A PRIVATE CONSULTATION.
"Remove from me the way of lying...I have chosen the way of
truth."--PSALM cxix. 29, 30.
"Why, you young rogues, you make your father blush for your appetites,"
said John Mortimer to his boys, when he saw Valentine at the head of the
table, serving out great slices of roast beef at a luncheon which was
also to be early dinner for the children.
Valentine had placed Emily at the other end of the table. "Take my
place, John," he now said laughing, "I always was a most wretched
carver."
"No, love, no," pleaded Emily to her husband in a quick low tone of
entreaty, and John, just in time to check himself in the act of rising,
turned the large dish toward him instead, and began to carve it, making
as if he had not heard Valentine's request. But Valentine having taken
some wine and rested for a few moments, after the slight exertion, which
had proved too much for his strength, looked at his sister till she
raised her eyes to meet his, smiled, and murmured to her across the
table, "You daughter of England, 'I perceive that in many things you are
too superstitious.'"
Emily had nothing to say in reply. She had made involuntary betrayal of
her thought. She shrank from seeing her husband in her brother's place,
because she was anxious about, afraid for, this same brother. She had
even now and then a foreboding fear lest ere long she should see John
there for good. But to think so, was to take a good deal for granted,
and now Valentine chose to show her that he had understood her feeling
perfectly.
She would fain not have spoken, but she could not now amend her words.
"Never was any one freer from superstition than he," she thought, "but
after all, in spite of what John tells me of his doctor's opinion, and
how the voyage is to restore him, why must I conceal an anxiety so
natural and so plainly called for? I will not. I shall speak. I shall
try to break down his reserve; give him all the comfort and counsel I
can, and get him to open his mind to me in the view of a possible
change."
Emily was to take a drive at four o'clock, her husband and her brother
with her.
In the meantime Valentine told her he was going to be busy, and John had
promised to help him. "An hour and a half," he sighed, as he mounted the
stairs with John to his old grandmother's sitting-room, "an hour and a
half, time enough and too much. I'll have it out, and get it over."
"Now then," said John Mortimer, seating himself before a writing-table,
"tell me, my dear fellow, what it is that I can do to help you?"
He did not find his position easy. Valentine had let him know pointedly
that he should not leave the estate to his half brother. All was in his
own power, yet John Mortimer might have been considered the rightful
heir. What so natural and likely as that it should be left to him? John
did not even feign to his own mind that he was indifferent about this,
he had all the usual liking for an old family place or possession. He
thought it probable that Valentine meant it to come to him, and wanted
to consult with him as to some burdens to be laid on the land for the
benefit of his mother's family.
If Valentine's death in early youth had been but a remote contingency,
the matter could have been very easily discussed, but hour by hour John
Mortimer felt less assured that the poor young fellow's own hopeful view
was the true one.
Valentine had extended himself again on the sofa. "I want you presently
to read some letters," he said; "they are in that desk, standing before
you."
John opened it, and in the act of turning it towards him his eyes
wandered to the garden, and then to the lovely country beyond; they
seemed for the moment to be arrested by its beauty, and his hand paused.
"What a landscape!" he said, "and how you have improved the place, Val!
I did not half do it justice the last time I came here."
"I hate it," said Valentine with irritation, "and everything belonging
to it."
John looked at him with scarcely any surprise.
"That is only because you have got out of health since you came here;
you have not been able to enjoy life. But you are better, you know. You
are assured that you have good hope of coming back recovered. I devoutly
trust you may. Forget any morbid feelings that may have oppressed you.
The place is not to blame. Well, and these letters--I only see two. Are
they all?"
"Yes. But, John, you can see that I am not very strong."
"Yes, indeed," said John with an involuntary sigh.
"Well, then, I want you to be considerate. I mean," he added, when he
perceived that he had now considerably astonished John Mortimer--"I mean
that when you have read them. I want you to take some little time to
think before you speak to me at all."
"Why, this is in my uncle's handwriting!" exclaimed John.
"Yes," answered Valentine, and he turned away as he still reclined, that
he might not see the reader, "so it is."
Silence then--silence for a longer time than it could have taken to read
that letter. Valentine heard deep breathing from time to time, and the
rustling of pages turned and turned again. At last, when there was still
silence, he moved on the sofa and looked at his cousin.
