himself
had not yet begun to hope. It was Mrs.
Dulcimer who was disappointed. She would have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[182]</span>
abandoned herself to despair if she had not been
provided with that other scheme in favour of
Cyril and Bella,—a smaller business, but one that
served to occupy her mind. After Mrs. Dulcimer’s
visit to the Scratchell domicile, Bella came very
often to the Vicarage, carrying her neat little
leather work-bag, and spending the afternoon in a
friendly way. If she did not come of her own
accord, Mrs. Dulcimer would even go the length
of sending Rebecca, or that useful lad who was
a boot, knife, and garden boy in the morning, and
a page in the afternoon, to fetch her. The Vicar’s
wife was glad to have a companion who appreciated
her conversation better than the absent-minded
Vicar, whose eyes were always on his
books, and whose answers were too obviously
mechanical. So it happened that, through this
skilful contriving of Mrs. Dulcimer’s, Bella found
herself very often in Cyril’s society. Cyril was
very fond of Mr. Dulcimer, and had a good deal
of parish work to discuss with him. This brought
him to the Vicarage nearly every evening. He
used to drop in at the fag end of the tea—a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[183]</span>
substantial meal which was tea and supper combined—and
take his place by Mrs. Dulcimer, at a
corner of the tray, just in time for the last
decent cup of tea, as the Vicar’s wife would
remark plaintively.</p>
<p>‘Why don’t you come at seven o’clock, and
sit down with us in a sociable manner,’ she complained,
‘instead of coming in when the teapot is
just exhausted? Bella has been quite anxious
about you. “I’m sure Mr. Culverhouse over-fatigues
himself in his devotion to his parish
work,” she said just now.’</p>
<p>Bella blushed, and turned her pretty blue eyes
shyly upon the curate.</p>
<p>‘And I am sure you do,’ she said. ‘It’s quite
dreadful. You will have a fever or something.
You are so careless about your health.’</p>
<p>Cyril saw neither the blush nor the shy look
in the soft blue eyes. Bella’s eyes wore always
that soft look in company, but they could harden
and assume a much keener gaze during the everyday
business of life.</p>
<p>‘I never was ill in my life,’ said Cyril, in a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[184]</span>
provokingly matter-of-fact tone, not in the least
touched by this feminine interest in his welfare.</p>
<p>It was very aggravating, but Benedick was so
at first, Mrs. Dulcimer remembered.</p>
<p>‘How much I miss Beatrix Harefield!’ said
the Vicar. ‘There is something original about that
girl which always interested me—and then she
has such a mind to appreciate books. I never
saw so young a creature fasten as she does on a
great book. She seems to have an instinct which
always leads her to the best.’</p>
<p>‘She is a noble creature,’ said Cyril, quietly.</p>
<p>‘What a wife she would have made for your
cousin!’ exclaimed Mrs. Dulcimer, too eager to
be able to mask her batteries altogether.</p>
<p>‘She would make a noble wife—for any man,’
assented Cyril.</p>
<p>‘Of course, but she and your cousin seemed
so peculiarly suited to each other. There is
something about both of them so much above
the common herd—a <i>je ne sais quoi</i>—a patrician
air—an aristocratic way of thinking. And then,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[185]</span>
with such a fortune as Miss Harefield’s, your
cousin’s position——’</p>
<p>‘Pray do not let Miss Harefield’s fortune enter
into the question,’ cried Cyril, impatiently. ‘Kenrick
is not a fortune-hunter, and Miss Harefield
is far too noble a woman for one to tolerate the
idea of her being married for her money.’</p>
<p>‘My dear Cyril, I never had such an idea.
You need not take me up so sharply. Kenrick a
fortune-hunter!—of course not. But where these
things combine——However we need not dispute
about it. That wretched Mr. Harefield is resolved
to immure his daughter in that dreary old house
of his. She is as badly off as a princess in a
fairy tale.’</p>
<p>‘Worse,’ said Bella, ‘for there are no adventurous
princes in these degenerate days.’</p>
<p>‘How does she bear this cruel treatment?’
asked Cyril, looking at Bella for the first time,
since he had shaken hands with her on arriving.
‘You see her often, don’t you, Miss Scratchell?’</p>
<p>‘Two or three times a week. But she is so reserved—even
with me, though we are such old friends.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[186]</span>
I never quite know what she thinks or feels. She is
all that is nice—and I am devotedly attached to her—but
she never treats me with the same frankness
I show to her. She has looked unhappy since
Mr. Harefield put a stop to her visits here—but she
never complains.’</p>
<p>‘I should call at the Water House,’ said Mrs.
Dulcimer, ‘for I long to see the dear girl; but I
really cannot face that dreadful Mr. Harefield; and,
as he has forbidden Beatrix to come here, I dare say
he would not allow her to see me. I wonder you
are allowed to visit her, Bella.’</p>
<p>‘Oh,’ said Bella, ‘I don’t count. I am only admitted
as a humble companion. Mr. Harefield
thinks no more of me than of one of the servants.’</p>
<p>Tea was over by this time, and the family had
retired to the library, which was Mr. Dulcimer’s
favourite evening room. There he had his pet chair,
his reading table and lamp, and could take up a book,
or lay it down as he pleased. Even the backs of his
books were dear to him. In his idler moments he
would lean back in his chair and gaze at them
dreamily, in a rapture of content. To him those<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[187]</span>
bindings of various hues, some sober, some gorgeous,
were as familiar faces. There was Burton yonder, in
calf antique, the Oxford edition—there Southey’s
‘Doctor,’ in crimson morocco—there the old dramatists
in brown and gold. Anon came a solid block of
histories, from Herodotus to Guizot.</p>
<p>Mrs. Dulcimer established herself at her work
table, with Bella by her side. The curate seated
himself by his Vicar and began to talk of the parish.
In her heart Bella hated that parish talk—the rheumatic
old women—the sick children—men who were
out of work or down with fever—the sufferers—the
sinners—the cases of all kinds that needed help.</p>
<p>‘If I were a man I would rather be a chimneysweep
than a clergyman,’ she thought. ‘One might
get to like sooty chimneys, in time; but I am sure I
could never get to like poor people.’</p>
<p>And yet at that moment Bella was contemplating
a step which would bring her into very close contact
with the poor of Little Yafford.</p>
<p>It was a quiet humdrum evening, enlivened only
by Mrs. Dulcimer’s small talk about her neighbours
or her needlework, and the indistinct murmurs of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[188]</span>
those two men on the other side of the wide old
hearth. But to Bella it was infinitely more agreeable
than the noisy evenings at home—the father’s
grumblings and growlings—the squabblings and snappings
of boys and girls—the house-mother’s moaning
about the maid-of-all-work’s misdoings. It was
pleasant to sit in this pretty room, lined with many-coloured
volumes, all kept with an exquisite neatness,
which was a feature in Mr. Dulcimer’s love of books.
The glow of the fire, the subdued radiance of the
lamps, the rich dark red of the curtains, made a
warm brightness unknown in those bare rooms at
home. And every now and then Bella’s blue eyes
shot a glance at the curate’s earnest face—or, when
he was most occupied, dwelt upon it admiringly for
a few moments.</p>
<p>‘Ten o’clock,’ exclaimed Mrs. Dulcimer, as the
skeleton clock on the chimney-piece chimed the hour.
‘I wouldn’t make your poor mother uneasy for the
world, Bella dear—Cyril, I know you’ll be kind enough
to see Bella safe home. You pass her door, you
know.’</p>
<p>Mr. Culverhouse knew it perfectly.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[189]</span></p>
<p>‘I shall be very happy,’ he said kindly.</p>
<p>He looked with favour on Bella—as a harmless
little thing, and Beatrix’s friend.</p>
<p>Bella slipped away, beaming with smiles, to put
on her bonnet. ‘That girl contrives to look well in
everything she wears,’ said Mrs. Dulcimer. ‘Isn’t
she pretty?’</p>
<p>As this was directly addressed to Cyril, he felt
himself compelled to answer.</p>
<p>‘Well, yes,’ he deliberated. ‘I suppose she is
the kind of little person usually called pretty. Pink
and white prettiness.’</p>
<p>‘Pink and white!’ cried Mrs. Dulcimer, ‘you
might say as much as that of a wax doll. Bella’s
complexion is as delicate as Dresden china.’</p>
<p>‘Don’t be angry with me, Mrs. Dulcimer, but I
must confess I hate Dresden china,’ said Cyril,
laughing. ‘But I like Miss Scratchell,’ he added
hastily, ‘because she seems good and amiable. She
must have a hard life with all those brothers and
sisters.’</p>
<p>‘A hard life,’ echoed Mrs. Dulcimer. ‘Ah, you
don’t know what an angel that girl is in her mother’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[190]</span>
house. She does everything—cuts out her sisters
dresses even—and with such an eye for fashion.’</p>
<p>‘I can’t fancy an angel cutting out dresses, or
having an eye for fashion.’</p>
<p>‘For shame, Cyril! You young men can’t appreciate
domestic virtues. You would think more of
her if I told you that she wanted to go into a
convent, or to chop somebody’s head off, like Judith.
That girl will make a perfect wife.’</p>
<p>‘I have no doubt she will. And I dare say you
have already decided on the happy man who is to be
her husband,’ replied Cyril, innocently.</p>
<p>Mrs. Dulcimer actually blushed.</p>
<p>Bella came back in her neat little bonnet, and
comfortable shepherd’s plaid shawl. Those were
days in which women still wore bonnets and shawls.
She looked the picture of sweetness and innocence
in that cottage bonnet, tied under her pretty little
chin, and surrounding her face like a halo.</p>
<p>‘I am so sorry to trouble you,’ she said, as she
walked away from the Vicarage, with her hand on
Cyril’s arm.</p>
<p>‘It is not the least trouble, but a pleasure to be
of use to you.’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[191]</span></p>
<p>‘You are much too good. But I am going to be
really troublesome. I want to make you my father
confessor.’</p>
<p>‘About the husband Mrs. Dulcimer has in view,’
thought Cyril, expecting to be made adviser in a
love affair.</p>
<p>‘Indeed,’ he said kindly. ‘I am sure you can
have nothing very appalling to confess. And if my
advice can be of any use to you it is entirely at your
service.’</p>
<p>‘How kind you are!’ exclaimed Bella. ‘I wonder
sometimes that you can find so much kindness for
every one—that you can sympathize with so many—that
you are never worn out or impatient, or——’</p>
<p>‘I should be very unworthy of my vocation if I
could be so easily wearied,’ said Cyril, stopping this
discursive gush of laudation. ‘But I am waiting to
hear your confession.’</p>
<p>‘I hardly know how to begin,’ faltered Bella.
‘But—yes. I must say so. Your sermons have
awakened my conscience. I think it must have been
cold and dead till you came to us. But you have
taught me to consider things more deeply. I see
what an empty and useless life I am leading——’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[192]</span></p>
<p>‘Why, Mrs. Dulcimer has just been praising your
usefulness,’ said Cyril, kindly, a kindness that fluttered
Bella’s heart with baseless hopes. ‘She has
been telling me how much you do for your mother
and sisters.’</p>
<p>‘Oh yes,’ replied Bella, carelessly, ‘of course
I try to be useful at home. I work for my own
family. But that is such an obvious duty, and
there is a pleasure in doing those things that is
almost self-indulgence.’</p>
<p>What a different story Adolphus and Bertie
could have told about Bella’s black looks when
she had to sew on buttons for them!</p>
<p>‘What I should like would be to do some good
for the poor, those wretched creatures for whom
you do so much. My mornings are all occupied
in teaching—but I have my afternoons to myself,—and
I think I could spare three afternoons a
week, if you would show me how I could be
useful—in visiting and reading, or teaching the
children.’</p>
<p>‘You are very good,’ said Cyril, thoughtfully,
‘and I like you for having such a thought. But<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[193]</span>
I really don’t know what to say. I have several
kind ladies who help me.’</p>
<p>‘Who run after you, you should say,’ thought
Bella, savagely. ‘Forward minxes.’</p>
<p>‘And really I hesitate at the idea of withdrawing
you from a home in which you are so
useful. For after all, your mother, with her numerous
family, has as much need of sympathy——’</p>
<p>‘As those horrid rheumatic old women,’ thought
Bella. ‘I should think so, indeed.’</p>
<p>‘In short, my dear Miss Scratchell, your present
life seems to me so usefully and wisely employed,
that I can hardly bring myself to propose any
alteration.’</p>
<p>‘Perhaps you think that I should be of no use
in the parish work,’ suggested Bella.</p>
<p>‘Believe me, no. Indeed, I think, with your
taste and handiness, and industrious habits, you
might be of much use. The poor are often sadly
deficient in taste and neatness, and the power to
make the best of things. If you could go among
the younger people, and show them how to be
neat and tasteful in their homes, and in their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[194]</span>
dress, to make the best of their small resources,
to cultivate the beauty of cleanliness and tidiness—if
you could show them how much beauty
there is to be got out of the simplest things—in
a word, if you could elevate their taste——’ said
Mr. Culverhouse, with vague yearnings after sweetness
and light. ‘Yes, I am sure you could be
useful, as an apostle of the beautiful.’</p>
<p>Bella’s face crimsoned with a happy blush.
Her whole being thrilled with triumph. She took
this as a compliment to herself. He thought her
beautiful. Mrs. Dulcimer was right. He loved
her, and in good time would tell her of his love.</p>
<p>‘Tell me where to go, and what to do,’ she said,
in a voice that trembled with joyful feeling.</p>
<p>‘I will make out a list of people. I shall not
send you among the very poor, or to those who
would pester you for money. I will send you into
homes where there are young people, where sympathy
and kindly interest in small things will be
of use.’</p>
<p>‘A thousand thanks,’ cried Bella; ‘I shall feel
so much happier when I know that I have some<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[195]</span>
small share in the work you do so nobly. Here
we are at home. Will you come in and see papa?’</p>
<p>She devoutly hoped that he would decline, knowing
too well the general untidiness of home at this
hour.</p>
<p>‘Not to-night; it is too late. But I will call
in a day or two.’</p>
<p>Bertie opened the door, keeping himself wedged
behind it, as if it had been opened by a supernatural
power.</p>
<p>‘Good night,’ said Bella.</p>
<p>‘Good night,’ said the curate, with a kindness
which Bella mistook for affection.</p>
<p>‘Why, Bella, what have you been painting your
cheeks with?’ cried Adolphus, when Miss Scratchell
entered the family parlour, where the solicitor was
sitting by the fire, reading one of the county papers—about
the only literature with which he ever
recreated his mind—while poor Mrs. Scratchell
sighed over a basket of stockings, mostly past
mending, or requiring a miracle of ingenuity in the
mender. It was a miserable home to come back
to, Bella thought; and again that vision of an ideal<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[196]</span>
parsonage arose before her mental eye—a paradise
of roses and rosebud chintz, Venetian blinds, and
a pony chaise. The fulfilment of that dream seemed
nearer to her to-night than when first Mrs. Dulcimer
conjured up the delightful picture.</p>
<p>‘He seemed pleased with my offer to visit his
tiresome poor people,’ thought Bella, as she brushed
her soft auburn locks. ‘It will bring us more
together, perhaps; and, if he really cares for me,
that will please him.’</p>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
<div class="chapter">
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[197]</span></p>
<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.</h2>
</div>
<p class="center"><span class="allsmcap">‘OH, THINK’ST THOU WE SHALL EVER MEET AGAIN?’</span></p>
<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">Bella’s</span> hopes were realized insomuch that her offer
to visit his cottagers certainly did bring her more
directly in contact with Mr. Culverhouse than she
had ever been yet. From that hour Cyril became
friendly and confidential—he had found some one
besides the Vicar and Mrs. Dulcimer to whom he
could talk about his poor parishioners, their wants,
their virtues, and their vices. He found Bella full
of sympathy. She took up her new work with
ardour. She made friends wherever she went. His
people were full of her praises. Perhaps, if Cyril’s
heart had been free, he might have obliged Mrs.
Dulcimer by falling in love with her latest <i>protégée</i>.
There was something so nice about Bella Scratchell—a
winning softness, a gentle submission to other
people, a kittenish sleekness and grace, accompanied
with all a petted kitten’s caressing ways.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[198]</span></p>
<p>‘That girl has really a remarkable sweetness of
character,’ said Cyril, who, like most young men
fresh from the university, fancied he understood
mankind.</p>
<p>He praised Isabella warmly to Mrs. Dulcimer,
and thereby stimulated that lady’s efforts.</p>
<p>‘How clever it was of you to propose to visit
the poor!’ said the Vicar’s wife to Bella, approvingly.
‘Just the very thing to please him.’</p>
<p>‘Oh, dear Mrs. Dulcimer, I hope you don’t
think I did it on that account,’ cried Bella, with a
shocked look. ‘It is a real pleasure to me to be of
some little use. When I see how good you and
Mr. Dulcimer are——’</p>
<p>‘Oh, my dear, I’m afraid I don’t go among the
poor as much as I ought. Anxious as I am to do
good, I don’t get on with them as well as Clement
does. I can’t help telling them when I see things
going wrong, and trying to set them in the right
way. And they resent that. One must look on
and smile as if everything was right—dirt—muddle—extravagance—everything.
It is too trying for
any one with an energetic temper. I’m sure only<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[199]</span>
the other day I said to Maria Bowes—whom I’ve
known all my life—“If I were you, Maria, I’d try
to have your keeping-room a little neater—and a
few flowers in the window—and the hearth always
swept up. It would be so much nicer for Bowes
when he comes home from his work.” “I dare say I
should have it so if I’d three women-servants, and
a boy to clean up after them,” she answered, quite
impertinently, “and, if my keeping-room wasn’t
kitchen and chamber too.” “Do you mean to say
that I keep too many servants, Maria?” I said. “No,
ma’am,” she answered, “but I mean that gentlefolks
can’t tell how difficult poor folks find it to cook a
bit of victuals, and keep their children from getting
ragged, without fiddle-faddling with cleaning up a
place that’s no sooner cleaned than it’s mucked
again.”’</p>
<p>‘I can pity her, poor wretch,’ said Bella, ‘for
it’s like that with us at home, though we make
believe to think ourselves gentlefolks. It’s as much
as mother can do to keep things together anyhow;
and every Saturday night is a struggle to get the
children’s clothes decent for Sunday. Mother and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[200]</span>
I often sit up till after twelve o’clock, sewing on
buttons, and darning stockings.’</p>
<p>‘Ah, what a wife you will make, Bella!’ exclaimed
Mrs. Dulcimer, as if a wife’s one duty were
the repair of her husband’s garments.</p>
<hr class="tb" />
<p>The woods were growing browner, the moorland
grayer. The mists of chill November crept up from
the valley, and hung upon the hill-side. The river
was half hidden under a silvery veil, on those dim
November afternoons. An autumnal tranquillity
hung over the sombre old Water House. The
dahlias and hollyhocks were dead, the chrysanthemums
were fading—autumn primroses showed
pale in quiet nooks of the garden, and along by the
old-fashioned borders stole the welcome odour of
late violets.</p>
<p>How often Cyril Culverhouse lingered on the
old Roman bridge to look at the house which held
the one woman he loved! The entrance tower and
a couple of fine old yew trees hid the river walk
from him, or he might have seen Beatrix pacing
slowly up and down in melancholy solitude.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[201]</span></p>
<p>She had not answered his letter, but he had
received a brief note from Mr. Harefield.</p>
<div class="blockquot">
<p>‘<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—I have delivered your letter to my
daughter unread. I hope the next two years will
bring her wisdom.</p>
<p class="center">
‘Yours obediently,</p>
<p class="right">
‘<span class="smcap">Christian Harefield</span>.’
