HIDDEN HOPES.
UPON Mr. Jerningham the tidings of his wife’s death came suddenly,
but not unexpectedly. He hastened to arrange that all honour should
be paid to the ashes of this fair scion of the house of Jerningham.
The ponderous doors of the vault which had not been opened since his
father’s death unclosed to receive his wife’s coffin. The bells which
had rung a merry peal of welcome when she first came to Greenlands
tolled long and dismally upon the day of her burial. All deference
and ceremony that could have attended the burial of a beloved wife
attended the funeral rites of her who had been only tolerated by her
husband. Harold Jerningham was chief mourner at that stately, yet quiet
ceremonial. His own hand had addressed the invitation that summoned
Laurence Desmond to the funeral.
“The world shall read how we stood, side by side, at the door of the
vault,” thought Mr. Jerningham; “and the lips of Slander shall be mute
about the poor soul’s friendship for her father’s friend.”
Mr. Desmond understood and appreciated the delicacy of mind which
had inspired the invitation. Even in that last dread ceremonial it
was well that there should be some votive offering to Society. That
deity has her shrine in every temple, and must be propitiated alike at
wedding-feast or funeral. She is the modern successor of those nameless
goddesses whom the men of old called amiable, and worshipped in mortal
fear.
Theodore de Bergerac was present at the opening and closing of the
vault, and invited Laurence Desmond to dinner when they left the
church; but his invitation was declined.
“I will run down to dine with you in a week or two, if you will allow
me,” he said; “but to-day it is impossible. I have business that will
take me back to town.”
And so they parted; Laurence to go back to his chambers and spend
the evening in dreary meditation, looking over the letters that had
been written to him by that hand which now lay cold in the Berkshire
vault. He had a photograph of the never-to-be-forgotten face, a few
water-colour sketches of the river-scenery about Hampton; and these
were all his memorials of the dead.
He packed them carefully in white paper, sealed the packet with many
seals, and laid it in the most secret drawer of his desk.
“Thus ends the love of my youth,” he said, to himself; “God grant the
love of my manhood may come to a happier ending!”
The first two months of his widowhood Mr. Jerningham spent abroad. For
some subtle reason of his own he preferred to be away from Greenlands,
and from his friends at the cottage, during that period of conventional
mourning. Perhaps he would have been less inclined to absent himself
from that beloved retreat if Eustace Thorburn had still been a dweller
in M. de Bergerac’s household.
That gentleman’s residence in Paris threatened to extend itself to
several months. The work found for him amongst old manuscripts and rare
Oriental books increased every day, and the notes of the great history
seemed likely to become as voluminous as Gibbon’s _Rome_. Like
Gibbon, M. de Bergerac had bestowed the greater part of his lifetime
upon the collection of materials for his great book; but the materials,
when collected, were more difficult to deal with than those upon which
the matchless historian founded his massive monument of human genius;
or it may be that M. de Bergerac was something less than Gibbon. In
earnestness, at least, he was that great man’s equal.
“Do not leave Paris until you have completely sifted the Oriental
department of the library,” he wrote to his secretary; “and if it is
necessary for you to have the aid of a translator, do not hesitate to
engage one.”
To this Mr. Thorburn replied, modestly, that his own knowledge of
the Oriental languages was increasing day by day; that he had been
fortunate enough to fall in with a learned, though somewhat shabby,
pundit among the frequenters of the Imperial Library; and that he had
induced this person to work with him for an hour or two every evening
on very reasonable terms.
“I cannot tell you what pleasure it has been to me to conquer the
difficulties of these languages,” he wrote to his kind employer. And,
indeed, to this friendless young man every grammatical triumph had
been sweet, every tedious struggle with the obscurities of Devanagari
or Sanscrit a labour of love. Riches or rank he had none to lay at the
feet of the fair girl he loved; but by such dryasdust studies as these
he could testify his devotion to that service which of all others was
most dear to her affectionate heart.
Weeks and months slipped by in these congenial labours. The notes for
the great book, and Eustace Thorburn’s poem, grew side by side, and the
young man had no leisure hour in which to nurse despondent thoughts.
He was happier than he could have imagined it possible for him to be
away from Greenlands. His work was delightful to him, because he was
working for her. Yes; for her! His patient industry at the library was
a tribute to her. His poem was written for her; since, if it won him
reputation, he might dare to offer her the name so embellished.
To Helen those autumn months seemed very dull. Her father’s secretary
had made himself so completely a part of the household as to leave a
blank not easily filled. Both father and daughter missed his bright
face, his earnest, enthusiastic talk, his affectionate but unobtrusive
devotion to their smallest interests.