John was astonished, as was evident, and mystified; but more than that,
he was indignant and exceedingly alarmed.
Valentine had asked him to be considerate. His temper was slightly
hasty; but he was bearing the request in mind, and controlling it,
though his heightened colour and flashing eyes showed that he suffered
keenly from a baffling sense of shame and impending disgrace. These
feelings, however, were subsiding, and as they retired his astonishment
seemed to grow, and his hand trembled when he folded up the letter for
the last time and laid it down.
He took up the second letter, which was addressed to his grandmother,
and read it through.
It set forth that the writer, Cuthbert Melcombe, being then in London,
had heard that morning the particulars of his young uncle's death at
sea, had heard it from one of the young man's brother officers, and felt
that he ought to detail them to his mother; he then went on to relate
certain commonplace incidents of a lingering illness and death at sea.
After this he proceeded to inform his mother that he had bought for her
in Leadenhall Street the silver forks she had wished for, and was about
to pack them up, and send them (with this letter enclosed in the parcel)
by coach to Hereford, where his mother then was.
"Why did you show me this?" said John in a low, husky tone. "There is
nothing in it."
"I found it," Valentine replied, "carefully laid by itself in a desk, as
being evidently of consequence."
"We know that all the other Melcombes died peaceably in their beds,"
John answered; "and it shows (what I had been actually almost driven to
doubt) that this poor young fellow did also. There is no real evidence,
however, that the letter was written in London; it bears no post-mark."
"No," said Valentine; "how could there be? It came in a parcel. THE
LETTER, John, will tell you nothing."
"I don't like it," John Mortimer answered. "There is a singular
formality about the narrative;" and before he laid it down he lifted it
slightly, and, as it seemed half unconsciously, towards the light, and
then his countenance changed, and he said beneath his breath, "Oh,
that's it, is it!"
Valentine started from the sofa.
"What have you found?" he cried out, and, coming behind John, he also
looked through the paper, and saw in the substance of it a water-mark,
showing when it had been pressed. Eighteen hundred and seven was the
date. But this letter was elaborately dated from some hotel in London,
1804. "A lie! and come to light at last!" he said in an awe-struck
whisper. "It has deceived many innocent people. It has harboured here a
long time."
"Now, wait a minute," answered John. "Stop--no more. You asked me to be
considerate to you. Be also considerate to me. If, in case of your
death, there is left on earth no wrong for me to right, I desire you to
be silent for ever."
He took Valentine by the arm and helped him to the sofa, for he was
trembling with excitement and surprise.
"There is no wrong that can be righted now," Valentine presently found
voice enough to say; "there never has been from the first, unless I am
mistaken."
"Then I depend on your love for me and mine--your own family--to be
silent in life, and silent after death. See that no such letters as
these are left behind you."
"I have searched the whole place, and there is not another letter--not
one line. You may well depend on me. I will be silent."
John stood lost in thought and amazement; he read Daniel Mortimer's
letter again, folded it reverently, and pressed it between his hands.
"Well, I am grateful to him," Valentine heard him whisper, and he sank
into thought again.
"Our fathers were perfectly blameless," said Valentine.
John roused himself then. "Evidently, thank God! And now these two
letters--they concern no one but ourselves." He approached the grate; a
fire was burning in it. He lifted off the coals, making a hollow bed in
its centre. "You will let me burn them now, of course?"
"Yes," said Valentine; "but not together."
"No; you are right," John answered, and he took old Daniel Mortimer's
letter and laid it into the place he had prepared, covering it with the
glowing cinders, then with the poker he pushed the other between the
lower bars, and he and Valentine watched it till every atom was
consumed.
There was no more for him to tell; John Mortimer thought he knew enough.
Valentine felt what a relief this was, but also that John's amazement by
no means subsided. He was trying hard to be gentle, to be moderately
calm; he resolutely forbore from any comment on Valentine's conduct; but
he could not help expressing his deep regret that the matter should have
been confided to any one--even to Brandon--and finding, perhaps, that
his horror and indignation were getting the better of him, he suddenly
started up, and declared that he would walk about in the gallery for
awhile. "For," he said pointedly to Valentine, "as you were remarking to
me this morning, there is a good deal that ought to be done at once,"
and out he dashed into the fresh spring air, and strode about in the
long wooden gallery, with a vigour and vehemence that did not promise
much for the quietness of their coming discussion.