</p>
</div>
<p>Cyril had questioned Bella Scratchell more
than once about her friend, without betraying the
warmth of his interest in Beatrix.</p>
<p>‘Yes, she is very dull, poor thing,’ said Bella.
‘I am more sorry for her than I can say. I go
there as often as I can, and do what I can to cheer
her. But Beatrix was never a cheerful girl, you
know, and she gets graver and more silent every
day. Miss Scales is quite anxious about her, and
wants her to take bark.’</p>
<p>‘I doubt if bark is a cure for an unhappy home,’
said Cyril.</p>
<p>‘No—if you call her home unhappy. But really
she has everything a girl could wish. Handsome
old rooms to herself—no disorder—no noisy brothers<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[202]</span>
upsetting things. She has her books—and a governess
who adores her—a fine old garden beautifully
kept—a pony carriage—a horse to ride.’</p>
<p>‘Unfortunately those things won’t make youth
happy,’ answered the curate: ‘they might be sufficient
for happiness at the end of life; they are not
enough for it at the beginning.’</p>
<p>‘I know that life is a very different thing without
them,’ sighed Bella.</p>
<p>‘Would you change places with Miss Harefield?’
asked Cyril.</p>
<p>Bella blushed and cast down her eyes.</p>
<p>‘No,’ she said softly.</p>
<p>She meant that she would not barter her hope of
Cyril’s love for the advantages of Beatrix Harefield’s
position, though she had envied those advantages
ever since the childish days in which she first
became Miss Harefield’s playfellow.</p>
<p>One afternoon, towards the close of November,
Cyril was returning from a tramp across the moor.
He had been to a distant village to see the ailing
married daughter of one of his parishioners, who
had fancied that a visit from the kind curate would<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[203]</span>
do her sick daughter more good than ‘doctor’s stuff.’
It was a clear afternoon, a yellow sunset brightening
the western horizon. This long lonely walk had
given him much time for thought, and he had been
thinking of Beatrix all the way. She was so much
in his thoughts that, although he had had no hope
of meeting her, it seemed scarcely strange to him
when he heard the muffled sound of hoofs upon the
short grass, and looking round saw her riding
towards him at a fast canter.</p>
<p>What was he to do? He had promised to hold
himself aloof from her. He was neither to see nor
write to her during the two years of probation. He
had made up his mind that she would pass him at
that flying pace, that he would see the slim figure—erect
in the saddle, firmly seated as an Arab on his
loosely held courser—flash by him like a vision of
pride and beauty, and be gone. He stood bare-headed
to see her pass, expecting to receive no
more notice than a bow, or doubtful even whether
she would see him, when she pulled her horse
almost on his haunches, wheeled round, and met
him face to face.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[204]</span></p>
<p>‘How lucky!’ she cried, flushing with delight.
‘I have been dying to see you. I thought I could not
be mistaken, when I saw your figure in the distance,
and I rode after you.’</p>
<p>She slipped lightly out of the saddle, and stood
beside him, bridle in hand, the petted horse rubbing
his velvet nose against her shoulder.</p>
<p>‘William is half a mile behind,’ she said. ‘He’s
on one of papa’s old hunters. Don’t you hear him?’</p>
<p>A distant noise, like the puffing of a steam-engine,
announced the groom’s approach.</p>
<p>‘Cyril,’ cried Beatrix, ‘are you as glad to see me
as I am to see you?’</p>
<p>‘It is more than gladness that I feel, dear,’ he
answered, clasping her hands and looking earnestly
at the expressive face, which had faded to a sickly
pallor after the flush of joy, ‘but, my dearest, how
ill you are looking, how changed——’</p>
<p>‘Oh, I have been miserable,’ she said, impetuously,
‘simply miserable. I miss you every
day in the week, every hour in the day. I did
not see you very often, did I? And yet, now that I
am forbidden to go to the Vicarage, it seems as if<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[205]</span>
my life had been spent in your society. Oh, you
have work to do, you have noble ideas to fill your
mind! How can you tell the blankness of a
woman’s life, parted from all she loves?’</p>
<p>‘My darling, it is not for life; it is only for a
little while.’</p>
<p>‘A little while!’ she cried, impatiently. ‘A
day is an age when one is miserable. I wake
every morning, oh so early! and see the dreary
gray light, and say to myself, “What does it matter?
Night and day are alike to me. I shall not see
him.” Cyril, why did you write me that cruel
letter?’</p>
<p>The groom had ridden up by this time on his
roaring hunter, and was standing at a respectful
distance, wondering what his young mistress could
have to say to the curate, and why she had dismounted
in order to say it.</p>
<p>‘My own love, how could I write otherwise?
I promised your father that for two years I would
respect his desires, that I would counsel you to
no act of disobedience till you were old enough
to take the full measure of your acts—till time<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[206]</span>
had changed impulse into conviction. How could
I have written otherwise than as I did?’</p>
<p>‘You could have said, “Defy your father as I
do, laugh to scorn the loss of fortune, as I do.
Be my wife. We shall be very poor, perhaps, for
the first few years. But Heaven will take care
of us as the ravens cared for Elijah.” That is
how you ought to have written to me.’</p>
<p>He was sorely tempted by her—tempted to take
her to his heart that moment, to rain kisses on the
sweet pale face that he had never kissed—to mount
her on her lively young bay horse, and steal the
groom’s hunter for himself, and ride off to the
Scottish border with her, and be married by the
unlearned priest of Gretna, who was still plying his
profitable trade. Never was man more tempted.
But he had given his promise, and meant to keep it.</p>
<p>‘Two years hence, my dearest, please God, I
will have a home for you that shall not mean
absolute poverty. I cannot break my word, love.
We must wait till you are one-and-twenty. It is
not a long time.’</p>
<p>‘It would not seem long if my father had been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[207]</span>
reasonable—if he had not forbidden me to see
you, or write to you. Cyril,’ she said, looking at
him with sudden intensity, ‘is it a sin to wish
for the death of any one?’</p>
<p>‘My dear one, you must know that it is—a
deadly sin: “Whosoever hateth his brother is a
murderer.”’</p>
<p>‘I do not hate my father; but sometimes I
find myself thinking of what would happen if he
were to die. I should be free—rich. I could give
you my fortune—you could lavish it all on acts
of charity and beneficence. We would live like
poor people. We would devote our lives to doing
good. We would show the world how a parish
priest and his wife ought to live.’</p>
<p>‘Beatrix, pray continually against wicked
thoughts. There could be no deadlier sin than to
desire your father’s death. God forbid that you
should fall into it! I have never sighed for wealth—nor
do I believe that a man’s opportunities of
doing good depend upon the length of his purse.
For one man who will find will and energy,
patience and perseverance, to help his fellow-men,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[208]</span>
there are a hundred ready to give their money.
No, dear love, we can be happy without your
father’s wealth. We should be no happier for his
death. We have but to be true to each other,
and all will be well.’</p>
<p>The groom came up to remind his mistress
that the short day was closing, and that the
moorland road was dangerous after dark.</p>
<p>‘God bless you, dearest, and good-bye,’ said
Cyril.</p>
<p>‘Oh, why are you in such haste to get rid of
me?’ she cried, impatiently, in French, the groom
standing close by, ready to lift her on to her horse.
‘It may be ages before we meet again. You talked
in that cruel letter of leaving Little Yafford. When
is that to be?’</p>
<p>‘I have taken no step yet. This place is dear
to me. But I shall leave soon after Christmas,
if I can do so without inconvenience to the Vicar.’</p>
<p>‘I shall feel just a shade more miserable when
you are gone,’ said Beatrix.</p>
<p>She put her slim foot upon William’s broad
palm, and sprang lightly into her saddle.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[209]</span></p>
<p>Cyril watched her as she rode slowly down
the hill, looking back at him now and then, forlornly,
as from the vessel that was carrying her into exile.
His heart bled for her, but the idea that she had
calculated the possibilities that hung upon her
father’s death—that she had even sinned so deeply
as to wish him dead—haunted him painfully.</p>
<p>Was there a strain of hardness in this impetuous
nature—a flaw in this gem which he had
hitherto counted peerless? Well, she was not perfect,
perhaps. His creed taught him that there was
no soul so pure but on its virgin whiteness showed
some dark spot of sin. And she had been hardly
treated—held at arm’s length by her father’s coldness.
She had been reared in a home unsanctified
by affection.</p>
<p>He pleaded for her, and excused her in his
own mind, and was full of sorrow for her.</p>
<p>But for him, as she had said, life was full of
interest and action. For him two years seemed a
little while.</p>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
<div class="chapter">
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[210]</span></p>
<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
</div>
<p class="center"><span class="allsmcap">SIR KENRICK’S ANCESTRAL HOME.</span></p>
<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">Sir Kenrick Culverhouse</span> had gone to Hampshire
to look at the old domain. He had plenty of
friends in the neighbourhood of Culverhouse, who
would have been glad to give him hospitality, but
he preferred the less luxurious accommodation of
his own house, which was maintained by a couple
of faithful old servants, very much in the style of
the Master of Ravenswood’s immortal <i>ménage</i> at
Wolf’s Craig. The old butler was not so amusing
or so enthusiastic as Caleb Balderstone; but he
was every whit as faithful, and preferred his board
wages and bacon dumplings, in the halls of the
good old race, to those fleshpots of Egypt which
he might perchance have found in the service of
some mushroom gentleman or commercial magnate
newly established in the neighbourhood.</p>
<p>People had told Kenrick that he ought to let<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[211]</span>
Culverhouse Castle, and that he might add considerably
to his income by so doing. But Kenrick
repudiated the idea of an income so obtained.
To allow purse-proud city people to come and
criticise those old familiar rooms, and make rude
remarks upon the shabbiness of the furniture—to
have some newly-made country squire, whose
beginnings were on the Stock Exchange, airing his
unaccustomed grandeur in the rooms where meek
Lady Culverhouse had lived her tranquil unoffending
life—no; Kenrick would have starved rather
than sanction such a desecration. His mother’s
gentle shadow still occupied the rooms she had
loved. He would not have that peaceful ghost
scared away by horsey young ladies or billiard-playing
young men.</p>
<p>At a cost of about a hundred and fifty pounds
a year—nearly half his small income—Kenrick
contrived to have the place kept decently; the
gardens free from weeds and ruin; the empty
stables protected from wind and rain; the house
preserved from actual decay. And the place was
ready to receive him when he was able to come<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[212]</span>
home, were it but for a single night. This, in
Kenrick’s mind, was much.</p>
<p>Love of his birthplace, and pride of his race,
were the strongest points in Kenrick’s character;
and Culverhouse was assuredly a home which a
man with any sense of the beautiful might be
pardoned for loving to enthusiasm. It had been a
fortress in those early days when the Danish
invader was marking his conquering course along
the south-western coast with the blaze of burning
villages. It had been an abbey before the Reformation,
and much that belonged to its monastic
period still remained. Some portions had been converted
to secular uses, other parts had been preserved
in what might be called a state of substantial
ruin. And this mixture of ecclesiastical ruins and
Tudor dwelling-house made a most picturesque and
romantic whole. The massive outer wall of the
cloistered quadrangle still remained, but where the
cloisters had been was now the rose garden—a fair
expanse of velvet turf, intersected with alleys of
roses. The chapel door stood in all its early English
purity of line and moulding, but the chapel had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[213]</span>
given place to a sunny enclosure, bounded by hedges
of honeysuckle and sweet-briar, a garden in which
old-fashioned flowers grew luxuriantly in prim
box-edged beds.</p>
<p>The house was one of the handsomest in the
county. Much too good for a decayed race, old
Sir Kenrick had always said; but young Sir
Kenrick held it as in no wise too good for him.
He would not have sold it for half a million, had
he been free to sell it. The situation was perfect.
It stood in a fertile green valley, on the bank of a
river which, insignificant elsewhere, widened here
to a noble reach of water, and curved lovingly
round the velvet slopes of the lawn. A long
wooden bridge spanned the river just beyond the
old Gothic gateway of the castle, and communicated
with the village of Culverhouse, in which a
population of a hundred and eighty souls fancied
itself a world. Kenrick loved the place—castle,
village, river—low-lying water meadows—ancient
avenues—fair green field where the foundations
of the abbey had been marked out with rows of
stones—a stone for each pillar in nave and aisles—chancel<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[214]</span>
and apse—he loved all these things with
a love that was almost a passion. His heart
thrilled within him when he came back to the
familiar scene after a year or more of exile. His
nature, not too warm elsewhere, warmed to the
old goodies and gaffers of Culverhouse village
with an unalterable tenderness. Poor as he was,
he had always stray sixpences and shillings in his
waistcoat pocket to give these ancient rustics, for
beer, or tea, or snuff. He could listen to their
stories of rheumatics and other afflictions with
infinite patience. Their very dialect was dear to
him.</p>
<p>If Kenrick had lived in the Middle Ages, and been
exposed to visible contact with the powers of darkness,
Mephistopheles would have assuredly baited his
hook with the Culverhouse estate.</p>
<p>‘Here are the money-bags,’ he would have said;
‘sign me this bond, and Culverhouse is yours, free of
the mortgages that now degrade and humiliate your
race. For twenty years you may reign securely in
the halls of your ancestors—and then——’</p>
<p>Perhaps Kenrick might have had the force of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[215]</span>
mind to refuse so frankly diabolical a bargain, but
when Mephistopheles assumed the amiable countenance
of Selina Dulcimer, and whispered in his
ear, ‘Marry Beatrix Harefield, and let her fortune
revive the glory of your race,’ the young man was
sorely tempted.</p>
<p>He had promised his cousin Cyril that he would
not attempt to become his rival, but he did not know
how far Cyril’s love affair had gone. He had no
idea that Beatrix had already made her choice,
irrevocably, and was ready to sacrifice fortune and
her father’s favour for her lover.</p>
<p>Kenrick was not in love with Beatrix Harefield,
in spite of all those hints and <span class="err" title="original: inuendoes">innuendos</span> wherewith
Mrs. Dulcimer had artfully striven to kindle the fire
of passion in his heart. He was not in love with
her, but he admired her beyond any woman he had
ever met, and he could but remember that her fortune
would give him the desire of his heart. He was
above the meanness of marrying for money. He
would not have sold himself to a woman he disliked
or despised, any more than he would have sold himself
to Satan. He would have accounted one<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[216]</span>
bargain as base as the other. But he would have
been very glad to marry a woman with money,
provided he could think her the first of women, and
worthy to rule in the halls of his race. That he
should love her was a secondary necessity. Sir
Kenrick was not a young man who considered loving
and being beloved essential to the happiness of life.
Nature had made him of colder stuff than his cousin
Cyril. He could do very well without love, but
existence could hardly be tolerable to him without
Culverhouse Castle.</p>
<p>He thought of Beatrix Harefield as he paced
the long tapestried saloon on the evening of his
arrival. He had ordered a fire to be lighted here,
though old Mrs. Mopson, the major-domo’s wife, had
strongly recommended him to sit in the library, or
his mother’s morning-room.</p>
<p>‘You’ll be a deal snuggerer than in that there
big room, Sir Kenrick,’ she urged. ‘I don’t say
it’s damp, for I opens the windows every fine
morning—but it’s awful chill, and it’d take a’most a
stack of logs to warm it.’</p>
<p>‘Never mind the chilliness, Betty,’ said Kenrick,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[217]</span>
‘I want to sit in the saloon. It’s a treat to see the
dear old room again after three years’ absence.’</p>
<p>‘Ah,’ said Betty, ‘there ain’t another room in
Hampshire ekal to it,’ firmly convinced that Hampshire
was the world, or at any rate all the world that
was civilized and worth living in. Once, when somebody
asked Betty Mopson if she had ever been so
far as London, she replied, ‘No, thank God, I’m no
furriner.’</p>
<p>So Betty lighted a pile of logs on the open
hearth, and put a pair of candles on the table near
the fire, and wheeled a tapestried arm-chair beside
it, and placed Sir Kenrick’s slippers comfortably in
front of the fender—so that in spite of its long disuse
the room had a homelike aspect when he came
to it after his homely dinner. By this dim light the
room looked lovely—all its shabbiness hidden—all
its beauties of form and colour intensified—the
figures in the fine old tapestry standing out in life-like
roundness. Theseus and Ariadne—Ariadne
deserted—the coming of Bacchus—hymeneal festival—nymphs
and satyrs frisking against a background
of blue sea.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[218]</span></p>
<p>Kenrick thought of Beatrix Harefield as he
walked slowly up and down. How well her stately
beauty would become the room! how well the room
would become her! She was just the wife for the
master of such a place as Culverhouse. It seemed
a hard thing that honour forbade his putting himself
forward as her suitor.</p>
<p>‘How do I know that she cares for Cyril?’ he
asked himself; ‘and if she does not, why should not
I have my chance? Cyril is such a close fellow. I
don’t know how far things have gone between them.
She may not care a straw for him. And I may go
back to India, and leave her to be snapped up by
some adventurer. I must have the matter placed on
a plainer footing when I go back to Little Yafford. If
Cyril does not mean to go in and win the prize, I
must have my innings. It will be only fair.’</p>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
<div class="chapter">
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[219]</span></p>
<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
</div>
<p class="center"><span class="allsmcap">BELLA OVERHEARS A CONVERSATION.</span></p>
<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">Never</span> in her life had Isabella Scratchell been so
happy as she was in those winter days which
Beatrix spent in her solitary home, or in long
lonely rides or drives across the moor. Isabella,
whose time had seldom been given to idleness,
now worked day and night. She could not altogether
withdraw her help from the overtaxed house-mother,
so she sat up for an hour or two nightly,
when the rest of the family had gone to bed,
mending and making for the insatiable brood.</p>
<p>‘Never mind, ma,’ she would say when Mrs.
