OF A FINE MAN AND SOME FOOLISH WOMEN.
"For life is like unto a winter's day,
Some break their fast and so depart away;
Others stay dinner, then depart full fed;
The longest age but sups, and goes to bed."
Anon.
Mr. John Mortimer, as has before been said, was the father of seven
children. It may now be added that he had been a widower one year and a
half.
Since the death of his wife he had been his own master, and, so far as
he cared to be, the master of his household.
This had not been the case previously: his wife had ruled over him and
his children, and had been happy on the whole, though any woman whose
house, containing four sitting-rooms only, finds that they are all
thoroughfares, and feels that one of the deepest joys of life is that of
giving dinner-parties, and better ones than her neighbours, must be held
to have a grievance--a grievance against architects, which no one but an
architect can cure.
And yet old Augustus, in generously presenting this house, roof and all,
to his son, had said, "And, my dears, both of you, beware of bricks and
mortar. I have no doubt, John, when you are settled, that you and Janie
will find defects in your house. My experience is that all houses have
defects; but my opinion is, that it is better to pull a house down, and
build a new one, than to try to remedy them."
Mr. Augustus Mortimer had tried building, rebuilding, and altering
houses more than once; and his daughter-in-law knew that he would be
seriously vexed if she disregarded his advice.
Of course if it had been John himself that had objected, the thing would
have been done in spite of that; but his father must be considered, she
knew, for in fact everything depended on him.
John had been married the day he came of age. His father had wished it
greatly: he thought it a fine thing for a man to marry early, if he
could afford it. The bride wished it also, but the person who wished it
most of all was her mother, who managed to make John think he wished it
too, and so, with a certain moderation of feeling, he did; and if things
had not been made so exceedingly easy for him, he might have attained
almost to fervour on the occasion.
As it was, being young for his years, as well as in fact, he had hardly
forgotten to pride himself on having a house of his own, and reached the
dignified age of twenty-two, when Mrs. John Mortimer, presenting him
with a son, made a man of him in a day, and threw his boyish thoughts
into the background. To his own astonishment, he found himself greatly
pleased with his heir. His father was pleased also, and wrote to the
young mother something uncommonly like a letter of thanks, at the same
time presenting her with a carriage and horses.
The next year, perhaps in order to deserve an equally valuable gift
(which she obtained), she presented her husband with twin daughters; and
was rather pleased than otherwise to find that he was glad, and that he
admired and loved his children.
Mrs. John Mortimer felt a decided preference for her husband over any
other young man; she liked him, besides which he had been a most
desirable match for her in point of circumstances; but when her first
child was born to her she knew, for the first time in her life, what it
was to feel a real and warm affection. She loved her baby; she may have
been said, without exaggeration, to have loved him very much; she had
thenceforward no time to attend to John, but she always ruled over his
household beautifully, made his friends welcome, and endeared herself to
her father-in-law by keeping the most perfect accounts, never persuading
John into any kind of extravagance, and always receiving hints from
headquarters with the greatest deference.
The only defect her father-in-law had, in her opinion, was that he was
so inconveniently religious; his religion was inconvenient not only in
degree but in kind. It troubled her peace to come in contact with states
of mind very far removed not only from what she felt, but what she
wished to feel. If John's father had set before her anything that she
and John could do, or any opinion that they might hold, she thought she
should have been able to please him, for she considered herself quite
inclined to do her duty by her church and her soul in a serious and
sensible manner; but to take delight in religion, to add the love of the
unseen Father to the fear and reverence that she wanted to cultivate,
was something that it alarmed her to think of.
It was all very well to read of it in the Bible, because that concerned
a by-gone day, or even to hear a clergyman preach of it, this belonged
to his office; but when this old man, with his white beard, talked to
her and her husband just as David had talked in some of his psalms, she
was afraid, and found his aspiration worse to her than any amount of
exhortation could have been.
What so impossible to thought as such a longing for intercourse with the
awful and the remote--"With my soul have I desired thee in the night;"
"My soul is athirst for God;" no, not so, says the listener who stands
without--I will come to his house and make obeisance, but let me
withdraw soon again from his presence, and dwell undaunted among my
peers.
There is, indeed, nothing concerning which people more fully feel that
they cannot away with it than another man's aspiration.
And her husband liked it. He was not afraid, as she was, of the old
man's prayers, though he fully believed they would be answered.
He tried to be loyal to the light he walked in, and his father rested in
a trust concerning him and his, which had almost the assurance of
possession.
She also, in the course of a few years, came to believe that she must
ere long be drawn into a light which as yet had not risen. She feared it
less, but never reached the point of wishing to see it shine.
At varying intervals, Mrs. John Mortimer presented her husband with
another lovely and healthy infant, and she also, in her turn, received a
gift from her father-in-law, together with the letter of thanks.