Ten minutes, twenty minutes, went by--almost half an hour--before John
Mortimer came in again.
Valentine looked up and saw, as John shut himself in, that he looked
almost as calm as usual, and that his face had regained its customary
hue.
"My difficulty, of course, is Emily," he said. "If this had occurred a
year ago it would have been simpler." Valentine wondered what he meant;
but he presently added in a tone, however, as of one changing the
subject, "Well, my dear fellow, you were going to have a talk with me,
you know, about the making of your will. You remarked that you possessed
two thousand pounds."
Valentine wondered at his coolness, he spoke so completely as usual.
"And what would you have me do with that?" he answered with a certain
directness and docility that made John Mortimer pause; he perceived that
whatever he proposed would be done.
"I think if you left a thousand pounds to the old aunt who brought your
mother up, and has a very scanty pittance, it would be worthy of your
kindly nature, and no more than her due."
"Well, John, I'll do it. And the other thousand?"
"Louisa has married a rich man's son, and I have made a handsome
settlement on Emily, but your sister Lizzie has nothing."
"I will leave her the other thousand; and--and now, John, there is the
estate--there is Melcombe. I thought you had a right to know that there
had been a disadvantage as regarded my inheritance of it, but you are
perfectly----" He hesitated for a word.
John turned his sentence rather differently for him, and went on with
it. "But you feel that I am perfectly entitled to give you my opinion?"
"Certainly."
"I advise that you leave it for a county hospital."
"John!"
"Unconditionally and for ever, for," John went on calmly and almost
gently, "we are here a very long way from the county town, where the
only hospital worth anything is situated. This house has, on two
stories, a corridor running completely through it, and is otherwise so
built that it would require little alteration for such a purpose. The
revenue from the land would go a good way towards supporting it.
Therefore, as I said before--" Then pausing, when he observed the effect
of his words on Valentine, he hesitated, and instead of going on, said,
"I am very sorry, my dear Valentine."
"This is a shock to me," said Valentine. "It shows me so plainly that
you would not have acted as I have done, if you had been in my place."
As he seemed to wait for an answer, John said, with more decided
gentleness, "I suppose it does;" and went on in a tone half apology,
half persuasion, "But you will see your lawyer to-morrow, and, using all
discretion, direct him as I propose."
"Yes. Nothing at all is to go to you then?"
"I should like to have this portrait of your father; and, Val, I wish to
assure you most sincerely that I do not judge your conduct. I have no
opinion to give upon it."
"I have a good right to tell you now, that I have for some months fully
intended to give up the place."
"Well, I am glad of that."
"I hope to recover, and then to work, living abroad, the better to
conceal matters. I had quite decided, John; and yet what you have done
is a shock to me. I feel that I am judged by it. I told you in the
autumn that I meant to go away; I did. But though I took the estate so
easily, so almost inevitably, I could not get away from it, though I
wished and tried."
"But you can now. If you want money, of course you will look to me to
help you. And so you could not manage to go?"
"No. So long as I was well and in high spirits I never meant to go; but
one night I got a great shock, and walking home afterwards by the mere,
I felt the mist strike to my very marrow. I have never been well since.
I had no heart to recover; but when I might have got away I was detained
by that trumpery trial till I was so ill that I could not safely travel;
but now, John, I am ready, and you cannot imagine how I long to be off,
and, please God, begin a better life, and serve Him as my old father
did. I have three hundred pounds of honest money in hand, besides the
two thousand your father gave me. But, John, Emily is my favourite
sister."
"There!" said John, "I was afraid this would come."
"If I _should_ die young--if she _should_ find that I have left every
shilling and every acre away from you and her, two of the people I love
most, and thrown it into the hands of strangers, I could not bear to
know that she would think meanly of my good sense and my affection after
I am gone."
John was silent.
"For," continued Valentine, "no one feels more keenly than she does that
it is not charity, not a good work, in a man to leave from his own
family what he does not want and can no longer use, thinking that it is
just as acceptable to God as if he had given it in his lifetime, when he
liked it, enjoyed it--when, in short, it was his own."
"You alienate it with no such thoughts."