“We shall never have such a friend again, papa,” Helen said, naïvely;
and the little speech, with the tone in which it was spoken, inclined
M. de Bergerac to think that Harold Jerningham’s fears had not been
groundless.
“You miss him very much, Helen?”
“More than I thought it possible I could miss any one but you?”
“And yet he only came to us as a stranger, my dear, to perform a
stipulated service. In France a young lady would scarcely care to
express so much interest in her father’s secretary.”
The girl’s innocent face grew crimson. What! had she said more than was
becoming? Had she deserved a reproof from that dear father whom she
lived only to please? After this she spoke no more of Eustace Thorburn;
but her father’s mild reproof had awakened strange misgivings in her
mind.
Mr. Jerningham returned to Greenlands before Christmas, and spent that
pleasant season at the cottage. A peace of mind which he had not known
since boyhood possessed him in that calm abode, now that he was a free
man, and Eustace Thorburn no longer exhibited before him the insolent
happiness of youth.
“This is indeed home!” he exclaimed, as he sat by M. de Bergerac’s
hearth, and heard the carol-singers in the garden. “It is more than
thirty years since Christmas was kept at the great house yonder. I
wonder whether it will ever be kept there again within my life?”
“Why not?” asked his old friend; “you are young enough to marry again.”
“Do you think so, Theodore?” inquired Mr. Jerningham, earnestly.
“Do I think so? Who should think so more than I? Was there ever a
happier marriage than mine? And I do not ask you to make so bold a
venture as I made in marrying a dear girl twenty years my junior. There
are handsome and distinguished widows enough in your English society;
women who, in the prime of middle age, retain the fresh beauty of their
youth, with all the added graces given by experience of life.”
“Thanks,” said Mr. Jerningham, coldly; “I should not care to entrust
the remnant of my life to a middle-aged person, however well preserved.
I can exist without a wife. If ever I marry again, I shall marry for
love.”
He stole a glance at Helen. She was sitting by the fire, with an
open book upon her lap, her eyes fixed dreamily. Where her wandering
thoughts might be Harold Jerningham knew not; but he perceived they
were not given to him. “Has the hour gone by?” he asked himself. “Has
my hour gone for ever?”
“Nobly spoken, my friend,” said Theodore; “you will marry for love. And
why not? God gave me a fair young bride, and seven years of happiness
more complete than a man dare hope for on earth.”
No more was said upon a subject so delicate. But from this conversation
Mr. Jerningham derived considerable comfort; for he perceived that his
old friend found no incongruity in the idea of his seeking something
more than a marriage of convenience in a second union.
After this he came to the cottage with something akin to hope in his
breast. Helen received him always with the same sweetness. He was her
father’s friend, and had been her father’s protector in the hour of
evil fortune. This fact was ever present to her mind; it imparted to
her manner a sweetness which was fatal to Harold Jerningham.
Theodore de Bergerac watched the two together; and one day, as if by
inspiration, the secret of his old friend’s frequent visits flashed
upon him. The danger that had existed for the young secretary existed
also for the weary worldling, and girlish sweetness and simplicity had
won a heart sated with life’s factitious joys.
Within a week after the student achieved this brilliant discovery,
Harold Jerningham made a full confession of his weakness.
“I know that at present I am no more to her than her father’s old
friend,” he said, when he had told his story, and had discovered that
M. de Bergerac was neither surprised nor shocked by the revelation;
“but give me only sufficient time, and I may win that pure heart,
which already half belongs to me by right of my affection for you.
Earnest feeling in a man who is not quick to feel must count for
something. Do not judge me by my past, Theodore. Dissever me from that
past, if you can; for, as I live, I am a new man since I have loved
your daughter. To love a creature so pure is a spiritual baptism.
If I can win that innocent heart, you will not stand between me and
happiness, will you, old friend?”
“If you can win her heart, no; but I will not sacrifice my daughter, or
persuade her. I will confess to you that the uncertainty of her future
is a constant perplexity to me, and that I would gladly see that future
secured. I will say even more than this; I will admit that I should be
proud to see my only child allied to a race so distinguished as yours,
the mistress of a home so splendid as your Greenlands yonder. But by no
word of mine will I influence her to a step so solemn. The difference
between your ages is greater than in the case of myself and my dear
wife; but the world might possibly have augured ill for the result of
our union. Again, I say, if you can win my child’s heart, I will not
refuse you her hand.”