In the meantime her husband grew. He became first manly, more manly than
the average man, as is often the case with those who have an unusually
long boyhood. Then by culture and travel he developed the resources of a
keenly observant and very thoughtful mind. Then his love for his
children made a naturally sweet temper sweeter still, and in the course
of a very few years he had so completely left his wife behind, that it
never occurred to him to think of her as a companion for his inner life.
He liked her; she never nagged; he considered her an excellent
housekeeper; in fact, they were mutually pleased with one another; their
cases were equal; both often thought they might have been worse off, and
neither regretted with any keenness what they had never known.
Sometimes, having much sweetness of nature, it would chance that John
Mortimer's love for his children would overflow in his wife's direction,
on which, as if to recall him to himself, she would say, not coldly, but
sensibly, "Don't be silly, John dear." But if he expressed gratitude on
her account, as he sometimes did when she had an infant of a few days
old in her arms, if his soul appeared to draw nearer to her then, and
he inclined to talk of deeper and wider things than they commonly spoke
of, she was always distinctly aggrieved. A tear perhaps would twinkle in
her eye. She was affected by his relief after anxiety, and his gratitude
for her safety; but she did not like to feel affected, and brought him
back to the common level of their lives as soon as possible.
So they lived together in peace and prosperity till they had seven
children, and then, one fine autumn, Mrs. John Mortimer persuaded her
father-in-law to do up the house, so far as papering and painting were
concerned. She then persuaded John to take a tour, and went herself to
the sea-side with her children.
From this journey she did not return. Their father had but just gone
quite out of her reach when the children took scarlet fever, and she
summoned their grandfather to her aid. In this, her first great anxiety
and trouble, for some of them were extremely ill, all that she had found
most oppressive in his character appeared to suit her. He pleased and
satisfied her; but the children were hardly better, so that he had time
to consider what it was that surprised him in her, when she fell ill
herself, and before her husband reached home had died in his father's
arms.
All the children recovered. John Mortimer took them home, and for the
first six months after her death he was miserably disconsolate. It was
not because they had been happy, but because they had been so very
comfortable. He aggravated himself into thinking that he could have
loved her more if he had only known how soon he should lose her; he
looked at all their fine healthy joyous children, and grieved to think
that now they were his only.
But the time came when he knew that he could have loved her much more if
she would have let him; and when he had found out that, womankind in
general went down somewhat in his opinion. He made up his mind, as he
thought, that he would not marry again; but this, he knew in his secret
heart, was less for her sake than for his own.
Then, being of an ardently affectionate nature, and having now no one to
restrain it, he began to study his children with more anxious care, and
consider their well-being with all his might.
The children of middle-aged people seem occasionally to come into the
world ready tamed. With a certain old-fashioned primness, they step
sedately through the paths of childhood. So good, so easy to manage,
so--uninteresting?
The children of the very young have sometimes an extra allowance of
their father's youth in their blood. At any rate the little Mortimers
had.
Their joy was ecstatic, their play was fervent, and as hard as any work.
They seemed month by month to be crowding up to their father, in point
of stature, and when he and they all went about the garden together,
some would be treading on his heels, the select two who had hold of his
arms would be shouting in his ears, and the others, dancing in front,
were generally treading on his toes, in their desire to get as near as
possible and inform him of all the wonderful things that were taking
place in this new and remarkable world.
Into this family the lonely little heir of the Melcombes was shortly
invited to come for awhile, but for some trivial reason his mother
declined the invitation, at the same time expressing her hope that Mr.
Mortimer would kindly renew it some other time.
It was not convenient to John Mortimer to invite the boy again for a
long time--so long that his mother bitterly repented not having accepted
the first invitation. She had an aunt living at Dartmouth, and whenever
her boy was invited by John Mortimer, she meant to bring him herself,
giving out that she was on her way to visit that relative.
Who knew what might happen?
Mr. John Mortimer was a fine man, tall, broad-shouldered, and
substantial-looking, though not at all stout. His perfect health and
teeth as white as milk made him look even younger than he was. His
countenance, without being decidedly handsome, was fine and very
agreeable. His hair was light, of the Saxon hue, and his complexion was
fair.
Thus he had many advantages; but Mrs. Peter Melcombe felt that as the
mother of a child so richly endowed, and as the possessor of eight
hundred a year in order that he might be suitably brought up, she was a
desirable match also. She did not mean the boy to cost her much for
several years to come, and till he came of age (if he lived) she had
that handsome old house to live in. Old Augustus Mortimer, on the other
hand, was very rich, she knew; he was a banker and his only son was his
partner. Sure to inherit his banking business and probably heir to his
land.
Mrs. Peter Melcombe had some handsome and becoming raiment made, and
waited with impatience; for in addition to Mr. John Mortimer's worldly
advantages she found him attractive.