"Oh, no, God forbid! But she will think I must have done. There is
hardly any one living who cares for me as much as she does. It would be
very distressing for me to die, knowing she would think me a fanatic, or
a fellow with no affection."
"I was afraid you would think of this."
"You will say something to her, John. All will depend on you. She will
be so hurt, so astonished that I should have done such a thing that she
will never open her lips about it to you. I know her, and, and----"
John seemed to feel this appeal very keenly: he could not look Valentine
in the face. "I acknowledge," he muttered, "that this is hard."
"But you will say _something_ to her?"
"If you can think of anything in the world that would not be better left
unsaid--if you can think of any one thing that for the sake of her love
and sorrow, and my peace and your own memory, should not be left to the
silence you deprecate--then tell me what it is."
Neither spoke for some time after that. At last the poor young fellow
said, with something like a sob, "Then you meant _that_ when you
mentioned Emily?"
"Yes, I did. I felt how hard it was. I feel it much more now I know you
are going to divest yourself of any profit during your life." He had
been looking at Valentine anxiously and intently. The large eyes, too
bright for health; the sharp, finely-cut features and pallid forehead.
Suddenly turning, he caught sight of himself in the glass, and stood
arrested by a momentary surprise. Very little accustomed to consider his
own appearance, for he had but a small share of personal vanity, he was
all the more astonished thus to observe the contrast. The fine hues of
health, the clear calm of the eyes, the wide shoulders and grand manly
frame. This sudden irresistible consciousness of what a world of life
and strength there was in him, had just the opposite effect of what
seemed the natural one. "Perhaps he may survive us both," he thought.
"Who can tell?"
"But it seems to me," he continued aloud, "that we have talked as if it
was more than likely that Emily and I were to have some knowledge and
consciousness of this will of yours; and yet the vicissitudes of life
and the surprises of death ought to place them almost outside our
thoughts of probability, I hope to see you some day as grey-headed as
your father was. _I_ hope it indeed! it may well be the case, and I not
be here to see."
Valentine, always hopeful, was very much cheered by this speech. He did
not know how John's thought had been turned in this direction by a
strong sense of that very improbability which he wanted to leave out of
the question.
They remained some time in silence together after this--John lost in
thought, Valentine much the better for having relieved his mind. Then
Emily came to the door ready for her drive, and looking very sweet and
serene.
"Come, you have been talking long enough. John, how grave you look! I
could not forbear to let you know that some letters have arrived. St.
George and Dorothea are at home again, and the baby can almost walk
alone. But, Val, it seems that you have been inviting young Crayshaw
here?"
"I have taken that liberty, madam," said Valentine. "Have you anything
to say against it?"
Emily smiled, but made no answer.
"That boy and I suit each other uncommonly well," continued Valentine.
"Our correspondence, though I say it, would be worth publishing--stuck
as full of jokes as a pincushion should be of pins. It often amused me
when I was ill. But his brother is going to take him home."
"Ah, home to America!" said Emily, betraying to neither John nor
Valentine the pleasure this news gave her.
John was silent, still deeply pondering the unwelcome surprise of the
afternoon. Valentine was refreshed by her presence, and at finding his
avowal over.
"And so," continued Valentine, "he wrote to me and asked if I would
have him for two days before he left. He knew that you would all be
here, and he wanted to take leave."
"He is a droll young fellow," said Emily. "Johnnie will miss his 'chum.'
One of the letters was from him. He is to be here in an hour, and
Johnnie has started off to meet him, with Bertie and one of the girls."
The other of the girls, namely, Gladys, had betrayed just a little
shyness, and had left his young allies to go and fetch Crayshaw without
her. Emily meeting her in the corridor as she came up-stairs, had
stopped and given her a cordial kiss.
"She is so very young," thought the warm-hearted step-mother. "She will
soon forget it."
She took Gladys with her, and after their short drive managed that they
should be together when young Crayshaw appeared; and she helped her
through a certain embarrassment and inclination to contradict herself
while answering his reproachful inquiries respecting Blob, his dog.
"Father would not let us bring him," said Barbara, confirming the
assurance of the others on that head.
"I have a great mind to go back all the way round by Wigfield to take
leave of him," said Crayshaw. "You think I don't love that dog? All I
know is, then, that I called him out of his kennel the last time I left
him--woke him from his balmy slumber, and kissed him."