This was all Mr. Jerningham desired. A reluctant bride, sacrificed on
the altar of ambition, would have been no bride for him. He was too
much a gentleman not to have recoiled from the brutality involved in
such an union. All he desired was the liberty to woo and to win; to
set his many gifts against that one obvious disadvantage of his fifty
years, and to triumph in spite of that stumbling-block.
“Time and I against any two,” said Philip II. of Spain. Mr.
Jerningham’s chief reliance was on time; time, which might first render
his society habitual, and then necessary, to Helen; time, which would
familiarize her with the difference between their ages, until that
difference would scarcely seem to exist; time, which by demonstrating
his constancy and devotion, must in the end give him a claim upon
Helen’s gratitude, a right to her compassion.
Time might, perhaps, have done all this for Mr. Jerningham but for one
small circumstance: the stake for which he was playing this patient
game had already been won. It remained no more upon the table for
gamblers to venture its winning. The girl’s innocent heart had been
given unconsciously to a silent adorer; and while Harold Jerningham
was hanging upon her looks and studying her careless words, all her
tenderest thoughts and dreams were wafted across the Channel to
the industrious exile clearing his way through the great jungle of
Arianism, in the Imperial Library of Paris.
Winter passed, and the early spring brought news to Mr. Jerningham.
A noble Scottish kinsman had died, leaving him a handsome estate in
Perthshire. It was necessary that he should visit this new acquisition,
and make all arrangements for its due maintenance; but he was sorely
averse from leaving Greenlands, and the simple household in which he
had learned to be happy.
“I suppose I must go,” he said; “Lord Pendarvoch was a confirmed miser,
and I know he kept the place in a most miserable condition. When I
was last in the neighbourhood, many years ago, there was not a fence
fit for a civilized country, or a boundary-wall that kept out his
neighbour’s cattle. Yes, I suppose I must go and take possession, and
shake hands with my tacksmen, and establish my claim to be regarded
as a scion of the true blood--though it comes to me zigzag fashion,
through a female branch of the old house. My mother’s mother was an
aunt of the last lord.”
Mr. Jerningham lapsed into reverie. It was early April; green buds
already bursting in the old-fashioned garden, and a wealth of pear and
plum-blossom, snowy white; but the rich red of the apple-trees not yet
opened. Tulip and hyacinth, polyanthus and primrose, were bright in the
borders; rich red wallflowers bloomed on the old wall; all the garden
was gay with the fresh spring blossoms.
“Do you remember what you said about Switzerland, Helen?” Mr.
Jerningham asked, abruptly, after rather a long silence.
“I remember saying a great deal about Switzerland.”
“And of your desire to see that country?”
“Yes, indeed! but that is too bright a dream. Papa confesses that his
book is the kind of book that never _is_ finished. William Mure of
Caldwell did not live to finish his book, you know, though the subject
is a narrow one compared to the theme of my dear father’s labours;
and Müller’s book was left unfinished. How can I ever hope to go to
Switzerland, since I should care nothing for the most beautiful land
unless papa was my fellow-traveller?”
“We will persuade your father to publish the first two volumes of his
book some day, and then we can all start for Switzerland together. But
in the meantime allow me to inquire if you have ever thought about
Scotland?”
“I have read Sir Walter Scott’s delightful stories.”
“Of course,” cried Mr. Jerningham, with unwonted vivacity; “and those
charming romances have inspired you with an ardent desire to behold the
scenes which they embellish--the land of mountain and of fell, the land
of Macgregor and Ravenswood, of heart-broken Lucy Ashton and weird Meg
Merrilies. Do not think of Switzerland till you have seen the Scottish
highlands.”
“But the snow!” urged Helen.
“Snow! In Scotland I will show you mountain-peaks upon which the snows
have never melted since the days of the Bruce; and from those snow-clad
hills you shall look down into no dazzling abyss of awful whiteness,
but out upon the waste of waters, with all their changeful play of
light and shade, and varying splendour of colour, and animated motion.
In Switzerland, remember, you have no sea.”
“But the ice-oceans--the glaciers?”
“Better in the descriptions of Berlepsch than in reality; and even he
admits that they are dirty. Upon my honour, the highlands of Scotland
are unsurpassable.”
“And then?” inquired Helen, laughing. “Why this sudden enthusiasm
for Scotland, Mr. Jerningham? Oh! I forgot; you are now a proprietor
of the northern soil, and I suppose this is only a natural burst of
proprietorial pride.”
This accusation Mr. Jerningham disdained to answer.