Scratchell was on the verge of distraction about a
skirt, or a ‘waist,’ a pair of impracticable socks,
or trousers that were gone at the knee; ‘leave
your basket, and I’ll make it right when you’re
gone to bed.’</p>
<p>‘But, Bella, my dear,’ sighed the mother, ‘it’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[220]</span>
so bad for your health to sit up ever so long after
twelve. Working so hard as you do all the day,
too. I wish you had never taken that district
visiting into your head.’</p>
<p>‘District fiddlesticks!’ growled Mr. Scratchell
from behind his newspaper. He was inconveniently
quick of hearing, like the generality of
fathers. ‘District stuff and nonsense! Visiting
the poor means running after curates.’</p>
<p>‘It’s a great shame to say such a thing, pa,’
cried Bella, crimsoning. ‘I’m sure I try hard
enough to be useful at home, and I give mother
the best part of my salary towards the housekeeping.
I ought to be free to do a little good
abroad, if it makes me happy.’</p>
<p>‘A little fiddle-faddle,’ retorted the father, not
taking the trouble to lower his newspaper. ‘A
deal of good you can do, going simpering and
smirking into cottages, as much as to say, “Ain’t
I pretty? How do you like my bonnet?” And
then I suppose you inquire after the state of their
souls, and ask why they don’t teach their children
to blow their noses, and quote Scripture, and talk<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[221]</span>
as if you’d got a freehold estate in heaven. I hate
such humbug. Stay at home and help your mother.
That’s what <i>I</i> call Christianity.’</p>
<p>Like most men who never go to church or read
their Bibles, Mr. Scratchell had his own idea of
Christianity, and was quite as ready to assert and
defend it as the most learned Churchman. He
laid down the law as arrogantly upon this Christian
code of his as if he had received a revelation
all to himself, and was in a position to put the
Established Church right, if it had been worth his
while to do so.</p>
<p>Bella Scratchell went on devoting three afternoons
a week to parish visiting, in spite of paternal
opposition. In fact, that paternal opposition gave
a new zest to her work, and she felt herself in
her small way a martyr.</p>
<p>She told Cyril about her father’s unkindness
one afternoon as he was walking home with her,
after an accidental meeting in one of the cottages.</p>
<p>‘Papa is so cruel,’ she said; ‘he declares that
I can do no good—that I am too insignificant
and silly to be of the least use.’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[222]</span></p>
<p>‘You are neither insignificant nor silly,’ answered
Cyril, warmly; ‘and the people like you.
That is the grand point. They will generally take
advice from a person they like. And they like
bright young faces, and pleasant friendly manners.
You have done good already. I have seen it in
more than one case.’</p>
<p>‘I am so glad!’ cried Bella, in a voice that
actually trembled with delight. ‘Are you really
pleased with me?’</p>
<p>‘I am very much pleased.’</p>
<p>‘Then I will go on. Papa may be as unkind
as he likes. I am amply rewarded.’</p>
<p>‘My praise is a very small reward,’ replied
Cyril, smiling. ‘The satisfaction of your own conscience
is the real good. You know that your
life now is all usefulness.’</p>
<p>Bella lived in a fool’s paradise, from this time
forward. Mrs. Dulcimer was always telling her
how Cyril had praised her. She met him continually
in the cottages, or at the Vicarage. Her
life was full of delight. She only went to the
Water House once or twice a week, though she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[223]</span>
had hitherto gone almost every day. She told
Beatrix about her district visiting.</p>
<p>‘Of course I like being here with you much
better than going among those poor things,’ she
said, affectionately; ‘but I felt it a duty to do
something, my life seemed so useless.’</p>
<p>‘What is mine, then?’ sighed Beatrix.</p>
<p>‘Oh dear, with you it is different. With your
means you can always be doing good indirectly.
See how much you have done for me. I owe you
and Mr. Harefield my education, my good clothes,
my power to help poor mamma. But I have
only my time to give, and I am very happy to
devote some of that to the poor, under Mr. Culverhouse’s
guidance.’</p>
<p>‘He is kind to you?’ interrogated Beatrix;
‘you like him?’</p>
<p>‘He is more than kind to me. He is my
master, my teacher, my guide! I cannot use
such a poor word as liking to describe my feelings
for him. I reverence—I almost worship him.’</p>
<p>‘He is worthy of your esteem,’ said Beatrix, wondering
a little at this gush of feeling from Bella.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[224]</span></p>
<p>Mrs. Dulcimer felt that things were working
round delightfully towards the realization of her
matrimonial scheme.</p>
<p>‘I look upon it as quite a settled matter,
Rebecca,’ she said one morning, when the all-important
factotum was polishing the old sideboard,
familiarly known as Uncle John.</p>
<p>‘Having the chimneys swept again before
Christmas? yes, mum,’ replied Rebecca, driving
her leather vigorously backwards and forwards
across the shining wood. ‘They’ll want it. We
begun fires extra early this year, and master do
pile up the wood and coals, as if he wanted to
keep himself in mind of Bloody Mary’s martyrs
at Smiffell, and show his thankfulness that God
made him a Protestant.’</p>
<p>‘I wasn’t talking of the chimneys, Rebecca.
I was thinking of Mr. Culverhouse and Miss
Scratchell. He’s getting fonder of her every day.’</p>
<p>‘He ought to be,’ retorted the maid, snappishly.
‘She runs after him hard enough. But
if I was you, ‘um, I’d leave him to find out his
own feelings. Forced affections are like forced<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[225]</span>
rhubarb, sour and watery. Uncle John’s in the
sulks this morning. I can’t get him to shine
nohow. It’s the damp weather, I suppose. It
always makes him dull.’</p>
<p>‘Well, Rebecca,’ said Mrs. Dulcimer, complacently,
‘if this marriage takes place soon, as I
believe it will, I shall feel that I’ve been the
salvation of Bella Scratchell. If you could see
her wretched home——’</p>
<p>‘I’ve seen the maid-of-all-work,’ replied Rebecca,
curtly, ‘that’s enough for me. I’ve no call to
see inside the house.’</p>
<p>Hopefully as things were progressing in Mrs.
Dulcimer’s estimation, the active beneficence of
that amiable woman urged her to take some step
which should place matters on a more decided
footing. It was more than a month since she
had taken Cyril and Bella under her protection,
and she felt that it was time the gentleman
should declare himself. He had received every
encouragement to speak; he had evidently been
touched by Bella’s efforts for the good of her
species. He admired Bella’s taste and industry,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[226]</span>
her neatness of attire and amiable manners. What
more could he want?</p>
<p>‘It’s positively ridiculous of him to hang back
in this way,’ thought Mrs. Dulcimer, impatient for
action. ‘But I have no doubt his silence is the
result of shyness. Those reserved men are always
shy. One gives them credit for pride, and they
are suffering agonies of self-distrust all the time.’</p>
<p>It is generally some combination of trifles
which determines the great events of life. Mrs.
Dulcimer was hurried into a line of conduct more
impetuous than sagacious by such a combination.</p>
<p>First it was a wet afternoon, which fact prevented
the Vicar’s wife going on a round of ceremonious
calls, in her best bonnet. She might
have trusted her own body out in the wet,
leaving the accident of a cold in the head to be
dealt with by Rebecca, who was a wonderful hand
at domestic medicine, and made gruel that was
almost a luxury; but she could not risk the
destruction of her new velvet bonnet and bird of
Paradise. Secondly, Mr. Dulcimer had gone to
Great Yafford for a day’s leisurely prowl among<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[227]</span>
the second-hand book-shops, a recreation his soul
loved. His absence made the Vicarage seem
empty, and the day longer than usual. Mrs.
Dulcimer <span class="err" title="original: eat">ate</span> her early dinner alone, and felt
miserable.</p>
<p>After dinner she sent the boy to ask Bella
Scratchell to come and spend the afternoon, and
to bring her work. The fire was lighted in the
library, so that the room might be warm and
cheerful on the Vicar’s return; but Mrs. Dulcimer
preferred her snug corner by the dining-room
hearth, where she had a comfortable Rockingham
chair, and a delightful little Chippendale table.
She opened her charity basket, took out her pile
of baby clothes, and felt that, with Bella to talk
to, she could spend an agreeable afternoon, despite
the incessant rain, which came down with a
dismal drip, drip, on the sodden lawn, where the
blackbirds were luxuriating in the unusual accessibility
of the worm family.</p>
<p>Bella’s rapid fingers were wont to be helpful
too, with the charity basket. She would lay aside
her dainty strip of embroidery, and devote herself<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[228]</span>
to herring-boning flannel, or stitching in gussets,
with the most amiable alacrity.</p>
<p>‘You dear girl, to come through this abominable
rain and enliven me!’ exclaimed Mrs. Dulcimer,
when Bella came in, looking very bright and
pretty after her rainy walk.</p>
<p>‘I think I would come through fire as well as
water to see you, dear Mrs. Dulcimer,’ replied
Bella, affectionately. ‘I was going to sit with
poor Mary Smithers this afternoon,—she is in a
decline, you know, and so patient. Mr. Culverhouse
is deeply interested in her. But of course
I would rather come here——’</p>
<p>‘You dear unselfish girl! And does Mr.
Culverhouse seem pleased with what you are
doing for his people?’</p>
<p>‘Very much. His face quite lights up when
he comes into a cottage and finds me there.’</p>
<p>‘Ah!’ said Mrs. Dulcimer, significantly. ‘We
all know what that means.’</p>
<p>Bella sighed and looked at the fire. Her fool’s
paradise was a sweet place to dwell in, but there
were times when the suspicion that it was only a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[229]</span>
fool’s paradise, after all, crept like an ugly snake
into the Eden of her mind.</p>
<p>‘Dear Mrs. Dulcimer,’ she began thoughtfully,
after an interval of silence, in which the Vicar’s
wife had been trying to accomplish some manœuvre,
almost as difficult as squaring the circle, with a
brown paper pattern and an awkward bit of flannel.
‘You are too good to be so much interested in
my welfare; but, do you know, sometimes I
fancy you are altogether mistaken—as to—as to—Mr.
Culverhouse’s feelings. He is all that is kind
to me—he approves of my poor efforts to be
useful—he praises me—he seems always glad to
see me—yet he has never said a word that would
imply——’</p>
<p>‘That will come all at once, all in a moment,’
cried Mrs. Dulcimer, decisively. ‘It did with
Clement. I hadn’t the least idea that he was in
love with me. My father was a bookworm, you
know, like Mr. Dulcimer; and Clement used to
come to our house a great deal, and they were
always talking of first editions and second editions,
and black-letter books, and incunabula, and a lot<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[230]</span>
more stuff, of which I hardly knew the meaning.
And one day Clement suddenly asked me to marry
him. I never felt so surprised in my life. I
felt sure that my father must have suggested it
to him, but the idea did not offend me. These
things ought to be suggested. There are men who
would go down to their graves miserable old
bachelors for want of some one to give them a
judicious hint.’</p>
<p>‘And you really think Mr. Culverhouse likes
me?’ faltered Bella.</p>
<p>It was growing every day—nay, every hour—more
and more a question of life or death with
her. The old home seemed daily more hateful,
the ideal existence to be shared with Cyril more
paradisaic. Suspense gnawed her heart like a
serpent’s tooth. She knew, and felt, that it was
unwomanly to discuss such a question, even with
friendly Mrs. Dulcimer, but she could not help
seeking the comfort to be obtained from such a
discussion.</p>
<p>‘My love, I am sure of it,’ said the Vicar’s wife,
with conviction. ‘I have seen it in a thousand ways.’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[231]</span></p>
<p>Bella did not ask her to name one of the thousand,
though she would have been very glad to
get more detailed information.</p>
<p>Again Bella’s eyes sought the fire, and again
she gave a little depressed sigh. Her father had
been especially disagreeable lately; there had been
difficulties about bills and taxes—life at home
was at such times a perpetual warfare. Mrs.
Piper had been ailing for the last fortnight; her
temper had been ailing too. The Piper children
were stupid and insolent. Existence was altogether
a trial. Bella thought of Beatrix Harefield’s
smooth life in the beautiful old Water
House, with its lights and shadows, its old world
comfort, its retinue of well-trained servants. A
dull life, no doubt, but a paradise of rest. As a
child, Bella had been envious of her playfellow;
but, since both girls had grown to womanhood,
envy had assumed a deeper hue, black as the juice
of the cuttle-fish, which darkens all it touches.</p>
<p>‘Let me herring-bone those flannels for you, dear
Mrs. Dulcimer,’ Bella said at last, rousing herself
from her reverie, and presently the needle was flying<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[232]</span>
swiftly backwards and forwards, as Miss Scratchell’s
fair head bent over her work.</p>
<p>She tried to be lively, feeling it incumbent
on her to amuse her kind patroness; and the two
women prattled on about servants, and gowns, and
bonnets, and the usual feminine subjects, till four
o’clock, when it was too dark for any more work,
and they could only talk on by the red glow of the
fire, till it pleased the omnipotent Rebecca to bring
lamps and candles.</p>
<p>The Vicarage dining-room was charming by this
light. The blocks of books, the shelves of old china,
Uncle John’s portly sideboard, standing out with a
look of human corpulence in the ruddy glow, shining
with a polish that did credit to Rebecca, Aunt
Tabitha’s mahogany bureau glittering with brassy
ornamentation, the sombre crimson of the well-worn
curtains giving depth of tone to the picture. Yes it
was a good old room in this changeful and uncertain
light, and to Bella, after the discords and disorders of
home, it seemed an exquisite haven of repose. There
had been old-fashioned folding-doors between the
dining-room and library, but these Mr. Dulcimer<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[233]</span>
had removed, replacing them with thick cloth curtains,
which made it easier for him to pass from
room to room.</p>
<p>The clock had struck four, and Mrs. Dulcimer
was beginning to feel sleepy, when a ring at the
house door put her on the alert.</p>
<p>‘I wonder who it is?’ she said in an undertone, as
if the visitor might hear her outside the hall door.
‘It isn’t Clement, for he has his key. And it couldn’t
be any ordinary caller on such an afternoon. I dare
say it is Mr. Culverhouse come on parish business.’</p>
<p>Bella had made the same speculation, and her
heart was beating painfully fast.</p>
<p>‘If it is I’ll draw him out,’ whispered the Vicar’s
wife.</p>
<p>‘Oh, pray, pray, dear Mrs. Dulcimer, don’t dream
of such a thing——’</p>
<p>‘Sh, my dear,’ whispered Mrs. Dulcimer, ‘don’t
you be frightened. I am not going to compromise
you. I hope I have more tact than to do such a
thing as that. But I shall draw him out. I won’t
have him trifle with you any longer. He shall be
made to speak his mind.’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[234]</span></p>
<p>‘Dear Mrs. Dulcimer, I beg——’</p>
<p>‘Mr. Culverhouse, ‘um,’ announced Rebecca. ‘He
wanted to see master, but he says you’ll do. I’ve
shown him into the libery.’</p>
<p>Mrs. Dulcimer rose without a word, squeezed
Bella’s hand, put her finger on her lip mysteriously,
and passed through into the next room, dropping the
curtains behind her. Bella grew pale, and trembled
a little as she crept towards the curtains.</p>
<p>‘I think she must mean me to listen,’ she said to
herself, and she took her stand just by the central
line where the two curtains met.</p>
<p>Mr. Culverhouse had come to beg help for some
of his poor people. Widow Watson’s little boy had
fallen into the fire, while his mother was out getting
her little bit of washing passed through a neighbour’s
mangle, and there was old linen wanted to dress his
wounds, and a little wine, as he was very weak from
the shock. Good-natured Mrs. Dulcimer ran off to
hunt for the linen, and to get the wine from Rebecca,
and Cyril was left alone in the library.</p>
<p>Bella stole back to her chair by the fire. He
might come in, perhaps, and find her there. He was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[235]</span>
quite at home in the house. She felt that she would
look innocent enough, sitting there by the little work-table.
She might even simulate a gentle slumber.
She was wise enough to know that girlhood is never
prettier than in sleep.</p>
<p>Cyril did not come into the dining-room. She
heard him walking slowly up and down the library,
deep in thought, no doubt.</p>
<p>‘If Mrs. Dulcimer is right, he must be thinking
of me,’ said Bella. ‘I think of him all day long.
He shuts everything else out of my thoughts.’</p>
<p>Presently Mrs. Dulcimer came back.</p>
<p>‘I have sent off a parcel of linen and some
sherry,’ she said.</p>
<p>‘A thousand thanks for your prompt kindness.
It is really a sad case—the poor mother is almost
heartbroken——’</p>
<p>‘Poor thing,’ said Mrs. Dulcimer. ‘I cannot
think how they do manage to set themselves on fire
so often. It’s quite an epidemic.’</p>
<p>‘Their rooms are so small,’ suggested Cyril.</p>
<p>‘True. That may have something to do with it.
How tired you must be this wet day! You’ll stop to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[236]</span>
tea, of course. Clement has been book-hunting at
Great Yafford, and will be home soon. I have got a
brace of pheasants for him. He’ll want something nice
after such a wretched day. How is Mary Smithers?’</p>
<p>Mary Smithers was the girl Bella had talked of
visiting.</p>
<p>‘No better, poor soul,’ said Cyril. ‘There is only
one change for her now.’</p>
<p>‘Ah!’ sighed Mrs. Dulcimer, ‘and that is a blessed
one for a girl in her position.’</p>
<p>Her tone implied that heaven was a desirable
refuge for the destitute, a supernal almshouse, with
easier terms of election than those common to earthly
asylums.</p>
<p>‘Have you seen much of poor Mary since she has
been ill?’ asked Mrs. Dulcimer, artfully leading up
to her subject.</p>
<p>‘I see her as often as I can, but not so often as I
wish. But she has been well looked after.’</p>
<p>‘Indeed.’</p>
<p>‘Your little favourite, Miss Scratchell, has been
quite devoted to her, and fortunately poor Mary has
taken a strong fancy to Miss Scratchell.’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[237]</span></p>
<p>How fast Bella’s heart was beating now! and
how close her ear was to the narrow line between
the curtains!</p>
<p>‘Your little favourite.’ The careless kindness of
his tone had a chilling sound in Bella’s ear.</p>
<p>‘I am delighted to hear you say so,’ replied Mrs.
Dulcimer. ‘Bella is indeed a dear girl—clever,
accomplished, useful; a treasure at home—beloved
wherever she goes. What a wife she will make!’</p>
<p>‘A capital one,’ said the curate. ‘I should be
very pleased to marry her——’</p>
<p>Bella’s heart gave a leap.</p>
<p>‘To some thoroughly good fellow who could give
her a happy home.’</p>
<p>Bella’s heart sank as heavily as a lump of lead.</p>
<p>‘And no doubt she will marry well,’ pursued the
curate, in the same cheerful tone. ‘She is a very
attractive girl as well as a good girl.’</p>
<p>Mrs. Dulcimer began to feel uncomfortable.
Could she have been mistaken after all? Could
she have misled poor Bella? It was not the first
time in her life that her judgment had gone astray—but
this time she had felt particularly sure of her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[238]</span>
facts, and she had been more than usually anxious
for the success of her scheme. Bella’s home was so
uncomfortable. It was absolutely incumbent on
Mrs. Dulcimer, as an active Christian, to get the
poor girl married. Match-making here was not an
amusement, but a stringent duty.</p>
<p>There was a pause, and for some moments Mrs.