"Oh, yes, we know all about that," observed Barbara. "It was quite dusk,
mamma, and Johnnie had stuck up the kitchenmaid's great mop, leaning
against the roof of Blob's kennel, where he often sits when he is sulky.
We all went to see the fun, and Cray thrust his face into it. It looked
just like Blob's head."
"I'm sure I don't know what A.J. Mortimer could see of a military nature
in that tender incident," said Crayshaw, with great mildness. "I did
not expect, after our long friendship, to have a Latin verse written
upon me, and called 'The Blunderbuss.'"
Crayshaw had grown into a handsome young fellow, and looked old for his
years, and manly, though he was short. He had quite lost his former air
of delicate health, and, though sorry to part with the young Mortimers,
could not conceal a certain exultation in the thought of leaving school,
and returning to his native country.
"Scroggins has been growing faster than ever," he said, half-enviously.
"Whenever he gets from under my eyes he takes advantage of it to run
up."
Emily remonstrated. "I don't like to hear you call Johnnie 'Scroggins.'"
"Oh, that's only my poetical way; the old poets frequently did it.
'Lines to his Mistress, Eliza Wheeler, under the name of Amaryllis.' You
often see that kind of thing. In the same way I write to my chum, A.J.
Mortimer, under the name of Scroggins. 'Scroggins, of vertuous father
vertuous son.' I think it sounds extremely well."
Valentine was very well pleased the next afternoon to find himself
sitting among a posse of young Mortimers and Crayshaw, under the great
pear and apple trees, the latter just coming out to join their blossom
to that of their more forward neighbours. It was his nature to laugh and
make laugh, and his character to love youth, his own being peculiarly
youthful. His usual frame of mind was repentant and humble, and he was
very grateful for the apparent removal of illness. He was soon to be
well, and hope and joy woke up in his heart, and came forth to meet the
spring.
John Mortimer and Emily sat near enough, without joining the group, to
catch the conversation, when they chose to listen. John was peculiarly
grave and silent, and Emily was touched for the supposed cause.
Valentine was the only relation left who had lived in his presence. She
knew he had almost a brother's affection and partial preference for
him. She knew that he had doubts and fears as to his health, and she
thought of nothing more as the cause of his silence and gravity.
She made some remark as to Valentine's obvious improvement that morning;
in fact, his spirits were lightened, and that alone was enough to
refresh him. Things were making progress also in the direction he
wished; his berth was secured, his courier was engaged, and some of his
packing was done.
By degrees the mere satisfaction of Emily's presence made it easier for
John Mortimer to accept the consolation of her hope. He began to think
that Valentine might yet do well, and the burnt letters receded into the
background of his thoughts. Why, indeed, unless his cousin died, need he
ever allow them to trouble him again?
Valentine looked from time to time at John and at Emily, and considered
also the situation, thinking, "He loves her so, his contentment with her
is so supreme, that nothing of dead and done crime or misery will hang
about his thoughts long. He will get away, and in absence forget it, as
I shall. I'll take a long look, though, now, at these high gables, with
the sunshine on them, and at those strange casements, and these white
trees. I know I shall never regret them, but I shall wish to remember
what they were like."
He looked long and earnestly at the place and at the group. The faces of
some were as grave as their father's.
Little Hugh, having a great matter to decide, could hear and see nothing
that passed. What should he give Crayshaw for a keepsake? The best thing
he had was his great big plank, that he had meant to make into a
see-saw. It was such a beauty! Cray loved carpentering. Now, the
question was--Cray would like it, no doubt, but would the ship take it
over? How could it be packed?
Next to him sat Gladys, and what she felt and thought she hardly knew
herself. A certain link was to be snapped asunder, which, like some
growing tendril, had spread itself over and seemed to unite two adjacent
trees.
Cray was in very high spirits at the thought of going home. She felt she
might be dull when he was gone.
She had read his letter to Johnnie; there was in it only a very slight
allusion to her. She had told him how the German governess had begun one
to her, "Girl of my heart." He had not answered, but he showed thus that
he had read her anecdote.
His letter to Johnnie ran as follows:--
"Augustus John of my heart,--When I heard I was going home to America, I
heaved up one of the largest sighs that ever burst from a young-manly
bosom. I'm better now, thank you. In short, I feel that if I were to be
deprived of the fun of the voyage, it would blight a youth of heretofore
unusual promise.