So did some other people. John Mortimer's troubles on that head began
very soon after the sending of his first invitation to Mrs. Melcombe,
when the excellent elderly lady who taught the little Mortimers (and in
a great measure kept his house) let him know that she could no longer do
justice to them. They got on so fast, they had such spirits, they were
so active and so big, that she felt she could not cope with them.
Moreover, the three eldest were exceptionally clever, and the noise made
by the whole tribe fatigued her.
John sent his eldest boy to school, promised her masters to help her,
and an assistant governess, but she would not stay, and with her went
for a time much of the comfort of that house.
Mr. Mortimer easily got another governess--a very pretty young lady who
did not, after a little while, take much interest in the children, but
certainly did take an interest in him. She was always contriving to
meet him--in the hall, on the stairs, in the garden. Then she looked at
him at church, and put him so out of countenance and enraged him, and
made him feel so ridiculous, that one day he took himself off to the
Continent, and kept away till she was gone.
Having managed that business, he got another governess, and she let him
alone, and the children too, for they completely got the better of her;
used to make her romp with them, and sometimes went so far as to lock
her into the schoolroom. It was not till this lady had taken her leave
and another had been found that Mr. John Mortimer repeated his
invitation to little Peter Melcombe. His mother brought him, and
according to the programme she had laid down, got herself invited to
stay a few days.
She had no trouble about it. Mr. John Mortimer no sooner saw Mrs.
Melcombe than he expressed a hospitable, almost a fervent hope, that she
could stay a week with him.
Of course Mrs. Melcombe accepted the invitation, and he was very
sociable and pleasant; but she thought the governess (a very grand lady
indeed) took upon herself more than beseemed her, and smiled at her very
scornfully when she ventured to say sweet things to John Mortimer on her
own great love for children, and on the charms of his children in
particular.
Peter was excessively happy. His mother's happiness in the visit was
soon over. She shortly found out that an elderly Scotch lady, one Miss
Christie Grant, an aunt of the late Mrs. Daniel Mortimer, was to come in
a few days and pay a long visit, and she shrewdly suspected that the
attractive widower being afraid to remain alone in his own house, made
arrangements to have female visitors to protect him, and hence the
invitation to her. But she had to leave Peter at the end of the week,
and which of the two ladies when they parted hated the other most it
might be difficult to determine.
It cannot be said with truth that Peter regretted his mother's
departure. The quantity of mischief he was taught (of a not very heinous
description) by two sweet little imps of boys younger than himself, kept
him in a constant state of joyous excitement. His grandmother having now
been dead a year and a quarter, his mourning had been discarded, and his
mother had been very impressive in her cautions to him not to spoil his
new clothes, but before he had been staying with his young friends a
fortnight he was much damaged in his outer man, as indeed he was also in
his youthful heart, for the smallest of all the Mortimers--a lovely
little child about three years old--took entire possession of it; and
when he was not up a tree with the boys in a daring hunt after bergamy
pears, or wading barefoot in a shallow stream at the bottom of the
garden catching water-beetles, caddis-worms, and other small cattle for
a freshwater aquarium, he was generally carrying this child about the
garden pickaback, or otherwise obeying her little behests, and assuring
her of his unalterable love.
Poor little Peter! After staying fully six weeks with the Mortimers his
time came to be taken home again, and his mother, who spent two days
with them on her way northwards, bore him off to the railway,
accompanied by the host and most of his children. Then he suddenly began
to feel the full meaning of the misfortune that had fallen on him, and
he burst into wailings and tears. His tiny love had promised to marry
him when she was grown up; his two little friends had given him some
sticklebacks, packed in wet moss; they were now in his pockets, as were
also some water-beetles in a paper bag; the crown of his cap was full of
silkworms carefully wrapped in mulberry leaves; but all these treasures
could not avail to comfort him for loss of the sweet companionship he
had enjoyed--for the apples he had crunched in the big dog's kennel
when hiding with another little imp from the nurse--for the common
possession they had enjoyed of some young rats dug out of the bank of
the stream, and more than all, for the tender confidences there had been
between them as to the endless pranks they spent their lives in, and all
the mischief they had done or that they aspired to do.
John Mortimer having a keen sympathy with childhood, felt rue at heart
for the poor little blinking, sobbing fellow; but to invite him again
might be to have his mother also, so he let him go, handing in from his
third daughter's arms to the young heir a wretched little blind puppy
and a small bottle of milk to feed it with on the way.
If anything could comfort a boy, this precious article could. So the
Mortimer boys thought. So in fact it proved. As the train moved off they
heard the sobs of Peter and the yelping of the puppy, but before they
reached their happy home he had begun to nurse the little beast in his
arms, and derive consolation from watching its movements and keeping it
warm.