Dulcimer thought of abandoning her idea of drawing
Cyril out. The attempt might be premature. And
there was poor Bella listening intently, no doubt, and
having her young hopes blighted by the indifference
of the curate’s tone. Curiosity got the better of
discretion, however, and Mrs. Dulcimer pursued her
theme.</p>
<p>‘She is a sweet pretty girl,’ she said, ‘I really
think she grows prettier every day. I wonder you
can talk so cheerfully of marrying her to somebody
else. What a charming wife she would make for
you!’</p>
<p>‘I dare say she would, if I wanted just that kind
of wife, and if she wanted such a person as me for a
husband. But I dare say I am as far from her ideal
of a husband as she is from my ideal of a wife.’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[239]</span></p>
<p>Bella’s knees gave way under her at this point,
and she sank into a languid heap upon the floor by
the curtains. She did not faint, but she felt as if
there were no more power or life in her limbs, as if
she had sunk upon that spot never to rise any more,
as if the best thing that could happen to her would
be to lie there and feel life ebbing gently away, light
slowly fading to eternal darkness.</p>
<p>‘You astonish me,’ cried Mrs. Dulcimer, more
indignant at the downfall of this last cherished
scheme than she had ever felt at any previous
failure. ‘What more could you want in a wife?
Beauty—cleverness—industry—good management.’</p>
<p>‘Dante found only one Beatrice,’ said Cyril,
gravely, ‘yet I have no doubt there were plenty of
women in Florence who could sew on shirt buttons
and make soup. I have found my Beatrice. I may
never marry her, perhaps. But I am fixed for life.
I shall never marry any one else.’</p>
<p>A new life returned to Bella’s limbs now. It
was as if the blood that had just now flowed so
sluggishly through her veins was suddenly changed
to quicksilver. She rose to her feet again, and stood,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[240]</span>
white as a corpse, with her hands tightly clenched,
her lips drawn together till they made only a thin
line of pallid violet. The pretty Dresden china face
was hardly recognisable.</p>
<p>A sudden conviction had darted into her mind
with Cyril’s utterance of that name—Beatrice. It was
as if a flash of lightning had revealed things close
at hand but wrapped in darkness till this moment.</p>
<p>‘I never was more surprised in my life—or disappointed,’
faltered Mrs. Dulcimer, quite overcome
by this failure. ‘I am so fond of you, Cyril—and so
fond of Bella, and I thought you would make such
a nice couple—that it would be a delightful arrangement
in every way.’</p>
<p>‘My dear friend, there is a higher Power who
rules these things. I am a believer in the old
saying that marriages are made in heaven, and I
have not much faith in the wisdom of earthly
match-making.’</p>
<p>‘But this was in every way so suitable,’ harped
Mrs. Dulcimer. ‘Bella is such a good girl—a model
wife for a man who has to make his way in the
world.’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[241]</span></p>
<p>‘Heaven defend me from a model wife chosen
for me by my friends,’ ejaculated Cyril.</p>
<p>‘And you have paid her so much attention—you
have been so warmly interested in her parish
work.’</p>
<p>‘Not more than I should be in any good work
done by any good woman. I trust,’ pursued Cyril
with a sudden look of alarm, ‘that I have done
nothing to mislead Miss Scratchell on this subject.
I should hate myself if I thought it were possible.
I can confidently say that I have never uttered a
word that could be misunderstood by the most
romantic young lady. Our conversation has always
been perfectly matter of fact—about other people—never
about ourselves. I would as soon take to
writing sonnets as indulge in the sentimental
twaddle some curates cultivate.’</p>
<p>‘Pray don’t alarm yourself,’ cried Mrs. Dulcimer,
remembering her promise to Bella. ‘Miss Scratchell
hasn’t an idea upon the subject. I know that she
admires—reveres—esteems you—’ she added, thinking
it just possible to turn the tide of his feelings
by the warm south wind of flattery; ‘but beyond<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[242]</span>
that—no—Bella has too much modesty, I am sure
she has not a thought about being married. It
is only I who am anxious to see her comfortably
settled. Of course I cannot blame you for my
having been deceived about your feelings. But I
really do think, Cyril, that when a young man is
engaged he ought to let his intimate friends know
all about it. It would prevent misunderstandings.’</p>
<p>‘There are reasons why I should not talk
about my engagement. It has not been ratified
by the consent of the lady’s family. It may be
long before I can marry.’</p>
<p>‘Ah!’ thought Mrs. Dulcimer, ‘some artful girl
he met at Oxford, I daresay. A university town
is a regular man-trap.’</p>
<p>She was seriously concerned about Bella. The
poor girl would fret perhaps, would lay her sorrow
at Mrs. Dulcimer’s door; and for once in her life
the Vicar’s wife felt herself to blame. In the
active exercise of her charity she had done more
harm than if she had loved her neighbour a little
less intensely, and left other people’s business
alone.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[243]</span></p>
<p>‘Poor Bella!’ she thought, and she felt almost
afraid to face her victim; yet she was bound to
go and console her, so, after a little desultory talk
with Cyril about nothing particular, she excused
herself, on the pretext of looking after the tea,
and left the curate to amuse himself with the
books and periodicals heaped on Mr. Dulcimer’s
table, the sober drab <i>Quarterly</i>, the <i>Edinburgh</i> in
yellow and blue, the philosophical <i>Westminster</i>,
lurking among his more orthodox brethren, like a
snake in the grass.</p>
<p>The dining-room was empty when Mrs. Dulcimer
returned to it. Bella had carried her crushed heart
out of the house, into the gray rainy night, which
seemed in harmony with her desolation. She had
crept quietly from the room, directly the conversation
between Cyril and Mrs. Dulcimer had changed to
general topics, and had gone upstairs to put on her
bonnet and shawl.</p>
<p>On Mrs. Dulcimer’s dressing-table she left a
brief pencilled note.</p>
<p>‘I could not stay after what has happened, dear<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[244]</span>
friend. We have both been foolish. Pray think no
more about it.’</p>
<p>Mrs. Dulcimer found this little note, presently,
when she went upstairs to arrange her cap, and
re-adjust the frilling and puffings about her neck
and shoulders.</p>
<p>The little note gave her unspeakable relief.</p>
<p>‘Noble girl!’ she exclaimed, ‘how heroically she
takes it. Yet I am sure she is fond of him. And
how good of her not to feel angry with me for
having misled her.’</p>
<p>Mrs. Dulcimer would not have been quite so
satisfied with the result of her good-natured
manœuvring, could she have seen the figure lying
prone upon the floor of Bella Scratchell’s barely-furnished
bedroom—the dishevelled hair—the
clenched hands—the convulsed movements of the
thin bloodless lips: and, perhaps, she might have
been for ever cured of her passion for match-making,
could she have heard the curses which those pallid
lips called down upon her matronly head.</p>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
<div class="chapter">
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[245]</span></p>
<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV.</h2>
</div>
<p class="center"><span class="allsmcap">MR. NAMBY’S PRESCRIPTION.</span></p>
<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">In</span> the dark days of December, Mr. Namby, the
family practitioner and parish doctor of Little
Yafford, was <span class="err" title="original: agreeable">agreeably</span> surprised by a summons to
the Water House. His patients there had been inconveniently
well for the greater part of the year,
and he had been looking somewhat dolefully at
the blank leaf in his diary which told him that he
should have no account worth speaking of to send
in to Mr. Harefield at Christmas. He was much
too benevolent a man to desire the misfortune of
his fellow creatures; but he thought that those
favoured ones of this world, whom Providence has
exempted from all the cares of the impecunious
majority, ought at least to be troubled with such
small nervous disorders as would keep the faculty
employed. An obscure case of hysteria, now, was
the sort of thing one might look for at the Water<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[246]</span>
House, and which, without doing vital harm to
the patient, would necessitate a great many attendances
from the doctor.</p>
<p>He plucked up his spirits, therefore, and decapitated
his breakfast egg with an unusual air of
sprightliness, on hearing that James from the
Water House had just called, to request that Mr.
Namby would be so good as to look in to see Miss
Harefield, during his morning round.</p>
<p>‘Poor girl! neuralgic, I daresay,’ he murmured
cheerfully. ‘The Water House must be damp,
but of course one cannot say anything to frighten
away patients. She is a sweet girl. I shall try
the new treatment.’</p>
<p>‘If it’s the stuff you gave me, William, it made
me worse,’ said Mrs. Namby. ‘Nothing did me
so much good as that cask of double stout you
ordered from the brewer at Great Yafford.’</p>
<p>Mr. Namby’s countenance expressed ineffable
disgust.</p>
<p>‘Do you think your constitution would have
been in a condition to profit by that stout if I
had not prescribed the new treatment for you first?’<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[247]</span>
he exclaimed, and Mrs. Namby, being a wise little
woman, went on cutting bread and butter for her
children in a sagacious silence.</p>
<p>Mr. Namby was shown straight to the study,
where Miss Harefield was accustomed to read
history and other erudite works to her governess.
The histories were all dull old fashioned chronicles,
which had been religiously believed when Miss
Scales was a little girl, but whereof most of the
facts had faded into mere phantasmagoria, before
the fierce light of nineteenth century research,
and the revelations of the Record Office.</p>
<p>Beatrix was not reading history on this particular
morning. She was sitting by one of the
deep set windows, with her folded arms resting on the
broad oaken ledge, and her heavy eyes watching
the drifting clouds in the windy sky—or the bare
black elm-branches tossing against the gray.</p>
<p>She looked round listlessly when Mr. Namby
came in, and gave him her hand with a mechanical
air, which he often saw in small patients who were
told to shake hands with the doctor.</p>
<p>‘Dear, dear, this is very bad,’ he said, in his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[248]</span>
fatherly way. ‘We are looking quite sadly this
morning.’</p>
<p>Then came the usual ordeal. The doctor held
the slight wrist between his fingers, and consulted
a pale faced watch, with a surreptitious air.</p>
<p>‘Quick, and irregular,’ he said, ‘and weak. We
must do something to set you right, my dear young
lady. Have <span class="err" title="original: your">you</span> been over exerting yourself lately?’</p>
<p>‘She has,’ exclaimed Miss Scales, in an aggrieved
tone. ‘<span class="err" title="original: She">She’s</span> been riding and driving far too much—too
much even for the horses, Jarvis told me, so
you may imagine it was too much for her.’</p>
<p>‘My dear Miss Scales, you forget that the
horse had the greater share of the labour,’ interposed
Beatrix.</p>
<p>‘I repeat, Beatrix,’ protested Miss Scales, severely,
‘that if it was too much for the horse it
must have been infinitely worse for you. You
have not the constitution of a horse, or the endurance
of a horse, or the strength of a horse.
Don’t talk nonsense.’</p>
<p>The doctor asked a string of questions. Did she
eat well—sleep well?</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[249]</span></p>
<p>Beatrix was obliged to confess that she did
neither.</p>
<p>‘She eats hardly anything,’ said Miss Scales,
‘and I know by her candle that she reads half the
night.’</p>
<p>‘What can I do but read,’ exclaimed Beatrix.
‘I have no pleasant thoughts of my own. I am
obliged to find them in books.’</p>
<p>‘Oh, dear, dear,’ cried the doctor, ‘why a young
lady like you ought to have her mind full of pleasant
thoughts.’</p>
<p>Beatrix sighed.</p>
<p>‘I see what it is—the nervous power over-tasked—a
slight tendency to insomnia. We must not
allow this to go on, my dear Miss Harefield. The
riding and driving are all very well, but in moderation.
<i>In medio tutissimus ibis</i>, as they used to
teach us at school. And a nice quiet walk with
Miss Scales, now, would be a beneficial alternation
with the equestrian exercise. Walk one day, ride
the next. If it were a different time of year I
might suggest change of air. Filey—or Harrogate—but
just now of course that is out of the question.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[250]</span>
Do you remember what I prescribed for you after
the whooping cough?’</p>
<p>‘Yes,’ answered Beatrix. ‘You gave me a playfellow.’</p>
<p>‘To be sure I did. Well, now, I say again
you must have youthful society. A companion of
your own age. I thought Miss Scratchell and you
were inseparable.’</p>
<p>‘We used to be—but, since she has gone out
as a daily governess, we have seen much less of
each other—and lately she has been <span class="err" title="original: particular">particularly</span> busy.
She is very good.’</p>
<p>‘And you are fond of her.’</p>
<p>‘Yes, I like her very much.’</p>
<p>‘Then you must have more of her company. I
must talk to papa about it.’</p>
<p>‘Oh, pray do not trouble my father,’ exclaimed
Beatrix, anxiously.</p>
<p>‘But he must be troubled. You must have
youthful society. I know that Miss Scales is all
kindness, and her conversation most improving.’
Miss Scales acknowledged the compliment with
a stiffish bow. ‘But you must have a young<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[251]</span>
companion with whom you can unbend, and talk
a little nonsense now and then, not about the
Greeks and Romans, you know, but about your
new frocks and your beaux.’</p>
<p>Miss Scales looked an image of disgust.</p>
<p>‘For my own part I believe if Beatrix would
employ her mind there would be none of this
repining,’ she remarked severely. ‘Low spirits
with young people generally mean idleness.’</p>
<p>‘My dear Miss Scales, I have not been repining,’
remonstrated Beatrix, wounded by this accusation.
‘I don’t want any one to be troubled about me.
I only wish to be let alone.’</p>
<p>She turned from them both with a proud
movement of head and throat, and went on
looking out of the window; but her fixed gaze saw
very little of the gray landscape under the gray
sky, the dark shoulder of the moor, tinged with a
gleam of livid winter light upon its western edge.</p>
<p>Mr. Namby looked at her curiously as she stood
there with averted face, palpably, by her very
attitude, refusing all sympathy or solicitude from
him or her governess. He was not a profound<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[252]</span>
psychologist. He had, indeed, given his attention
too completely to the management of other people’s
bodies to have had much leisure for the study of
the mind, but he felt instinctively that here was a
case of supreme misery—a proud young soul at
war with life—a girl, capable of all girlhood’s
warmest affections, confined to the dry-as-dust
companionship of a human machine for grinding
grammar and geography, histories and ologies. A
reasonable amount of this grinding would have been
good for Beatrix, no doubt, thought the village
surgeon, who was no enemy to education; but there
must be something brighter than these things in
the life of a girl, or she will languish like a
woodland bird newly caged.</p>
<p>Mr. Namby went down stairs, and asked to see
Mr. Harefield—an awful thing to him always, but
duty compelled him to beard the lion in his den.</p>
<p>He was shown into the library where Christian
Harefield sat among his books, as usual, brown
leather-bound folios and quartos piled upon the
floor on each side of his chair, more books on
his desk, and a general appearance of profound<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[253]</span>
study. What he read, or to what end he read,
no one had ever discovered. He filled commonplace
books with extracts, copied in a neat fine
hand, almost as close as print, and he wrote a good
deal of original matter. But he had never given
a line to the world, not so much as a paragraph
in <i>Notes and Queries</i>; nor had he ever confided
the nature of his studies to friend or acquaintance.
He lived among his books, and in his books, and
for the last ten years he had cared for no life
outside them.</p>
<p>‘Well, Namby, what’s the matter with my
daughter?’ he asked, without looking up from a
volume of Plutarch’s ‘Moralia.’</p>
<p>‘You have been anxious about her.’</p>
<p>‘I have not been anxious. Her governess took
it into her head to be anxious, and wished that
you should be sent for. There’s nothing amiss, I
conclude.’</p>
<p>‘There is very much amiss. Your daughter’s
lonely life is killing her. She must have livelier
company than Miss Scales—and change of air and
scene directly the weather is milder.’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[254]</span></p>
<p>‘But there is nothing actually wrong, nothing
organic?’</p>
<p>‘Nothing that I can discover at present. But
there is sleeplessness—one of the worst foes to
life—there is loss of appetite—there is want of
vigour. She must be roused, interested, amused.’</p>
<p>‘Do you mean that she should be taken to
London and carried about to balls and theatres?’
inquired Mr. Harefield.</p>
<p>‘She is not in a condition for balls and theatres,
even if you were inclined to indulge her so far. No,
she wants to be made happier, that is all.’</p>
<p>‘All!’ exclaimed Mr. Harefield. ‘You are
moderate in your demands. Do you suppose that
I have a recipe for making young women happy?
It would be almost as miraculous as the wand with
which the wicked fairy used to transform a contumacious
prince into a blue bird or a white poodle.
I have let my daughter have her own way in all
the minor <span class="err" title="original: detals">details</span> of life, and I have put no limit
upon her pocket-money. I can imagine no other
way of making her happy.’</p>
<p>‘I think you will be obliged to find some other<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[255]</span>
way,’ answered Mr. Namby, tremulous at his own
audacity; but the lion was unusually mild this
morning, and the doctor felt heroic, ‘unless you
want to lose her.’</p>
<p>‘Lose her!’ cried Mr. Harefield. ‘Oh, she will
last my time, depend upon it. My lease has not
long to run, and then she will be mistress of her
fate, and be happy in her own way.’</p>
<p>‘My dear sir, with your noble constitution——’</p>
<p>‘Length of days does not depend entirely on constitution.
A man must have the inclination to live.
But tell me what I am to do for my daughter.’</p>
<p>‘Let her have her young friend Miss Scratchell
to come and stay with her, and when the spring
comes send them both to the sea-side.’</p>
<p>‘I have no objection. I will write to Scratchell
immediately. His daughter has been employed at
the Park lately, but, as that can only be a
question of remuneration, I can arrange it with
Scratchell.’</p>
<p>‘I do not think you can do any more at present.
I shall send Miss Harefield a tonic. Good
morning.’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[256]</span></p>
<p>The village surgeon retired, delighted at getting off
so easily. Mr. Harefield wrote at once to his agent:—</p>
<div class="blockquot">
<p>
‘Dear Scratchell,
</p>
<p>‘My daughter is ill, and wants pleasant
company. Please let your girl come and stay with
her. If there is any loss involved in your daughter
being away from home, I shall be happy to send
you a cheque for whatever amount you may consider
sufficient.’</p>
<p class="right">
‘Yours truly, C. H.’
</p>
</div>
<p>This happened about a fortnight before Christmas,
and at a time when Miss Scratchell’s duties at
the Park were in a considerable degree suspended.
She would not have been wanted there at all,
under ordinary circumstances, for the young Pipers,
who had a frank detestation of all kinds of learning,
claimed a holiday at this season, and had their
claim allowed. But Mrs. Piper was ill, so ill as to
be confined to her own room; and in this juncture
she found Isabella’s domestic talents of use to her,
and, without any extra remuneration, contrived to
occupy a good deal of Isabella’s time.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[257]</span></p>
<p>A little while ago, when she was living in her
fool’s paradise, believing herself loved by Cyril
Culverhouse, this encroachment upon her leisure
would have been aggravating in the extreme to
Bella Scratchell. But just now it was rather a
relief than otherwise, for it gave her an excuse
for neglecting her cottagers. She went among
them still, now and then, and was sweet and sympathetic
as of old, reading favourite chapters of St.