"George Crayshaw, when he saw my dismay at the notion of leaving this
little island (into which, though you should penetrate to the very
centre, you could never escape the salt taste of the sea-air on your
lips), said he was ashamed of me. The next day, when I was furious
because he declared that we couldn't sail for three weeks on account of
packing the rubbish he has collected, he said so again. There is a great
want of variety in that citizen," &c.
Gladys was roused from her cogitations by hearing Valentine say--
"Sitting with your back to Barbara! You'll have to take some lessons in
manners before you go where they think that 'the proper study of mankind
is _wo_man.'"
"It was I who moved behind him," said Barbara, "to get out of the sun."
Crayshaw replied with a sweet smile and exceeding mildness of tone--
"Yes, I must begin to overhaul my manners at once. I must look out for
an advertisement that reads something like this:--
"'The undersigned begs to thank his friends and the public for their
continued patronage, and gives notice that gentlemen of neglected
education can take lessons of him as usual on his own premises, at
eightpence an hour, on the art of making offers to the fair sex.
N.B.--This course paid in advance.
"'Dummy ladies provided as large as life. Every gentleman brings a clean
white pocket-handkerchief, and goes down on his own knees when he learns
this exercise, Fancy styles extra.
"'Signed,
"'Valentine Melcombe.
"'References exchanged.'"
"You impudent young dog!" exclaimed Valentine, delighted with this
sally, and not at all sorry that Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer were out of
hearing--they having risen and strolled down to a lower portion of the
orchard.
Valentine was seated on a low garden-chair, and his young guests were
grouped about him on a Persian carpet which had been spread there.
Gladys was roused from her reverie by seeing Valentine snatch a piece of
paper from Crayshaw--peals of laughter following his pretended reading
of it.
"They actually think, those two, of having their poems printed," Barbara
had been saying.
"It would only cost about £30," said Crayshaw, excusing himself, "and
Mrs. Mortimer promised to subscribe for twenty copies. Why, Lord Byron
did it. If he wrote better Latin verse than Scroggins does, where is
it?"
"The first one, then," said Barbara, "ought to be Johnnie's parody that
he did in the holidays. Mamma gave him a title for it, 'Ode on a Distant
Prospect of leaving Harrow School.'"
Then it was that Valentine snatched the paper.
"Most of them are quite serious," Crayshaw here remarked.
"Ah, so this is the list of them," said Valentine, pretending to read:--
"'POEMS BY TWO SCHOOLBOYS.'
"One.--'Lines written on a late Auspicious Occasion' (I do so like that
word auspicious), 'and presented to my new step-uncle-in-law, with a
smile and a tear.' I'll read them:--
"'Respecting thee with all my might,
Thy virtues thus I sing.'"
"It's a story!" shouted Johnnie, interrupting him. "I don't respect you
a bit, and I never wrote it."
"Two," proceeded Valentine, "'The Whisper, by a Lisper,' and 'The Stick
of Chocolate, a Reverie.' Now, do you mean to tell me that you did not
write these?"
"No, I didn't! you know I didn't!"
"Four," Valentine went on, "'The City of the Skunk, an Ode.' Now, Cray,
it is of no use your saying you did not write this, for you sent me a
copy, and told me that was the poetical name for Chicago."
"Well," said Crayshaw, "I tried that subject because Mr. Mortimer said
something about the true sustenance of the poetic life coming from the
race and the soil to which the poet belonged; but George was so savage
when I showed it to him that I felt obliged to burn it."
"Five.--'To Mrs. M. of M.,'" continued Valentine. "It seems to be a
song:--
"'Oh, clear as candles newly snuffed
Are those round orbs of thine.'"
"It's false," exclaimed Crayshaw; "Mrs. Melcombe indeed! She's fat,
she's three times too old for me."
"Why did you write it, then?" persisted Valentine. "I think this line,--
"'Lovely as waxwork is thy brow,'
"does you great credit. But what avails it! She is now another's. I got
her wedding cards this morning. She is married to one Josiah Fothergill,
and he lives in Warwick Square.
"Six--'The Black Eye, a Study from Life.'"