“Helen!” he said, with mock solemnity, “has it never occurred to
you that your father must require change of scene--some relief from
the monotonous verdancy of sylvan Berkshire--some respite from
those eternal spreading beeches which provoke from commonplace lips
ever-recurring allusion to the hackneyed Tityrus? That you yourself
have languished for bolder scenery--snow-clad mountain-top, and wide
blue lake--I am well aware; but do you think our dear scholar does not
also require that mental and physical refreshment which comes from the
contemplation of unknown lands and the breathing of unfamiliar breezes;
or, in two words, do you not think that a brief spring holiday in the
highlands would be of great advantage to my dear friend?”
The student came out of the porch in time to hear the conclusion of Mr.
Jerningham’s speech. The master of Greenlands and Helen de Bergerac had
been strolling up and down the lawn in front of the cottage during this
conversation.
“What are you talking about, Harold?” asked the Frenchman.
Helen was prompt to answer his question.
“Oh, papa, Mr. Jerningham has been saying that you must require change
of air and scene, and that a trip to Scotland would do you wonderful
good. And so I am sure it would.”
“Yes, Theodore, I want you to go with me to Pendarvoch. The place
itself is scarcely worth showing you, but the surrounding scenery is
superb; and Helen informs me she languishes to behold the Scottish
highlands.”
“Oh, Mr. Jerningham!” cried Helen; “when did I ever say----”
“Not a minute ago. And you know the advantage to your father will be
unspeakable.”
“But my book?” urged the student.
“You will return to it with renewed vigour after your holiday. You told
me only the other day that you had of late experienced a languor, a
distaste for your work, which denoted physical weakness; and----”
“Oh, papa!” cried Helen, alarmed; “you do not confess these things
to me! It is quite true; you have been looking tired lately. Nanon
remarked it. Pray let us go to Scotland.”
“Can you refuse her?” asked Mr. Jerningham.
“When did I ever refuse anything to this dear child?”
“And when did she ever ask anything that you should refuse? Come,
Theodore, it is the first favour I have asked of you for a long time. I
must go to Pendarvoch; and I cannot bear to leave this place, where I
have been so happy, unless I can take those with me who have made the
spot so dear.”
To a woman of the world, the tone of these words, and the look which
accompanied them, would have spoken volumes. To Helen they told
nothing, except that Mr. Jerningham was sincerely attached to her
father and herself. She had always thought of him as her father’s
devoted friend, and it seemed to her only natural that she should be
included in that friendship. She liked Harold Jerningham better than
she liked any one, except those two people who reigned side by side in
her heart; and the line which divides the outer tokens of liking and
loving is so narrow a demarcation, that Harold Jerningham might easily
be betrayed into fond hopes that were without foundation. Her manner
to this friend of her father’s was all sweetness. His tender accents,
his fond, admiring looks, she accepted as the natural gallantries of a
man so much her senior. Her very innocence made her more dangerous than
the most accomplished of coquettes. And at this notion of a trip to
the Highlands she brightened and sparkled, and placed herself at once
on Mr. Jerningham’s side. For so many reasons the plan was delightful
to her. First and chiefest of such reasons, it promised to benefit her
father; secondly, she had long known and rejoiced in the romances of
the northern enchanter, and the very sound of Scottish names conjured
a hundred visions of romance before her mind’s eye; thirdly, there had
come upon Greenlands, upon her garden, her poultry-yard, her books,
her piano, the river, the woods--nay, over the very sky that arched
the woods and river, a shadow of dulness from the hour of Eustace
Thorburn’s departure. The old places had lost their familiar charm--the
old pursuits had become wearisome. She fancied that amidst new scenes
she would be less likely to miss her old companion; and then, in the
next breath, said to herself, “How _he_ would have liked to see
Scotland!”
A great deal of argument was required to convince Theodore de Bergerac
that it could be for his benefit to uproot himself from the spot he so
dearly loved in order to travel to remotest regions of the north. He
had the Frenchman’s natural horror of foreign countries; and having
once niched himself at his nest at Greenlands, cared not to stir
thence, how fair soever might be the distant lands he was invited to
visit. The argument which at last prevailed was that urged by Helen’s
pleading face. _That_ entreaty the tender father was powerless to
resist.
“My darling, it must be as you wish,” he said, and the rest was easy.
Mr. Jerningham did not suffer the grass to grow under his feet. He was
prompt to make all arrangements, and three days after the subject had
been mooted, the travellers were on their northward way, speeding to
Edinburgh by express.
They were to spend three days in Edinburgh, then onward by easy stages,
“doing” all the lions in their way, to the village and castle of
Pendarvoch, which lay half in Perthshire, half in Aberdeenshire.