John to the consumptive dressmaker, or carrying a
bunch of wintry flowers to the wheelwright’s bed-ridden
daughter, a patient victim to spinal complaint;
but, so far as it was possible, she avoided
meeting Cyril. There was too keen a shame, too
fierce an agony in the thought of her delusion.
In this innocent seeming Dresden china beauty
there existed a capacity for passionate feeling, unsuspected
by her kindred or friends. From love
to vindictiveness was only a step in this intense
nature. She hated Mrs. Dulcimer for having entrapped
her—she hated herself for having fallen
so easily into so petty a snare. She hated Cyril
for not loving her—she hated him still more for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[258]</span>
loving somebody else—and she hated Beatrix
Harefield most of all for being the object of his love.</p>
<p>‘Has she not enough of the good things of this
life without taking him from me?’ she thought
savagely, forgetting that as Cyril had never belonged
to her, Beatrix could hardly be charged
with robbery.</p>
<p>‘He would have cared for me if he had never
seen her,’ argued Bella. ‘She is handsomer than
I am—grand and noble looking—while I am small
and mean.’</p>
<p>Vanity and self-esteem were alike crushed by
Cyril’s indifference. She had been vain of her
pink and white prettiness hitherto. Now she
looked at herself in the glass, and scorned her
trivial beauty—the blue eyes and light brown
lashes—the indefinite eyebrows, the blunt inoffensive
little nose—the rose-bud mouth, and coquettish
dimples. A beauty to catch fools perhaps;
but of no value in the eyes of a man of character,
like Cyril Culverhouse.</p>
<p>She bore her burden quietly, being very proud,
after her small manner, and no one in that noisy<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[259]</span>
home circle of Mr. Scratchell’s discovered that
there was anything amiss in the eldest daughter
of the house.</p>
<p>Mrs. Dulcimer wrote an affectionate and sympathetic
letter to her dear Bella, and insisted that
she should spend a long day at the Vicarage; as
if a long day in Mrs. Dulcimer’s society were a
balm that must heal the sharpest wound. Bella
answered the letter in person, being too wise to
commit herself to pen and ink upon so humiliating
a subject, and she received Mrs. Dulcimer’s
apologies with an unalterable placidity which
convinced the worthy matchmaker that there was
no harm done.</p>
<p>‘Let us think of the whole affair as a good
joke, dear Mrs. Dulcimer,’ said Bella; ‘but let
us keep it to ourselves. I hope you have not
talked about it to Rebecca.’</p>
<p>Everybody in Little Yafford knew that Rebecca
was Mrs. Dulcimer’s <i>confidante</i>, and that
she had a vivacious tongue.</p>
<p>The vicar’s wife blushed, and trifled nervously
with her lace rufflings.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[260]</span></p>
<p>‘My love, you cannot suppose that I should
say a word about you that ought not to be said,’
she murmured, affectionately.</p>
<p>And then Bella knew that Rebecca had been
told everything.</p>
<p>‘It is so nice of you to take it in such a
sweet-tempered way,’ said Mrs. Dulcimer; ‘and it
only confirms my good opinion of you; but I am
more angry with <i>him</i> than I can say. You would
have suited each other exactly.’</p>
<p>‘Ah, but you see he does not think so,’ replied
Bella, with inward bitterness. ‘I am not
his style. He has chosen some one quite different.
You have no idea, I suppose, who the lady is?’</p>
<p>‘Some one he met at Oxford, I don’t doubt.
He will live to regret his choice, I daresay. I
am almost wicked enough to hope he may. And
now, Bella, when will you come and spend a long
quiet day with me?’ demanded Mrs. Dulcimer,
anxious to administer her balsam.</p>
<p>‘I am hardly ever free now, dear Mrs. Dulcimer.
Since Mrs. Piper has been ill she has
asked me to help her a little with the housekeeping.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[261]</span>
She is so unfortunate in her servants,
you know, always changing, and that makes her
distrustful.’</p>
<p>‘My dear, Mrs. Piper doesn’t make her servants
happy,’ said Mrs. Dulcimer. ‘Servants are
like other people; they want to be happy, and
nobody can be happy who is being found fault
with from morning till night.’</p>
<p>‘I am afraid it is so,’ assented Bella; ‘poor
Mrs. Piper means well, but she is too particular.’</p>
<p>‘My dear, if I were to find fault with Rebecca
three times in a week, she would give me warning;
and yet she’s almost like my own flesh and
blood. Now, mind, I shall expect you to come
and spend a long day with me the first time
you find yourself free.’</p>
<p>‘I shall only be too happy,’ murmured Bella.</p>
<p>‘And I’ll take care you don’t meet Cyril.’</p>
<p>‘You are so thoughtful.’</p>
<p>‘Well, dear, I think we were sent into the
world to think of other people as well as of
ourselves,’ replied the vicar’s wife, with a self-satisfied
air.</p>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
<div class="chapter">
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[262]</span></p>
<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
</div>
<p class="center"><span class="allsmcap">BELLA GOES ON A VISIT.</span></p>
<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">‘Here’s</span> a fine chance for Bella!’ exclaimed Mr.
Scratchell, after reading his patron’s curt epistle.
‘She is to go and spend Christmas at the Water
House.’</p>
<p>‘My word, won’t she have a blow out of
mince pies,’ exclaimed the youthful Adolphus,
who, from being somewhat restricted as to the good
things of this life, was apt to take a material
view of pleasure.</p>
<p>‘Bella doesn’t care twopence for mince pies,’
said Clementina. ‘She <span class="err" title="original: like">likes</span> dresses and bonnets.
She would live on bread and water for a month
for the sake of a pretty dress.’</p>
<p>Bella herself was not enthusiastic about the
invitation to the Water House.</p>
<p>‘I don’t see how I can go, papa,’ she said.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[263]</span>
‘Mrs. Piper wants me to look after the housekeeping,
and to see to the children’s early dinner.
Mr. Piper hates carving for so many.’</p>
<p>‘Mrs. Piper must do without you. She’ll know
your value all the better if she loses your services
for a week or two.’</p>
<p>‘You ought not to refuse such an invitation,
Bella,’ said Mrs. Scratchell. ‘Christmas time and
all—Mr. Harefield will be sure to give you a handsome
present.’</p>
<p>‘I might run across to the Park every morning,
perhaps, even if I were staying at the Water House,’
Bella suggested presently. She had been thinking
deeply for the last few minutes.</p>
<p>‘Of course, you might,’ answered her father.
‘It’s not ten minutes’ walk, through the fields.’</p>
<p>So Mr. Harefield’s letter was answered to the
effect that Bella would be delighted to stay with her
dear Miss Harefield, and would be with her that
evening. And all day long there was a grand
starching and ironing of cuffs, collars, and petticoats,
at which the younger Miss Scratchells assisted.</p>
<p>‘I shall find out all about Cyril,’ thought Bella.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[264]</span>
‘What a secret nature Beatrix must have to be
able to hide every thing from me so long. I have
seen her look shy and strange when she met him,
and have half-suspected—but I could not think
that if she really cared for him she would hide it
from me.’</p>
<p>Bella and her worldly goods arrived at the Water
House after dark on that December evening—Bella
walking, under the escort of her brother Herbert, the
worldly goods accompanying her in a wheelbarrow.</p>
<p>Bella found Beatrix alone in the upstairs sitting-room,
which had been called the schoolroom ever
since Miss Scales had been paramount at the Water
House. It was a large panelled room, with old oak
furniture of the Dutch school that had been there
since the days of William and Mary; old blue and
white Delft jars, and old pictures that nobody ever
looked at; a high carved oak mantel piece, with a
shelf just wide enough to carry the tiny teacups of
the Queen Anne period; an old-fashioned fireplace,
set round with blue and white tiles; a sombre
Turkey carpet, with a good deal of yellow in it; and
thick woollen curtains of a curious flowered stuff.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[265]</span>
To Bella it was simply one of the handsomest rooms
in the world, and she felt angry with Beatrix for her
want of gratitude to a Providence that had set her in
the midst of such surroundings.</p>
<p>Beatrix received her old playfellow affectionately.
She was more cheerful this evening than she had
been since her father had forbidden her visits to the
vicarage.</p>
<p>‘A most wonderful thing has happened, Bella,’
she said, when they had kissed. Bella had taken off
her hat, and was comfortably seated in an arm chair
by the fire. ‘Miss Scales has gone for a fortnight’s
holiday, and you and I are to be our own mistresses
all Christmas time.’</p>
<p>‘How nice!’ cried Bella.</p>
<p>‘Isn’t it? My father did not at all like it, I
believe. But an old aunt of Miss Scales—an aunt
who is supposed to have money—has been so kind
as to get dangerously ill, and Miss Scales has been
sent for to attend her sick bed. She lives in some
unknown corner of Devonshire, quite at the other end
of the map, so less than a fortnight’s leave of absence
would hardly have been any use, and papa was compelled<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[266]</span>
to give it. I am to pay no visits, but I may
drive where I like in the pony carriage on fine days—and
ride as often as Jarvis will let me.’</p>
<p>Jarvis was the groom who had taught Beatrix to
ride her pony ten years ago, when Mr. Namby had
suggested riding as a healthy exercise for the pale
and puny child.</p>
<p>‘It will be very nice,’ said Bella.</p>
<p>‘Very nice for me. But I’m afraid it will be a
dreadfully dull Christmas for you, Bella. You will
wish yourself at home. Christmas must be so
cheerful in a large family.’</p>
<p>‘I can endure the loss of a home Christmas with
exemplary resignation,’ replied Bella, with a graceful
little shrug of her pretty shoulders. ‘I think if
there is one time more trying than another in our
house, it is Christmas. The children have a vague
idea that they are going to enjoy themselves—and it
shows a wonderful gift of blind faith that they can
have such an idea after so many disappointments.
They make the parlours uncomfortable with holly
and laurel, and club together for a bunch of mistletoe
to hang in the passage—they make poor ma<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[267]</span>
promise them snapdragon and hot elder wine—and
then on Christmas Eve one of the boys contrives to
break a window—or to upset papa’s office inkstand,
which holds about a quart, and then the whole family
are in disgrace. Papa and mamma have words—the
beef is underdone on Christmas day, and papa uses
awful language about the housekeeping—the boys
go out for an afternoon walk to avoid the storm
indoors, and perhaps get caught in the rain out of
doors and spoil their best clothes. After tea pa and
ma have a long talk by the fire, while we young ones
squabble over ‘vingt et un’ at the table, and we
know by their faces that they are talking about the
new year’s bills, and then we all go to bed feeling
miserable, without exactly knowing why.’</p>
<p>‘Poor Bella,’ said Beatrix compassionately. ‘It
does seem very hard that some people should have
more money than they know what to do with, and
others so much too little. It’s quite puzzling. The
trees and flowers have everything equally, sun and
rain, and dew and frost.’</p>
<p>‘No, they don’t,’ said Bella. ‘The trees see life
from different aspects. Some have all the southern<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[268]</span>
sun, and others all the northern blasts. You are like
a carefully trained peach tree on a south wall, and I
am a poor little shrub in a gloomy corner facing the
north.’</p>
<p>‘Bella,’ cried Beatrix, ‘do you seriously believe
that there is much sunshine in my life?’</p>
<p>‘Plenty,’ answered Bella. ‘You have never
known the want of money.’</p>
<p>‘But money cannot make happiness.’</p>
<p>‘Perhaps not, but it can make a very good
imitation; and I know that the want of money
can make very real unhappiness.’</p>
<p>‘Poor Bella!’ sighed Beatrix again.</p>
<p>‘Oh! as for me,’ said Bella, ‘I am very well off,
since I’ve been at the Pipers. And then you have
always been so kind to me. I am the favoured one
of the family. But it is trying to see how my
poor mother is worried, and how she worries every
one else, in the struggle to make both ends meet.
And now tell me about yourself, Beatrix. Papa
said you had been ill.’</p>
<p>‘Miss Scales and Mr. Namby have made up their
minds that I am ill,’ answered Beatrix indifferently,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[269]</span>
‘but except that I can’t sleep, I don’t think there’s
much the matter.’</p>
<p>‘But that is very dreadful,’ exclaimed Bella.
‘Do you mean to say that you are not able to sleep at
all?’</p>
<p>‘Very little. Sometimes I lie awake all night—sometimes
I get up and walk about my room, and
stare out of the window at the moor and the river.
They look so strange and ghostlike in the dead of
the night—not a bit like the moor and river we know
by day. Sometimes I light my candle and read.’</p>
<p>‘And you never sleep?’</p>
<p>‘Towards the morning I sometimes drop off into a
doze, but I always wake with a start, just as if the
surprise of finding myself asleep had awakened me.’</p>
<p>‘And hasn’t Mr. Namby given you anything to
make you sleep?’ asked Bella.</p>
<p>‘No. He is giving me tonics, and he says when
I get strong the sleeplessness will leave me. He has
refused to give me an opiate, though I begged very
hard for something that would send me to sleep.’</p>
<p>‘That seems cruel,’ said Bella, ‘but I suppose he
is right. I think he is a very clever little man.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[270]</span>
Mrs. Piper has more confidence in him than in Dr.
Armytage, who has a big fee every time he comes
over from Great Yafford, and who never seems to do
anything but approve of what Mr. Namby is doing.
Or perhaps he makes some slight alteration in the
diet—recommends sago instead of tapioca—or
madeira instead of sherry.’</p>
<p>‘Is Mrs. Piper very ill?’</p>
<p>‘Dreadfully ill, poor thing. It is an internal complaint
that is killing her. She struggles against it,
but I think she knows that it must be fatal.’</p>
<p>‘How sad for her children.’</p>
<p>‘Yes, poor little things. She is a very good
mother—perhaps a little too strict, but most careful
of her children. They will miss her dreadfully. I’m
afraid Mr. Piper is the sort of man to marry again.’</p>
<p>‘Oh, surely not?’ cried Beatrix, ‘that fat red-faced
man—with a figure like a barrel. Who would
marry him.’</p>
<p>‘Who would refuse him—and his money?’</p>
<p>‘Oh, Bella! Now surely you would not marry such
a man as that—for all the money in the world?’</p>
<p>‘I would not, well as I know the value of money.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[271]</span>
But I have no doubt there are plenty of girls who
would. And now, Beatrix, tell me why you never
go to the Vicarage now.’</p>
<p>‘Simply because my father has forbidden me.’</p>
<p>‘How unkind! But he must have some reason
for such a step.’</p>
<p>‘He has his reasons no doubt.’</p>
<p>‘And has he not told you what they are?’</p>
<p>‘Don’t let us talk about it, please, Bella dear. I
had rather speak of anything else.’</p>
<p>‘Of course,’ thought Bella, ‘the whole thing is
quite clear.’</p>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
<div class="chapter">
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[272]</span></p>
<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
</div>
<p class="center"><span class="allsmcap">MRS. PIPER’S TROUBLES.</span></p>
<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">Beatrix Harefield’s</span> spirits improved in the society
of her friend. She was fond of Bella, and believed
in Bella’s faithfulness and affection. Her reticence
on the subject of Cyril Culverhouse had not arisen
from distrust, but from a reserve natural in a girl
reared in solitude, and with a mind lofty and ardent
enough to make first love sacred as religion.</p>
<p>But when Bella, with every evidence of fondness,
entreated to be taken into her friend’s confidence,
Beatrix was not so stoical as to refuse the comfort of
sympathy.</p>
<p>‘I know you are hiding something from me,
Beatrix,’ said Bella, as they were walking in the
wintry garden on the first morning of her visit.
‘There is a reason for your father’s forbidding your
visits to the Vicarage—and a reason for your pale<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[273]</span>
cheeks and sleepless nights. Why are you afraid to
trust me?’</p>
<p>‘I am not afraid to trust you. But there are
things one does not care to talk about.’</p>
<p>‘Does not one? What are those things, dear?
Do you mean that you don’t care to talk about Mr.
Culverhouse?’</p>
<p>Beatrix started, and flushed crimson.</p>
<p>‘How do you know—did any one tell you?’</p>
<p>‘My dear Beatrix, I have eyes and ears, and they
told me. I have seen you together. I have heard
him speak of you.’</p>
<p>‘And you found out——’</p>
<p>‘That you adore each other.’</p>
<p>‘It is true, Bella. I love him with all my heart
and soul—and we are to be married as soon as I
am of age.’</p>
<p>‘With your father’s consent?’</p>
<p>‘With or without it. That matters very little
to me.’</p>
<p>‘But if you offend him he may leave his estate to
a hospital,’ suggested Bella, who knew a great deal
more about Mr. Harefield’s property than Beatrix.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[274]</span></p>
<p>‘He may do what he likes with it. Cyril will
not marry me for my fortune.’</p>
<p>‘Of course not, but fortune is a very good thing,
and Mr. Culverhouse, who is poor, must think so.’</p>
<p>This arrow glanced aside from the armour of
Beatrix’s faith. No one could have made her believe
that her lover had any lurking greed of wealth.</p>
<p>‘Then it is all settled,’ said Bella, cheerfully.
‘You will be of age in two years, and then you are
to be married, whether Mr. Harefield likes or not. I
really can’t see why you should be unhappy.’</p>
<p>‘I am not to see Cyril, or hear from him, for two
years. He is going to leave this place in the spring.
He might be ill—dying—and I should know nothing,
till I took up the <i>Times</i> some morning and saw the
advertisement of his death.’</p>
<p>‘He is young and strong,’ replied Bella. ‘There
is nothing less likely than that he should die. I
don’t think you need make yourself unhappy in
advance about that.’</p>
<p>Her cold hard tone wounded Beatrix, who had
expected more sympathy.</p>
<p>‘Don’t let us talk about him, Bella,’ she said.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[275]</span></p>
<p>But Bella was determined to talk about him till
she had found out all that there was for her to know.
She assumed a more sympathetic tone, and Beatrix
was induced to tell of Cyril’s interview with her
father, and of the letter which her lover wrote to her
after that interview.</p>
<p>The clocks struck eleven a few minutes after
this conversation was ended.</p>
<p>‘And now I must run to the Park and spend an
hour with poor Mrs. Piper,’ said Bella. ‘I promised
to go over every day to make myself useful. She is
so wretched about her servants, if there is no one to
look after them.’</p>
<p>‘How painful to have servants that require to be
looked after!’ said Beatrix, who was accustomed to a
household that went as if by clockwork, conducted
by a butler and housekeeper who were trusted
implicitly.</p>
<p>‘It is rather dreadful,’ replied Bella. ‘I think I
would sooner have our maid-of-all-work, with her
sooty face and red elbows, than poor Mrs. Piper’s
staff of smart young women, who study nothing but
their own comfort, and come and go as if the Park<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[276]</span>
were an hotel; for our poor Sarah is at least faithful,
and would no more think of leaving us than of going
to the moon. Good-bye, darling, I shall be back
before luncheon.’</p>
<p>Beatrix went back to her quiet room, and her
books. Her mind had been much widened by her
intercourse with Mr. Dulcimer and his library, and
good books were a consolation and delight to her.