"But their things are not all fun, cousin Val," said Gladys, observing,
not without pleasure, that Crayshaw was a little put out at Valentine's
joke about Mrs. Melcombe. "Cray is going to be a real poet now, and some
of his things are very serious indeed."
"This looks very serious," Valentine broke in; "perhaps it is one of
them: 'Thoughts on Futurity, coupling with it the name of my Whiskers,'"
"There's his ode to Sincerity," proceeded Gladys; "I am sure you would
like that."
"For we tell so many stories, you know," remarked Barbara; "say so many
things that we don't mean. Cray thinks we ought not."
"For instance," said Johnnie, "sometimes when people write that they are
coming to see us, we answer that we are delighted, when in reality we
wish that they were at the bottom of the sea."
"No, no," answered Valentine, in a deprecatory tone; "don't say at the
bottom, that sounds unkind. I'm sure I never wished anybody more than
half-way down."
Two or three days after this a grand early dinner took place at
Melcombe. All the small Mortimers were present, and a number of
remarkable keepsakes were bestowed afterwards on Crayshaw by way of
dessert. After this, while Mr. and Mrs. John Mortimer sat together in
the house the party adjourned to the orchard, and Crayshaw presently
appeared with a small box in which had hitherto been concealed his own
gifts of like nature. Among them were two gold lockets, one for each of
the twins.
"I helped him to choose them," said Johnnie, "and he borrowed the money
of his brother."
"There's nothing in them," observed Barbara. "It would be much more
romantic if we put in a lock of Cray's hair."
"I thought of that," quoth the donor, "but I knew very well that the
first new friend you had, you would turn it out and put his in, just as
both of you turned my photograph out of those pretty frames, and put in
Prince Leopold after he had passed through the town. You are to wear
these lockets."
"Oh yes," said Barbara, "and how pretty they are with their little gold
chains!"
"Cray, if you will give me a lock of your hair, I promise not to take it
out," said Gladys.
She produced a little pair of scissors, and as he sat at her feet, cut
off a small curl, and between them they put it in. A certain wistfulness
was in her youthful face, but no one noticed it.
"I shouldn't wonder," she remarked, "if you never came back any more."
"Oh yes, I shall," he answered in a tone of equal conviction and
carelessness.
"Why? you have no friends at all but us."
"No, I haven't," he answered, and looked up at her as she stood
knitting, and leaning against a tree.
"Of course you'll come," exclaimed Johnnie, "you're coming for your
wedding tour. Your wife will make you; you're going to be married as
soon as you're of age, old fellow."
Then Crayshaw, blushing hotly, essayed to hit Johnnie, who forthwith
started up and was pursued by him with many a whoop and shout, in a wild
circling chase among the trees. At length, finding he was not to be
caught, Crayshaw returned a good deal heated, and Johnnie followed
smiling blandly, and flung himself on the grass breathing hard.
"Well, I'm glad you two are not going to finish up your friendship with
another fight," said Valentine.
"He's always prophesying something horrid about me," exclaimed Crayshaw.
"Why am I to be married any more than he is, I should like to know? If I
do, you'll certainly have to give up that visit to California, that Mr.
Mortimer almost promised you should make with me. Gladys, I suppose he
would not let you and Barbara come too?"
"Oh no. I am sure he would not."
"What fun we might have!"
"Yes."
"I don't see if you were a family man, why it shouldn't be done," said
Johnnie, returning to the charge, "but if you won't marry, even to
oblige your oldest friends, why you won't."
"Time's up," said Valentine, looking at his watch, "and there's my
dog-cart coming round to the door."
The youth rose then with a sigh, took leave of Valentine, and
reluctantly turned towards the house, all the young Mortimers following.
They were rather late for the train, so that the parting was hurried,
and poor little Gladys as she gazed after the dog-cart, while Johnnie
drove and Crayshaw looked back, felt a great aching pain at her heart,
and thought she should never forget him.
But perhaps she did.
The young Mortimers were to leave Melcombe themselves the next day, and
Valentine was to accompany them home, sleeping one night at their
father's house by way of breaking his journey, and seeing his family
before he started on his voyage.
He was left alone, and watched his guests as their receding figures were
lost among the blossoming trees. He felt strangely weak that afternoon,
but he was happy. The lightness of heart that comes of giving up some
wrong or undesirable course of action (one that he thought wrong) might
long have been his, but he had not hitherto been able to get away from
the scene of it.