She had marked out a line of serious study, which
she fancied might make her fitter to be Cyril’s wife,
and was resolved not to be led astray by any flowers
of literature. Hard reading was a little difficult
sometimes, for her thoughts would wander to the
lover from whom cruel fate had parted her; but she
persevered bravely, and astonished Miss Scales by
the severity of her self-discipline.</p>
<p>Bella tripped briskly across the fields to Little
Yafford Park, which was about half a mile from the
village, and only a little less distant from the Water
House. It was Saturday morning, and she knew
that Mrs. Piper would be worried about the weekly
bills, which had an unvarying tendency to be heavier
than she expected to find them.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[277]</span></p>
<p>Mrs. Piper was propped up with pillows in her
easy chair by the fire, while all the youthful Pipers—including
a couple of apple-cheeked ungainly boys
from an expensive boarding-school—were making
havoc of her handsomely furnished morning-room—a
process eminently calculated to shorten the brief
remnant of her days.</p>
<p>‘Cobbett, if you don’t leave that malachite blotting
book alone directly, I’ll ring for your pa,’
exclaimed the invalid, as Bella entered.</p>
<p>Mr. Piper was a man who had read books in
his time—not many, perhaps, but he remembered
them all the better on that account. He was a man
who boasted of thinking for himself; which meant
that he asserted second-hand opinions so forcibly
as to make them pass for new, and put down other
people’s arguments with the high hand of a self-conscious
capitalist.</p>
<p>He had christened his two elder boys Cobbett
and Bentham. The chubby little plague in pinafores
was Horne Tooke, the bony boy in knickerbockers
was Brougham. The two girls were living
memorials of Elizabeth Fry and Mary Wolstencroft.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[278]</span>
His ambition was to see these children all
educated up to the highest modern standard, and
able to occupy an intellectual eminence from which
they could look down upon everybody else.</p>
<p>‘Money and dulness are sometimes supposed
to go hand in hand,’ said Mr. Piper. ‘I shall take
care that my children may be able to exhibit the
pleasing spectacle of capital allied with intelligence.’</p>
<p>Unhappily the young Pipers did not take to education
quite so kindly as their father expected them
to do. They had no thirst for the Pierian spring,
and, instead of drinking deeply, imbibed the sacred
waters in reluctant sips, as if the fount had been
some nauseous sulphur spring offered to them medicinally.
Poor Bella had laboured almost hopelessly
for the last year to drag Brougham through that
Slough of Despond, Dr. Somebody’s first Latin
grammar, and had toiled valorously in the vain
effort to familiarize Horne Tooke with words of one
syllable. Elizabeth Fry, whom her mother designed
for greatness in the musical world, had not yet
mastered the mysteries of a common chord, or<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[279]</span>
learned the difference between a major and minor
scale. Mary Wolstencroft was a sullen young person
of eleven, who put her chubby fingers in her
mouth at the least provocation, and stubbornly
refused to learn anything.</p>
<p>‘Oh, my dear, I am very glad you have come,’
cried Mrs. Piper. ‘These children are positively
maddening. I like to have them with me, because
it’s a mother’s duty, and I hope I shall do my
duty to the last hour of my life. But they are
very trying. Bentham has spilt the ink on the
patchwork table-cover, and Mary has been pulling
the Angola’s tail most cruelly.’</p>
<p>The animal which Mrs. Piper insisted on calling
the ‘Angola’ was a magnificent white Angora cat,
and really the handsomest living creature in the
Piper household; indeed the Piper children seemed
to have been invented as a foil to the grace and
beauty of the cat, to which they were inferior in
every attribute, except the gift of speech, a privilege
they systematically abused.</p>
<p>Bella examined the injured table-cover, and
stroked the offended cat, and then sat down by Mrs.
Piper’s sofa.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[280]</span></p>
<p>‘I dare say the children are tiresome, dear Mrs.
Piper,’ she said, whereupon Bentham secretly put
out his tongue at her, ‘but it must be a comfort
to you to see them all in such good health.’</p>
<p>‘Yes, my dear, it is. But I really think there
never were such boisterous children. I am sure
when they were all down with the measles the
house was like ‘eaven. The way they use the
furniture is enough to provoke a saint. I sometimes
wish Piper hadn’t bought so many ‘andsome
ornaments for my boodwar.’</p>
<p>And Mrs. Piper gave a heavy sigh, inwardly
lamenting the ten-roomed villa in the broad high
road outside Great Yafford—the best parlour which
no one was allowed to enter—save on special
occasions and under most restrictive conditions—and
the everyday parlour, in which the shabby old
furniture could hardly be the worse for ill-usage.</p>
<p>‘And now, Bella, we’ll go to the books,’ said Mrs.
Piper, ‘they’re something awful this week. There’s
fine goings on downstairs now that I can’t get about.’</p>
<p>‘The boys being home from school must make
a difference,’ suggested Bella.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[281]</span></p>
<p>‘After allowing amply for the boys, the bills are
awful. Look at the baker’s book, Bella. It will
freeze your blood.’</p>
<p>Bella looked, and was not actually frozen,
though the amount was startling. The household expenses
seemed to have been upon an ascending scale
from the beginning of Mrs. Piper’s illness. That
careful housewife’s seclusion had certainly relaxed
the stringent economy by which larder and kitchen
had been hitherto regulated.</p>
<p>The tradesmen’s books were gone through one
by one, Mrs. Piper lamenting much, and doubtful
of almost every item. Why so much lard and
butter, why so many eggs? There were mysterious
birds in the poulterer’s book, inexplicable fish in
the fishmonger’s. When they came to the butcher’s
book things grew desperate, and the cook was
summoned to render an account of her doings.</p>
<p>Cook was a plausible young woman in a smart
cap, and she proved too much for Mrs. Piper. She
had an explanation for every pound of meat in
the book, and her mistress dared not push inquiry
to the verge of accusation, lest this smart young<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[282]</span>
woman should take advantage of the impending
season and resign her situation then and there,
leaving Mrs. Piper to get her Christmas dinner
cooked as she might. Piper was particular about
his dinner. It was the one sensual weakness of a
great mind, and if his meals fell in any way short
of his requirements and expectations, his family
circle suffered. The simoom in the desert was not
more sudden or devastating than the whirlwind
of Mr. Piper’s wrath in the dining-room, when the
fish was sodden and sloppy, or the joint presented
an interior stratum of rawness under an outer
crust of scorched flesh.</p>
<p>‘Piper is <i>so</i> particular,’ his wife would remark
piteously, ‘and good cooks are so hard to get.’</p>
<p>The fact of the case was that no good cook
would endure Mrs. Piper’s watchfulness and suspicion,
and those scathing denunciations which Mr.
Piper sent out by the parlour-maid when the dishes
were not to his liking.</p>
<p>‘I might have borne Mrs. Piper’s petty prying
ways,’ remarked one of the Park cooks, after giving
her mistress warning, ‘or I might have put up<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[283]</span>
with Mr. Piper’s tempers; but I couldn’t stand
him and her together. That was too much for
Christian flesh and blood.’</p>
<p>The cook was dismissed, with inward groanings
on the part of Mrs. Piper, and the money for the
tradesmen was entrusted to Bella, who was to pay
the bills on her way through the village, and to
make divers complaints and objections which the
cook might have omitted to deliver.</p>
<p>‘I never let a servant pay my bills if I can
help it,’ said Mrs. Piper, ‘it gives them too much
power.’</p>
<p>And Mrs. Piper gave another sigh for the days
of old, when her villa in the Great Yafford Road had
been kept as neat as a pin by two servants, and
those two servants had been completely under their
mistress’s thumb, when she herself had given her
orders by word of mouth to the tradespeople, and
not so much as a half-quartern loaf had come into
the house without her knowledge and consent.
The transition from the tight economies of mediocre
comfort to the larger splendour of unlimited
wealth had been a sore trial to Mrs. Piper. The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[284]</span>
change had come too late in her life. She could
not reconcile herself to the cost of her grandeur,
although her husband assured her that he was not
spending half his income.</p>
<p>‘It may be so now, Piper,’ she replied, dubiously,
‘but when the children grow up you’ll find yourself
spending more money. They’ll eat more, and their
boots will come dearer. I feel the difference every
year.’</p>
<p>‘When I find myself with less than fifty thousand
surplus capital, I shall begin to grumble, Moggie,’ said
Mr. Piper, ‘but I ain’t going to make a poor mouth
till then.’</p>
<p>‘Well, Piper, of course it’s nice to live in a big
place like this, and to feel oneself looked up to, and
that the best of everything is hardly good enough for
us; but still there are times when I feel as if you and
me had been sent into the world to feed a pack of
extravagant servants.’</p>
<p>‘We can’t help that, my dear,’ answered Piper,
cheerily. ‘Dukes and duchesses are the same.’</p>
<p>‘Ah, but then you see dukes and duchesses are
born to it. They’ve not been used to have their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[285]</span>
housekeeping in their own hands, as I have. I suppose
it’s when I’m a little low that it preys upon
me,’ mused Mrs. Piper, ‘but I do feel it very trying
sometimes. When I think of the butter and lard
that are used in this house it seems to me as if we
must come to the workhouse. No fortune could be
big enough to stand against it.’</p>
<p>‘Don’t be a fool, Moggie,’ retorted the manufacturer,
unmoved by this pathetic suggestion. ‘When
I was in business I’ve lost five thousand pounds in a
morning by the turn of the market, and I’ve come
home and eat my dinner and never said a word to
you about it. What’s your butter and lard against
that?’</p>
<p>‘Oh, Piper, I wonder you ever lived through it.’</p>
<p>‘I wasn’t a fool,’ answered Piper, ‘and I knew
that where there’s big gains there must be big losses,
now and again. A man that’s afraid to lose a few
odd thousands will never come out a millionaire.’</p>
<p>Ebenezer Piper had a high opinion of his
children’s governess. He had heard Bella grinding
Latin verbs with Brougham, and admired her tact
and patience. He liked to see pretty faces about<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[286]</span>
him, as he acknowledged with a noble candour, and
Bella’s face seemed to him particularly agreeable.
That pink and white prettiness was entirely to his
taste. Something soft and fresh and peachy. The
kind of woman who seemed created to acknowledge
and submit to the superiority of man. Mrs. Piper
had been a very fair sample of this pink and white
order of beauty, when the rising manufacturer married
her; but time and ill-health and a natural fretfulness
had destroyed good looks which consisted
chiefly of a fine complexion and a plump figure,
and the Mrs. Piper of the present was far from
lovely. Her Ebenezer was not the less devoted to
her on that account. He bought her fine dresses,
and every possible combination of ormolu and
malachite, mother-o’-pearl and tortoiseshell, for her
boudoir and drawing-room; and he told everybody
that she had been a good wife to him, and a pretty
woman in her time, ‘though nobody would believe
it to look at her now.’</p>
<p>On her way from Mrs. Piper’s boudoir to the
hall Miss Scratchell encountered the master of the
house, coming out of the billiard-room, where he had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[287]</span>
been knocking the balls about in a thoughtful
solitude.</p>
<p>‘How did you find the missus?’ he asked, after
saluting Bella with a friendly nod.</p>
<p>‘Pretty much the same as usual, Mr. Piper. I’m
afraid there is no change for the better. She looks
worn and worried.’</p>
<p>‘She will worry herself when there ain’t no call,’
said Piper. ‘She’s been bothering over those tradesmen’s
books this morning, I’ll warrant, just as she
used fifteen years ago when I allowed her five pounds
a week for the housekeeping. She never did take
kindly to a large establishment. She’s been wearing
her life out about fiddle-faddle ever since we came
here—and yet she had set her heart on being a great
lady. She’s a good little woman, and I’m uncommonly
fond of her, but she’s narrer-minded. I ain’t
so blind but what I can see that.’</p>
<p>‘She is all that is kind and good,’ said Bella, who
had always a large balance of affection at call for
anybody who was likely to be useful to her.</p>
<p>‘So she is,’ assented Ebenezer, ‘and you’re very
fond of her, ain’t you? She’s fond of you, too.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[288]</span>
She thinks you are one of the cleverest girls out. And
so you are. You’ve had a hard job with Brougham’s
Latin. He don’t take to learning as I did. I
was a self-taught man, Miss Scratchell. I bought
a Latin grammar at a bookstall, when I was a factory
hand, and used to sit up of a night puzzling
over it till I taught myself as much Latin as many
a chap knows that’s cost his parents no end of
money. My education never cost anybody anything,
except myself—and it cost me about a pound,
first and last, for books. I don’t know many
books, you know, but them I do know I know thoroughly.
The Vicar himself couldn’t beat me at an
argument, when it comes to the subjects I’m up in.
But I don’t pretend to know everything. I ain’t a
many-sided man. I couldn’t tell you what breed
of tomcats was ranked highest in Egypt, or where’s
the likeliest spot in the sky to look for a new
planet.’</p>
<p>‘Everybody knows that you are very clever,’
said Bella, safely.</p>
<p>‘Well, I hope nobody has ever found me very
stupid. But I want my children to know a deal<span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[289]</span>
more than me. They must be able to hold their own
against all comers. I should like ’em to read off
the monuments in Egypt as pat as I can read the
newspaper. Like that French fellow Shampoleon,
we heard so much of when I was a young man.
Come and have a look at the conservatory, and
take home some flowers for your mar.’</p>
<p>‘You are very kind, Mr. Piper; but I’m rather
in a hurry. I am not going home. I am on a
visit to the Water House.’</p>
<p>‘The deuce you are!’ exclaimed Mr. Piper.
‘There’s not many visitors there, I take it. You
must be uncommon dull.’</p>
<p>‘Other people might find it dull, perhaps; but
I am very happy there. I am very fond of
Beatrix Harefield.’</p>
<p>‘Ah! she’s a fine grown young woman; but
she ain’t my style. Looks as if there was a spice
of the devil in her. Come and have a look at the
conservatory. You can take Miss Harefield some
flowers.’</p>
<p>The conservatory opened out of the hall, to
which they had descended by this time. Bella<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[290]</span>
could not refuse to go in and look at Mr. Piper’s
expensive collection of tropical plants, with long
Latin names. His conservatory was an object of
interest to him in his present comparatively idle
life. He knew all the Latin names, and the
habits of all the plants. He cut off some of the
blossoms that were on the wane, and presented
them to Bella, talking about himself and his wife
and children all the while. She had a hard
struggle to get away, for Mr. Piper approved of
her, just as Dr. Johnson approved of Kitty Clive,
as a nice little thing to sit beside one, or, in
other words, a good listener.</p>
<p>Bella got back to the Water House in time
for luncheon, a meal which the two girls took
together in a snug breakfast parlour on the
ground floor. The dining-room was much too
large for the possibility of cheerfulness.</p>
<p>‘You have hardly eaten anything, Beatrix,’ remarked
Bella, when they had finished; ‘and you
had only a cup of tea at breakfast time. No
wonder you are ill.’</p>
<p>‘I dare say if I could sleep better I should<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[291]</span>
eat more,’ answered Beatrix, listlessly, ‘but the
nights are so long—when day comes I feel too
worn out to be hungry.’</p>
<p>‘It is all very bad and very foolish,’ said
Bella. ‘Why should you have these sleepless
nights? It can’t be grief. You have nothing to
grieve about. Your way lies clear before you.
It is only a question of time.’</p>
<p>‘I suppose so,’ assented Beatrix; ‘but I can’t
see myself happy in the future. I can’t believe
in it. I feel as if all my life was to be spent in
this loveless home—my father holding himself
aloof from me—Cyril parted from me. How can
I be sure that he will always love me—that I
shall be the same to him two years hence that I
am now? It is a long time.’</p>
<p>‘A long time to be parted without even the
privilege of writing to each other, certainly,’ said
Bella; ‘but there is no fear of any change in Mr.
Culverhouse’s feelings. Think what a splendid
match you are for a poor curate.’</p>
<p>‘Why do you harp upon that string, Bella?’
cried Beatrix, angrily. ‘You know that if I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[292]</span>
marry Cyril I shall forfeit my father’s fortune.
Cyril knows it too. It is a settled thing. I
shall go to him penniless.’</p>
<p>‘Oh, no, you won’t, dear! Things will never
go so far as that. Your father will get reconciled
to the idea of your marrying Mr. Culverhouse.
You must both look forward to that.’</p>
<p>‘We neither of us look forward to it. There
is no question of fortune between us. Never
speak of such a thing again, Bella, unless you
wish to offend me. And now I am going to drive
you to Great Yafford, to do some shopping. We
must buy some Christmas presents for your mamma
and brothers and sisters.’</p>
<p>‘Oh, Beatrix, you are too good.’</p>
<p>Puck, the pony, was one of the finest specimens
of his race, a thick-necked, stout-limbed
animal, and a splendid goer. He would have
dragged his mistress all round England, and never
asked for a day’s rest. He never was sick nor
sorry, as the old coachman said approvingly, when
summing up Puck’s qualifications. On the other
hand, he had a temper of his own, and if he was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[293]</span>
offended he kicked. He would have destroyed a
carriage once a week if he had got into bad
hands. But he understood Beatrix, and Beatrix
understood him, and everything went smoothly
between them.</p>
<p>Great Yafford on a December afternoon was
about as ugly a town as one need care to see;
but it was busy and prosperous, and seemed to
take an honest pride in its ugliness, so stoutly
did its vestry and corporation oppose any movement
in the direction of beauty. There was one
street of ample breadth and length, intersected by
a great many narrow streets. There was a grimy
looking canal, along which still grimier coal barges
crept stealthily under the dull gray sky. There
were great piles of buildings devoted to the purposes
of commerce; factories, warehouses, gas
works, dye works, oil works, soap works, bone
works, all vying with one another in hideousness,
and in the production of unsavoury odours.</p>
<p>Ugly as Great Yafford was, however, there was
nothing Bella Scratchell enjoyed so much as a
visit to Tower Gate, the broad street above-named,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[294]</span>
and a leisurely contemplation of the well-furnished
shop windows, where the fashions, as that morning
received from Paris, were to be seen gratis
by the penniless gazer. Banbury and Banburys’,
the chief drapers, afforded Bella as much delight
as a lover of pictures derives from a noble gallery.
She would have seen the Venus of Milo for the
first time with less excitement than she felt on
beholding ‘our latest novelties in Paris mantles,’
or ‘our large importation of silks from the great
Lyons houses.’</p>
<p>‘Drive slowly, please, Beatrix,’ said Bella, as
they entered Tower Gate; ‘I should like to have
a look at Banburys’, though it can’t make any
difference to me, for I have bought my winter
things.’</p>
<p>‘You can look as long as you like, Bella. I
am going in to buy some gloves, and a few little
things. Perhaps you would like to go in with me.’</p>
<p>‘I should very much, dear. They have always
such lovely things inside.’</p>
<p>Puck was given over to the care of the groom,
while the two young ladies went into Banburys’.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[295]</span>
It was a very busy time just now. ‘Our latest
novelties’ were being scrutinized and pulled about
by an eager throng of buyers, and the patience of
Banburys’ young men was tried to the verge of
martyrdom by ladies who hadn’t quite made up
their minds what they wanted, or whether they
wanted anything at all. An ordinary individual
would have had ample time to study the humours
of Banburys’ before being served; but Miss Harefield
was known as an excellent customer, and
the shop-walker was in a fever till he had found
a young man to attend upon her. He was a pale
young man, in whose face all the colour had run
into pimples, and he had a wild and worried look,
which was not unnatural in a youth whose mind
had been tortured by all kinds of fanciful objections
to, and criticisms upon Banburys’ stock,
from nine o’clock that morning, and who had run
to and fro over the face of Banburys’, like a new
Orestes driven by the Furies, in search of articles
that never answered the requirements of his customers,
proving always just a little too dear, or
too common, too thick or too thin, too dark<span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[296]</span>
or too light, too silky or too woolly for the fair
buyer. To this tormented youth Beatrix seemed
an angel of light, so easily was she pleased, so
quickly did she decide upon her purchases. She
bought a dozen pairs of gloves, a pile of ribbons,
laces, and other trifles in the time that an elderly
female in black, a little lower down the counter,
devoted to the thrilling question of which particular
piece out of a pile of lavender printed
cotton would best survive the ordeal of the washtub.</p>
<p>‘What is your sister Clementina’s size?’ inquired
Beatrix, looking over a box of gloves.</p>
<p>‘Oh, Beatrix, you mustn’t buy any for her,’
whispered Bella.</p>
<p>‘Yes, I must. And you must tell me her
number.’</p>
<p>‘Six and three-quarters.’</p>
<p>‘The same as yours. I’ll take a dozen of the
six and three-quarters.’</p>
<p>A large Honiton collar and cuffs, after the fashion
of the period—a dark age in which rufflings and
fichus and all the varieties of modern decorative art<span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[297]</span>
were unknown—were chosen for Miss Scales—neck
ribbons for the women servants—warm clothing for
certain goodies in the village—a noble parcel altogether.
The pale and haggard youth felt that he
need not quail before the awful eye of Banbury
when the day’s takings came to be summed up.</p>
<p>After leaving Banburys’, Miss Harefield drove
to a chemist’s, and got out alone to make her
purchases.</p>
<p>‘I couldn’t get what I wanted there,’ she said,
and then drove into one of the narrow streets and
pulled up at another chemist’s.</p>
<p>She went in this way to no less than six
chemists’ shops, entering each alone, and remaining
for about five minutes in each. She had a good many
little daintily sealed white parcels by the time she
had finished this round.</p>
<p>‘Are you going to set up as a doctor?’ Bella
asked, laughing.</p>
<p>‘I have got what I wanted at last,’ Beatrix
answered evasively.</p>
<p>‘What can you have in all those little parcels?’</p>
<p>‘Perfumery—in most of them. And now I am<span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[298]</span>
going to the Repository to buy something for your
small brothers and sisters.’</p>
<p>The Repository was a kind of bazaar in Tower
Gate, where there was a large selection of useless
articles at any price from sixpence to a guinea.
Beatrix loaded herself with popular parlour games,
Conversation Cards, Royal Geographical Games, and
Kings of England—games which no one but a
drivelling idiot could play more than once without
being conscious of a tendency to softening of the
brain—for the young Scratchells. She bought a
handsome workbasket for the industrious house-mother.
She bought scent bottles and thimble cases
for the girls, knives and pocket-books for the boys.</p>
<p>‘Upon my word, Beatrix, you are too good,’
exclaimed Bella, when she heard the destination of
these objects.</p>
<p>‘Do you suppose that money can give me any
better pleasure than to make other people happy
with it, if I can?’ answered Beatrix. ‘It will never
make me happy.’</p>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
<div class="chapter">
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[299]</span></p>
<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
</div>
<p class="center"><span class="allsmcap">A WITNESS FROM THE GRAVE.</span></p>
<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">The</span> two girls at the Water House lived their solitary
life all through the dark week before Christmas.
They read a great deal; Bella confining herself to
the novels from the Great Yafford library, Beatrix
reading those books which she believed were to fit
her for companionship with Cyril Culverhouse in the
days to come. They did not find so much to say to
each other as friends of such long standing might
have been expected to find. But Beatrix was by
nature reserved about those things nearest her heart,
and her cloistered life gave her little else to talk
about. On the dusky winter afternoons they went
up to the lumber-room, and had a feast of music at
the old piano; Bella singing prettily in a clear
soprano voice—thin but not unmelodious—Beatrix
playing church music with the touch of a player in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[300]</span>
whom music was a natural expression of thought and
feeling, and not a laboriously acquired art. Very
rarely could Beatrix be persuaded to sing, but when
she did uplift her fresh young voice, the rich
contralto tones were like the sound of an organ, and
even Bella’s shallow soul was moved by the simple
melodies of the Psalter of those days.</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">‘As pants the hart for cooling streams,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">When heated in the chase.’</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class="noin">Or,</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">‘With one consent let all the earth</div>
<div class="verse indent2">To God their cheerful voices raise.’</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p>‘Has Mr. Culverhouse ever heard you sing?’
inquired Bella.</p>
<p>‘Never. Where should he hear me? I never
sing anywhere but in this room.’</p>
<p>‘And in church.’</p>
<p>‘Yes, of course, in church. But I do not think
even Cyril could distinguish my voice out of a whole
congregation.’</p>
<p>‘He might,’ said Bella, ‘all the rest sing through
their noses.’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[301]</span></p>
<p>For fine days there was the garden, and for
variety Puck and the pony carriage. Miss Harefield
took her friend for long drives across the moor. Once
they met Cyril in one of the lanes, and passed him
with a distant recognition. Bella saw Beatrix’s cheek
grow pale as he came in sight.</p>
<p>‘How white you turned just now,’ she said,
when Puck had carried them ever so far away from
the curate of Little Yafford.</p>
<p>‘Did I?’ asked Beatrix. ‘I don’t think I can be
as pale as you. That was sympathy, I suppose. You
felt how hard it was for me to pass him by.’</p>
<p>‘Yes,’ answered Bella in her quiet little way,
‘that was what I felt.’</p>
<p>Bella had been staying at the Water House a
week and during that time had seen Mr. Harefield
about half a dozen times. He was in the habit of
dining with his daughter and her governess on Sundays.
It was not a pleasant change in his hermit-like
life, but he made this sacrifice to paternal duty.
Every Sunday at four o’clock he sat down to dinner
with his daughter and Miss Scales. Now that Miss
Scales was away he sat down alone with the two<span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[302]</span>
girls, and looked at them curiously, when he found
himself face to face with them at the board, as
if they had been a new species in zoology which
he had never before had the opportunity of scrutinizing.</p>
<p>He looked from one to the other thoughtfully
while he unfolded his napkin, as if he were not quite
clear as to which was his daughter, and then, having
made up his mind on that point, addressed himself
with a slight turn of the head to Beatrix.</p>
<p>‘Your friend has grown very much,’ he said.</p>
<p>‘Do you really think so, Mr. Harefield?’ inquired
Bella, with a gratified simper. It was something
to be spoken of in any wise by this modern Timon.</p>
<p>Mr. Harefield went on helping the soup without a
word. He had quite forgotten his own remark, and
had not heard Bella’s. They got half-way through
the dinner in absolute silence. Then a tart and
a pudding appeared, and the tart, being set down
rather suddenly before Mr. Harefield, seemed to disturb
him in the midst of a waking dream.</p>
<p>‘Have you heard from Miss Scales?’ he asked
his daughter abruptly.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[303]</span></p>
<p>‘Yes, papa. I have had two letters. Her aunt is
very ill. Miss Scales is afraid she will die.’</p>
<p>‘She hopes it, you mean. Can you suppose such
a sensible person as Miss Scales would wish a tiresome
old woman’s life prolonged when she will get a
legacy by her death?’</p>
<p>‘Miss Scales is a good woman, papa. She would
not be so wicked as to wish for any one’s death.’</p>
<p>‘Would she not? I’m afraid there are a great
many good people on this earth wishing as hard as
they can in the same line. Expectant heirs,
expectant heiresses—waiting to wrench purse and
power from a dead man’s gripe.’</p>
<p>After this pleasant speech the master of the
house relapsed into silence. The old butler moved
quietly to and fro. There was a gentle jingle of
glass and silver now and then, like the ringing of
distant sleigh-bells. The wood ashes fell softly from
the wide old grate. The clock ticked in the hall outside.
Time halted like a cripple. Bella began to
think that even a home Sunday—with Mr. Scratchell
swearing at the cooking and Mrs. Scratchell in tears—was
better than this. It was at least open misery,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[304]</span>
and the storm generally blew over as rapidly as it
arose. Here there was a suppressed and solemn
gloom, as of a tempest always impending and never
coming. What a waste of wealth and luxury it
seemed to sit in a fine old room like this, surrounded
by all good things, and to be obstinately wretched!</p>
<p>When dinner was over, and certain dried fruits
and pale half-ripened oranges had been carried
round by the butler’s subordinate, the butler himself
following solemnly with decanters and claret jug,
and nobody taking anything, the two girls rose, at a
look from Beatrix, and left Mr. Harefield alone.</p>
<p>‘Will you come up to my room and have some
tea, papa?’ Beatrix asked at the door.</p>
<p>‘Not to-night, my dear. I have a new number
of the <i>Westminster</i> to read. You and Miss
Scratchell can amuse yourselves. Good-night.’</p>
<p>No paternal kiss was offered or asked.</p>
<p>‘Good-night, papa,’ said Beatrix, and she and
Bella went away.</p>
<p>It was a long evening. Bella did not like to
open a novel, and did not care for Bishop Ken,
whose ‘Practice of Divine Love’ formed the last<span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[305]</span>
stage in Miss Harefield’s self-culture. The only
piano in the house was ever so far away in the
lumber-room, and the lumber-room after dark was
suggestive of ghosts and goblins, or at any rate of
rats and mice.</p>
<p>Sunday evening at the parish church was
gayer than this, Bella thought, as she sat by the
fire stifling her frequent yawns, and watched
Beatrix’s thoughtful face bending over Bishop
Ken.</p>
<p>‘Yes, she is much handsomer than I am,’
reflected Bella, with a pang of envy. ‘How can
I wonder that he likes her best! She is like one
of those old prints Mr. Dulcimer showed us one
evening—by Albert Durer, I think. Grave dark
faces of Saints and Madonnas. She is like a
poem or a picture made alive. And he is full of
romance and poetry. No wonder he loves her.
It is not for the sake of her fortune. He really
does love her.’</p>
<p>And then came the question which in Bella’s
mind was unanswerable. ‘Why should she have
everything and I so little?’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">[306]</span></p>
<p>Beatrix read on, absorbed in her book. The
clock ticked, the gray wood ashes dropped upon
the hearth, just as they had done in the dining-room.
Outside the deep casement windows the
night winds were blowing, the ragged tree-tops
swaying against a cold gray sky. Bella shivered
as she sat by the fire. This was the dreariest
Sunday evening she had ever spent.</p>
<p>Presently a shrill bell pealed loudly through
the house, a startling sound amidst a silence
which seemed to have lasted for ages, nay, to be
a normal condition of one’s existence. Bella gave
a little jump, and sat up in her chair alert and
eager.</p>
<p>‘Could it be Cyril Culverhouse? No, of course
not.’</p>
<p>His image filled so large a place in her life
that even the sudden ringing of a bell suggested
his approach, till reason came to check the vagaries
of fancy.</p>
<p>The same thought darted into Beatrix’s mind.
For a woman deeply in love, earth holds only
one man—her lover. Was it Cyril who came to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">[307]</span>
claim her; to trample down the barrier of paternal
authority, and to claim her by the right of their
mutual love? This idea being, at the first flash of
reason, utterly untenable, lasted no longer with
Beatrix than it had done with Bella.</p>
<p>‘It must be Miss Scales,’ she said, going to
the door. ‘And yet I should not have thought
she would travel on a Sunday. She is so very
particular about Sunday.’</p>
<p>Miss Scales belonged to a sect with whom
God’s day of rest means a day of penance; a day
upon which mankind holds itself in an apologetic
attitude towards its Maker, as if deprecating the
Divine wrath for its audacity in having taken the
<span class="err" title="original: librety">liberty</span> to be born.</p>
<p>The two girls went out into the corridor, and
from the corridor to the square open gallery in
the middle of the house, from which the broad
staircase descended. Here, leaning upon the oaken
balustrade, they looked down into the hall.</p>
<p>It was empty when they first looked, a vacant
expanse of black and white marble. Then there
came another peal of the bell, and the butler<span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">[308]</span>
walked slowly across to the door, and opened it
just wide enough to reconnoitre the visitor.</p>
<p>Here there was a brief parley, the drift of
which the girls could not distinguish. They only
heard a murmur of masculine voices.</p>
<p>‘It can’t be Miss Scales,’ whispered Beatrix.
‘They would have brought in her portmanteau
before this.’</p>
<p>The parley ceased all at once, the butler threw
open the door, and a gentleman came in out of
the windy night, bringing a blast of cold air with
him. He took off his hat, and stood in the centre
of the hall, looking about him, while the butler
carried his card to Mr. Harefield. The stranger
was a man of about fifty, tall and spare of figure,
but with a certain nobility of bearing, as of one
accustomed to command. The finely shaped head
was beautifully set upon the shoulders, the chest
was broad and deep. As he looked upwards the
two girls drew back into the shadow, still watching
him.</p>
<p>It was a beautiful head, a grand Italian face
full of tranquillity and power, like a portrait by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">[309]</span>
Moroni. The eyes were dark, the skin was a pale
olive, the hair ‘a sable silvered.’ A thrill went
through Beatrix’s heart as she looked at him.</p>
<p>Yes, she remembered, she knew. This was
Antonio. This was the Italian with the pathetic
voice, who sat in the twilight, singing church
music, that summer evening long ago. This was
the man whose face memory associated with the
face of her dead mother. She had seen them looking
at her together in those days of early childhood,
whose faint memories are like a reminiscence
of some anterior state of being, a world known
before earth.</p>
<p>The butler came back.</p>
<p>‘My master will see you, sir.’</p>
<p>The stranger followed him out of the hall.
Beatrix and Bella could hear the footsteps travelling
slowly along the passage to the library.</p>
<p>‘Who can he be?’ exclaimed Miss Scratchell,
full of curiosity. ‘Perhaps he is a relation of
your papa’s,’ she added, speculatively, Beatrix
having ignored her first remark.</p>
<p>Beatrix remained silent. She was thinking of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">[310]</span>
the miniature in her mother’s room, the youthful
likeness of the face she had seen to-night. Who
was this man? Her mother’s kinsman, perhaps?
But why had his presence brought sorrow and
severance between husband and wife? Little as
she knew of the hard facts that made up the
history of her mother’s life, there was that in
Beatrix’s memory which told her this man had
been the cause of evil.</p>
<p>She roused herself with an effort, and went
back to her room, followed by Bella, who had
broken out into fresh yawns on finding that the
advent of the stranger promised no relief to the
dulness of the evening.</p>
<p>‘Eight o’clock,’ she said, as the old clock in
the hall announced that fact, embellishing a plain
truth with a little burst of old-fashioned melody.
‘They are coming out of church by this time. I
wonder whether Mr. Culverhouse has preached one
of his awakening sermons? I am sure we should
be the better for a little awakening, shouldn’t we,
Beatrix? I really wish you would talk a little,
dear. You look as if you were walking in your sleep.’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">[311]</span></p>
<p>‘Do I?’ said Beatrix. ‘Here comes the tea-tray.
Perhaps a cup of tea may enliven us.’</p>
<p>‘Well, the urn is company at any rate,’ assented
Bella, as the servant set down the oblong silver
tray, with its buff and gold Bristol cups and saucers,
and the massive old urn, dimly suggestive of sisterly
affection in the person of Electra, or needing only
a napkin neatly draped across it to recall the
sculptured monuments of a modern cemetery.</p>
<p>‘Now, really,’ pursued Bella, while Beatrix was
making tea, ‘have you no idea who that foreign-looking
gentleman is?’</p>
<p>‘Why should I trouble myself about him? He
comes to see papa, not me.’</p>
<p>‘Yes, but one can’t help being curious so long
as one is human. By the time my inquisitiveness
is worn out I shall be an angel. Your papa has
so few visitors; and this one has such a distinguished
appearance. I feel sure he is some one of
importance.’</p>
<p>‘Very likely.’</p>
<p>‘My dear Beatrix, this lonely life of yours is
making you dreadfully stoical,’ remonstrated Bella.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">[312]</span></p>
<p>‘I should be glad to become stoical. This
stranger’s visit cannot make any difference to me.
It will not make my father love me any better, or
feel more kindly disposed towards Cyril. It may
make him a little worse perhaps. It may stir up
old bitterness.’</p>
<p>‘Why?’ cried Bella, eagerly, her bright blue
eyes becoming unbeauteously round in her excitement.</p>
<p>‘Don’t talk to me about him any more,
please, Bella. I do not know who he is, or what
he is, or whence or why he comes. He will go as
he came, no doubt, leaving no trace of his presence
behind him.’</p>
<p>But here Beatrix was wrong. This was not to
be. In the library the two men were standing face
to face—men who had not met for more than ten
years, who had parted in anger too deep for words.</p>
<p>Christian Harefield contemplated his visitor
calmly, or with that stony quietude which is
passion’s best assumption of calm.</p>
<p>‘Has the end of the world come,’ he asked,
‘that you come to me?’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">[313]</span></p>
<p>‘You are surprised that I should come?’ responded
the Italian, in very good English.</p>
<p>‘I am surprised at two things—your folly and
your audacity.’</p>
<p>‘I shall not praise my own wisdom. I have
done a foolish thing, perhaps, in coming to England
on purpose to do you a service. But I deny the
audacity. There is no act in my past life that
should forbid my entrance to this house.’</p>
<p>‘We will not re-open old wounds,’ answered
Christian Harefield. ‘You are a villain; you acted
like a villain. You are a coward; you acted like
a coward in flying from the man you had wronged,
when he pursued you in his just and righteous
wrath.’</p>
<p>‘My career of the last ten years best answers
your charge of cowardice,’ replied the other. ‘My
name will be remembered in Italy with the five
days of Milan. I never fled from you; I never
knew that you pursued me.’</p>
<p>‘I spent half a year of my life in hunting you.