To-morrow he was to depart. Oh, glad to-morrow!
He laid himself back in his seat, and looked at the blue hills, and
listened to the sweet remote voices of the children, let apple-blossoms
drop all over him, peered through great brown boughs at the empty sky,
and lost himself in a sea of thought which seemed almost as new to him
and as fathomless as that was.
Not often does a man pass his whole life before him and deliberately
criticize himself, his actions and his way.
If he does, it is seldom when he would appear to an outsider to have
most reasonable occasion; rather during some pause when body and mind
both are still.
The soul does not always recognise itself as a guest seated within this
frame; sometimes it appears to escape and look at the human life it has
led, as if from without. It seems to become absorbed into the august
stream of being; to see that fragment _itself_, without self-love, and
as the great all of mankind would regard it if laid open to them.
It perceives the inevitable verdict. Thus and thus have I done. They
will judge me rightly, that thus and thus I am.
If a man is reasonable and sees things as they were, he does not often
fix on some particular act for which to blame himself when he deplores
the past, for at times of clear vision, the soul escapes from the
bondage of incident. It gets away from the region of particulars, and
knows itself by nature even better than by deed. There is a common
thought that beggars sympathy in almost every shallow mind. It seldom
finds deliberate expression. Perhaps it may be stated thus:--
The greatness of the good derived from it, makes the greatness of the
fault.
A man tells a great lie, and saves his character by it. No wonder it
weighs on his conscience ever after. And yet perhaps he has told
countless lies, both before and since, told them out of mere
carelessness, or from petty spite or for small advantages, and utterly
forgotten them. Now which of these, looked at by the judge, is the great
offender? Is the one lie he repents of the most wicked, or are those
that with small temptation he flung about daily, and so made that one
notable lie easy?
Was it strange that Valentine, looking back, should not with any special
keenness of pain have rued his mistake in taking Melcombe?
No. That was a part of himself. It arose naturally out of his character,
which, but for that one action, he felt he never might have fully known.
So weak, so longing for pleasure and ease, so faintly conscious of any
noble desire for good, so wrapped up in a sense as of the remoteness of
God, how could it be otherwise?
If a man is a Christian, he derives often in such thoughts a healing
consciousness of the Fatherhood and Humanity of God. He perceives that
he was most to be pitied and least to be judged, not while he stood, but
when he fell. There is no intention of including here hardened crimes of
dishonesty, and cruelty, and violence, only those pathetic descents
which the ingrain faults and original frailty of our nature make so
easy, and which life and the world are so arranged as to punish even
after a loving God forgives.
"Those faults," he may say, "they seem to live, though I shall die. They
are mine, though I lose all else beside. Where can I lay them down,
where lose them? Is there any healing to be found other than in His
sympathy, His forgiveness who made our nature one with His to raise it
to Himself?"
The world is not little. Life is not mean. It spreads itself in
aspiration, it has possession through its hope. It inhabits all
remoteness that the eye can reach; it inherits all sweetness that the
ear can prove; always bereaved of the whole, it yet looks for a whole;
always clasping its little part, it believes in the remainder.
Sometimes, too often, like a bird it gets tangled in a net which
notwithstanding it knew of. It must fly with broken wings ever alter.
Or, worse, it is tempted to descend, as the geni into the vase, for a
little while, when sealed down at once unaware, it must lie in the dark
so long, that it perhaps denies the light in heaven for lack of seeing
it.
If those who have the most satisfying lot that life can give are to
breathe freely, they must get through, and on, and out of it.
Not because it is too small for us, but too great, it bears so many
down. On the whole that vast mass of us which inherits its narrowest
portion, tethered, and that on the world's barest slope, does best.
The rich and the free have a choice, they often choose amiss. Yet no
choice can (excepting for this world) be irretrievable; and that same
being for whom the great life of the world proved too much, learns often
in the loss of everything, what his utmost gain was not ordained to
teach.
He wanted all, and at last he can take that all, without which nothing
can make him content. He perceives, and his heart makes answer to, the
yearning Fatherhood above; he recognises the wonderful upward drawing
with love and fear.
"This is God!
He moves me so, to take of Him what lacks;
My want is God's desire to give; He yearns
To add Himself to life, and so for aye
Make it enough."