I would have given the remnant of an unprofitable
life then to have met you face to face in your<span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">[314]</span>
lawless country, as we are meeting to-night in this
room. But now the chance comes too late. I
have outlived even the thirst for revenge.’</p>
<p>‘Again I tell you that I never wronged you,
unless it was a wrong against you to enter this
house.’</p>
<p>‘It was, and you know it. You, my wife’s
former lover—the only man she ever loved—you
to creep into my house, as the serpent crept into
Eden, under the guise of friendship and good-will,
and poison my peace for ever.’</p>
<p>‘It was your own groundless jealousy that made
the poison. From first to last your wife was the
purest and noblest of women.’</p>
<p>‘From first to last!’ exclaimed Christian Harefield,
with exceeding bitterness. ‘First, when she
introduced you, the lover of her youth, to her
husband’s house, last when she fled from that
husband with you for her companion. Assuredly
the purest and noblest among women, judged by
your Italian ethics.’</p>
<p>‘With me!’ cried the Italian, ‘with me! Your
wife fled with me! You say that—say it in good faith.’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">[315]</span></p>
<p>‘I say that which I know to be the truth. When
she left me that night at the inn on the mountain
road above Borgo Pace, after a quarrel that had
been just a trifle more bitter than our customary
quarrels, you were waiting for her with a carriage
a quarter of a mile from the inn. You were seen
there; she was seen to enter the carriage with you.
Tolerably direct evidence, I fancy. For my
daughter’s sake—to save my own pride and
honour—I gave out that my wife had died suddenly
at that lonely inn in the Apennines. Her
father was dead, her brother sunk in the gulf of
Parisian dissipation. There was no one interested
in making any inquiries as to the details of her
death or burial. The fiction passed unquestioned.
For me it was a truth. She died to
me in the hour she abandoned and dishonoured
me; and all trust in my fellow-men, all love
for my race, died within me at the same
time.’</p>
<p>‘You are a man to be pitied,’ said Antonio,
gravely. ‘You have borne the burden of an
imaginary dishonour. You have wronged your<span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">[316]</span>
wife, you have wronged me; but you have wronged
yourself most of all. Did you get no letter from
the Convent of Santa Cecilia?’</p>
<p>‘What letter? No. I had no letter. I left
the inn at daybreak on the morning after my wife’s
flight, followed on the track of your carriage—traced
you as far as Citta di Castello—there lost
you—caught the trail again at Perugia, followed
you to Narni, and there again missed you.’</p>
<p>‘And you believed that your wife was my
companion in that journey?’</p>
<p>‘What else should I believe? It was the truth.
I heard everywhere that you were accompanied by
a lady—a lady whose description answered to my
wife.’</p>
<p>‘Possibly. A tavern-keeper’s description is somewhat
vague. The lady was my sister, whom I was
taking from the convent of the Sacred Heart at
Urbino, where she had been educated, to meet her betrothed
in Rome, where she was to be married. Your
wife took refuge at the convent of Santa Cecilia on
the night she left you. My sister and I went there
with her—left her in the charge of the Reverend<span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">[317]</span>
Mother, who promised her an asylum there as long
as she chose to remain. She was to write to you
immediately, explaining her conduct, and telling you
that your violence had compelled her to this course,
and that she could only return to you under certain
conditions. I heard the Reverend Mother promise
that a messenger should be despatched to the inn
with the letter as soon as it was daylight.’</p>
<p>‘I was on the road at the first streak of dawn,’
exclaimed Mr. Harefield. ‘I never had that letter.
How do I know that it is not all a lie? How do I
know that you have not come here with a deep-laid
plot to cheat and cajole me? I have lived all these
years believing my wife false, accursed, abominable,
a woman whose very existence was a disgrace to me
and to her child. And you come now with this fable
about a convent—a sudden flight from an intolerable
life—ay, it was bitter enough in those last days, I
confess—a pure and spotless life, cloistered, unknown.
She is living still, I suppose—a professed
nun—hiding that calm face under the shadow of a
sable hood?’</p>
<p>‘She died within a year of her entrance into the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">[318]</span>
convent, died, as she had lived, a guest, receiving
protection and hospitality from the sisterhood, among
them but not one of them. As your wife the church
could not have received her. The nuns loved her for
her gentleness, her piety, and her sorrow. I have
come from her grave. Till within the last few
months I have been a wanderer on the face of my
country—every thought of my brain, every desire of
my heart given to the cause of Italian independence.
Only last week I found myself again a traveller on
the mountain road between Urbino and Perugia, and
master of my time. I went to visit the grave of her
I had last seen a sorrowful fugitive from a husband
whose very love had been so mixed with bitterness
that it had resulted in mutual misery. The fact that
you had never visited the convent, or communicated
in any way with the nuns during all these years
made me suspect some misunderstanding—and in
justice to her whom I loved when life was young and
full of fair hopes—and whose memory I love and
honour now my hair is gray, I am here to tell you
that your wife died worthy of your regret, that it is
you who have need of pardon—not she.’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">[319]</span></p>
<p>‘And I am to take your word for this?’</p>
<p>‘No, I knew too well your hatred and distrust to
come to you without some confirmation of my story.
At my request, knowing all the circumstances of the
case, the Reverend Mother drew up a full account of
your wife’s reception at the convent, her last illness,
and her death, which came unexpectedly though she
had long been ill. My chief purpose in coming to
England was to give you this paper.’ He laid a
large sealed envelope upon the table before Mr.
Harefield. ‘Having done this, my mission is ended.
I have no more to say.’</p>
<p>The Italian bowed gravely, and left the room,
Mr. Harefield mechanically ringing the bell for the
butler to show him out.</p>
<p>The door closed upon the departing guest, and
Christian Harefield stood looking straight before him
with fixed eyes—looking into empty air and seeing—what?</p>
<p>A pale pained face, white to the lips, framed in
darkest hair, dark eyes gazing at him with a strained
agonized gaze—hands clasped in a convulsion of
grief and anger.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">[320]</span></p>
<p>He heard a voice half choked with sobs.</p>
<p>‘Husband, you are too cruel—groundless accusations—vilest
suspicions—I will not, I cannot bear
this persecution any longer. I will leave you this
very night.’</p>
<p>‘Yes,’ he answered, ‘your lover is waiting for
you. It was his carriage that passed us on the road—and
<i>you</i> know it.’</p>
<p>‘I do,’ she exclaimed with flashing eyes, ‘and I
thank God that I have a friend and defender so
near.’</p>
<p>And then she left him, to go to her own room as
he fancied. He took her talk of flight as an empty
threat. She had threatened him in this same way
more than once in her passion. Their quarrel to-night
had been a little more violent than usual. That was
all. His jealousy had been aroused by the sight of
a face he hated, looking out of a travelling carriage
that whirled by them in a cloud of white dust on
the sunny mountain road. He had given free rein to
his violence afterwards, when they were alone at the
inn—and had spoken words that no woman could
forgive or forget.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">[321]</span></p>
<p>Late that night he found her gone, and on
inquiry discovered that a carriage had been seen
waiting not far from the inn, and a lady, muffled in
a mantle, had been seen to enter it. He heard this
some hours after the event. He had no clue to assist
him in discovering the way the carriage had taken,
but he concluded that it had gone on to Citta di Castello.
He had no doubt as to the face he had seen
looking out of the window, athwart that blinding
cloud of dust, as the bells jingled on the ragged old
harness, and the driver lashed his jaded horses.</p>
<p>The outer door of the Water House shut with a
prolonged reverberation, like the door of an empty
church. Antonio was gone. Christian Harefield
sank down in his accustomed seat, and sat staring
at the fire, with hollow eyes, his arms hanging
loosely across the oaken arms of the chair, his long
thin hands falling idly, his lips moving faintly, now
and then, but making no sound, as if repeating
dumbly some conversation of the past—the ghosts
of words long dead.</p>
<p>Those haggard eyes, which seemed to be staring
at the red logs, were indeed looking along the corridor<span class="pagenum" id="Page_322">[322]</span>
of slow dull years to that one point in the past when
life was fresh and vivid, and all this earth flushed
with colour and alive with light.</p>
<p>He was thinking of the evening when he first
saw the girl who was afterwards his wife.</p>
<p>It was at a party in Florence—at the house of
an Italian Countess—literary—artistic—dilettante—a
party at which the rooms were crowded, and people
went in and out and complained of the heat, while
large and splendid Italian matrons—with eyes that
one would hardly hope to see, save on the canvas of
Guido, sat in indolent grace on the broad crimson
divans, languidly fanning themselves, and murmuring
soft scandals under cover of the music. There was
much music at the Countess Circignani’s, and that
night a young novice—the daughter of a Colonel in
the Italian army—was led to the piano by the fair
hand of the Countess herself, who entreated silence
for her <i>protégée</i>. And then the sweet round voice
arose, full of youth and freshness, in a joyous melody
of Rossini’s—an air as full of trills and bright spontaneous
cadences as a skylark’s song.</p>
<p>He, Christian Harefield, the travelling Englishman,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_323">[323]</span>
stood among the crowd and watched the fair
face of the singer. He was struck with its beauty
and sweetness; but his was not a nature prone to
sudden passions. This was to be no new instance
of love kindled by a single glance, swift as fire from
a burning glass. Before the evening was ended,
Mr. Harefield had been presented to Colonel Murano,
and by the Colonel to the fair singer. The soldier
was a patriot, burning for the release of his country
from the Austrian yoke—full of grand ideas of unification,
glorious hopes that pointed to Rome as the
capital of a united Italy. He found the Englishman
interested in the Italian question, if not enthusiastic.
He was known to be rich, and therefore worthy to be
cultivated. Colonel Murano cultivated him assiduously,
gave him the entrance to his shabby but
patriotic <i>salon</i>, where Mr. Harefield listened courteously
while patriots with long hair, and patriots
with short hair, discussed the future of Italy.</p>
<p>The Colonel was a widower with a son and
daughter—the girl newly released from the convent
of an educational order, where her musical gifts had
been cultivated to the uttermost—the son an incipient<span class="pagenum" id="Page_324">[324]</span>
profligate, without the means of gratifying his
taste for low pleasures. There was a nephew, a
soldier and an enthusiast like his uncle, who spent
all his evenings in the Colonel’s <i>salon</i>, singing with
Beatrix Murano, or listening while she sang.</p>
<p>From the hour in which he first loved Beatrix,
Christian Harefield hated this cousin, with the grave,
dark face, sympathetic manners, and exquisite tenor
voice. In him the Englishman saw his only
rival.</p>
<p>Later, this young soldier, Antonio Murano, left
Florence on military duty. The coast was clear,
Mr. Harefield offered himself to the Colonel as a
husband for his daughter—the Colonel responded
warmly. He could wish no happier alliance for his
only girl. She was young—her heart had never
been touched. She could scarcely fail to reciprocate
an attachment which did her so much honour.</p>
<p>‘Are you sure of that?’ asked Christian Harefield.
‘I have fancied sometimes that there is something
more than cousinly regard between the Signora and
Captain Murano.’</p>
<p>The Colonel laughed at the idea. The cousins<span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">[325]</span>
had been brought up together like brother and
sister—both were enthusiasts in music and love of
country. There was sympathy—an ardent sympathy
between them—nothing more.</p>
<p>Christian Harefield’s jealous temper was not to
be satisfied so easily. He kept his opinion; but
passion was stronger than prudence, and a week
after he had made his offer to the father he proposed
to the daughter. She accepted him with a pretty
submission that charmed him—but which meant
that she had learnt her lesson. She had been told
that to refuse this chance of fortune was to inflict a
deliberate and cruel injury upon those she loved—her
father, for whom life had been a hard-fought
battle, unblest by a single victory—her brother, who
was on the threshold of life, and who needed to be
put in the right road by a friend as powerful as
Christian Harefield. The girl accepted her English
suitor, loving that absent one fondly all the while,
and believing she was doing her duty.</p>
<p>Then followed a union which might have been
calm and peaceful, nay, even happy, had fate and
Christian Harefield willed it. His wife’s health<span class="pagenum" id="Page_326">[326]</span>
rendered a winter in England impossible. The
doctors ordered her southward as soon as autumn
began. What more natural than that her own
wishes should point to her native city, the lovely
and civilized Florence? Her husband, at first doting,
though always suspicious, indulged this reasonable
desire. At Florence they met the soldier cousin.
He and Mrs. Harefield’s father both belonged to the
patriot party. Both believed that the hour for
casting off the Austrian yoke was close at hand.
Colonel Murano’s <i>salon</i> was the rendezvous of all
the <i>Carbonari</i> in the city. It was a political club.
Mrs. Harefield shared the enthusiasm of her father
and her cousin, and even her husband’s stern nature
was moved to sympathy with a cause so noble.
Then, by a slow and gradual growth, jealousy took
root in the husband’s heart, and strangled every
better feeling. He began to see in his wife’s love
for Florence a secret hankering after an old lover.
He set himself to watch, and the man who watches
always sees something to suspect. His own eyes
create the monster. By and by, Antonio Murano
came to England on a secret mission to an exiled<span class="pagenum" id="Page_327">[327]</span>
chief of the patriot party, and naturally went northward
to visit his cousin. He was received with
outward friendship but inward distrust. Then came
scenes of suppressed bitterness between husband
and wife—a sleepless watchfulness that imagined
evil in every look and word, and saw guilt in actions
the most innocent. A life that was verily hell upon
earth. Later there followed positive accusations—the
open charge of infidelity; and, in the indignation
kindled by groundless allegations, Christian Harefield’s
wife confessed that she had never loved him,
that she had sacrificed her own inclinations for the
benefit of her family. She confessed further that
she had loved Antonio Murano; but declared at the
same time, with tears of mingled anger and shame,
that no word had ever been spoken by either of
them since her marriage which her husband could
blame.</p>
<p>‘You have seen him. He has been your chosen
companion and friend,’ cried Christian Harefield.
‘If you had meant to be true to me you would
never have seen his face after your marriage. Had
you been honest and loyal I would have forgiven<span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">[328]</span>
you for not loving me. I will never forgive you
for deceiving me.’</p>
<p>From that hour there was no longer even the
semblance of love between them. On Mr. Harefield’s
part there was an ill-concealed aversion which extended
even to his child. Finally came that last
Italian journey—necessitated by the wife’s fast failing
health—and with that journey the end. They
went this time not to Florence, Mrs. Harefield’s
beloved home, but to Venice, where she was a stranger.
From Venice they were to go to Rome for the
winter, and it was while they were travelling towards
Rome that the catastrophe came. Christian Harefield
believed that his wife had left him with her cousin—that
the whole thing had been deliberately planned
between them, Captain Murano following them
southward from Venice.</p>
<p>This was the bitter past upon which Christian
Harefield looked back as he sat before his solitary
hearth that wintry night. The story of his wedded
life passed before him like a series of pictures. He
might have made it better, perhaps, if he had been
wiser, he told himself; but he could not have made<span class="pagenum" id="Page_329">[329]</span>
his wife love him, and he had loved her too passionately
to be satisfied with less than her love. They
were doomed to be miserable.</p>
<p>It was long before he read the Reverend Mother’s
statement. The clock had struck more than once.
His servant had come in for the last time, bringing
a fresh supply of wood. The doors had been locked
and barred. The household had gone to bed. It
was the dead of night before Mr. Harefield aroused
himself from that long reverie, and opened the
sealed paper which was to confirm Antonio Murano’s
story.</p>
<p>He read it slowly and thoughtfully, and believed
it. What motive could any one have for deceiving
him, now, after all these years, when the griefs
and passions of the past were dead things—like a
handful of gray dust in a funeral urn?</p>
<p>He rose and paced the room for a long time,
deep in thought, holding the Superior’s letter in his
hand. Then, as if moved by a sudden resolution,
he seated himself at his table, and began to write a
letter. It was brief—but he was long in writing it,
and when it was done he sat for some time with the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">[330]</span>
letter lying before him—and his eyes fixed—as if
his mind had gone astray into deep thickets and
jungles of conflicting thought. Then, as if again
influenced by a sudden determination, he folded his
letter and put it, with the Reverend Mother’s statement,
into a large envelope.</p>
<p>This he addressed curiously, thus:—</p>
<div class="blockquot"><p>
‘For my daughter Beatrix.’
</p></div>
<p>Then, leaving this letter on the table, he lighted
a candle and went upstairs to the long passage out
of which his wife’s rooms opened. He unlocked the
door of her sitting-room and went in.</p>
<p class="center p4"><span class="allsmcap">END OF VOL. I.</span></p>
<hr class="r5" />
<p class="center p4">J. AND W. RIDER, PRINTERS, LONDON.</p>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
<div class="transnote">
<h3><a id="Corrections"></a>Corrections</h3>
<p class="noin">Pages 15-16, which were misplaced in the original, have been restored.
The first line indicates the original, the second the correction.</p>
<p>p. <a href="#Page_163">163</a></p>
<ul><li>Let the bitter experience of my live govern yours.</li>
<li>Let the bitter experience of my <span class="u">life</span> govern yours.</li></ul>
<p>p. <a href="#Page_215">215</a></p>
<ul><li>in spite of all those hints and inuendoes</li>
<li>in spite of all those hints and <span class="u">innuendos</span></li></ul>
<p>p. <a href="#Page_227">227</a></p>
<ul><li>Mrs.
Dulcimer eat her early dinner alone,</li>
<li>Mrs.
Dulcimer <span class="u">ate</span> her early dinner alone,</li></ul>
<p>p. <a href="#Page_245">245</a></p>
<ul><li>parish doctor of Little
Yafford, was agreeable surprised</li>
<li>parish doctor of Little
Yafford, was <span class="u">agreeably</span> surprised</li></ul>
<p>p. <a href="#Page_248">248</a></p>
<ul><li>Have your been over exerting yourself lately?</li>
<li>Have <span class="u">you</span> been over exerting yourself lately?</li></ul>
<ul><li>‘She been riding and driving far too much</li>
<li>‘<span class="u">She’s</span> been riding and driving far too much</li></ul>
<p>p. <a href="#Page_250">250</a></p>
<ul><li>lately she has been particular busy</li>
<li>lately she has been <span class="u">particularly</span> busy</li></ul>
<p>p. <a href="#Page_254">254</a></p>
<ul><li>have her own way in all
the minor detals of life</li>
<li>have her own way in all
the minor <span class="u">details</span> of life</li></ul>
<p>p. <a href="#Page_262">262</a></p>
<ul><li>She like dresses and bonnets.</li>
<li>She <span class="u">likes</span> dresses and bonnets.</li></ul>
<p>p. <a href="#Page_307">307</a></p>
<ul><li>in having taken the
librety to be born.</li>
<li>in having taken the
<span class="u">liberty</span> to be born.</li></ul>
</div>
<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 67237 ***</div>
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