O what men dare do! what men may do! what men daily do! not
knowing what they do!
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
One morning, about these days, Mr. and Miss Haye were seated
at the opposite ends of the breakfast-table. They had been
there for some time, silently buttering rolls and sipping
coffee, in a leisurely way on Mr. Haye's part, and an
ungratified one on the part of his daughter. He was
considering, also in a leisurely sort of way, the columns of
the morning paper; she considering him and the paper, and at
intervals knocking with her knife against the edge of her
plate, -- a meditative and discontented knife, and an impassive
and unimpressed plate. So breakfast went on till Elizabeth's
cup was nearly emptied.
"Father," said she, "it is very unsociable and stupid for you
to read the paper, and me to eat my breakfast alone. You might
read aloud, if you must read."
Mr. Haye brought his head round from the paper long enough to
swallow half a cupful of coffee.
"Where's Rose?"
"In bed, for aught I know. There is no moving her till she has
a mind."
"'Seems to me, it is quite as difficult to move you," said
her father.
"Ay, but then I _have a mind_ -- which makes all the difference."
Mr. Haye went back to his paper and considered it till the
rest of his cup of coffee was thoroughly cold. Elizabeth
finished her breakfast, and sat, drawn back into herself, with
arms folded, looking into the fireplace. Finding his coffee
cold, Mr. Haye's attention came at length back upon his
daughter.
"What do you want me to talk about?" he said.
"It don't signify, your talking about anything now," said
Elizabeth. "Everything is cold -- mind and matter together. I
don't know how you'll find the coffee, father."
Mr. Haye stirred it, with a discontented look.
"Rose is late," he remarked again.
"_That's_ nothing new," said Elizabeth. "Late is her time."
Mr. Haye drunk his cold cupful.
"You're very fond of her, Lizzie, aren't you?"
"No," said Elizabeth. "I don't think I am."
"Not fond of her!" said Mr. Haye in a very surprised tone.
"No," said Elizabeth, -- "I don't think I am."
"I thought you were," said her father, in a voice that spoke
both chagrin and displeasure.
"What made you think so?"
"You always seemed fond of her," said Mr. Haye.
"I can't have seemed so, for I never was so. There isn't
enough of her to be fond of. I talk to her, and like her after
a fashion, because she is the only person near me that I can
talk to -- that's all."
"_I_ am fond of her," said Mr. Haye.
"It takes more to make me fond of anybody," said his daughter.
"I know _you_ are."
"What does Rose want, to have the honour of your good
opinion?"
"O don't talk in that tone!" said Elizabeth. "I had rather you
would not talk at all. You have chosen an unhappy subject. It
takes a good deal to make me like anybody much, father."
"What does Rose want?"
"As near as possible, everything," said Elizabeth, -- "if you
_will_ have the answer."
"What?"
"Why father, she has nothing in the world but a very pretty
face."
"You grant her that," said Mr. Haye.
"Yes, I grant her that, though it is a great while since _I_ saw
it pretty. Father, I care nothing at all for any face which
has nothing beneath the outside. It's a barren prospect to me,
however fair the outside may be -- I don't care to let my eye
dwell on it."
"How do you like the prospect of your own, in the glass?"
"I should be very sorry if I didn't think it had infinitely
more in it than the face we have been speaking of. It is not
so beautifully tinted, nor so regularly cut; but _I_ like it
better."
"I am afraid few people will agree with you," said her father
dryly.
"There's one thing," said Elizabeth, -- "I sha'n't know it if
they don't. But then I see my face at a disadvantage, looking
stupidly at itself in the glass -- I hope it does better to
other people."
"I didn't know you thought quite so much of yourself," said
Mr. Haye.
"I haven't told you the half," said Elizabeth, looking at him.
"I am afraid I think more of myself than anybody else does, or
ever will."
"If you do it so well for yourself, I'm afraid other people
won't save you the trouble," said her father.
"I'm afraid _you_ will not, by the tone in which you speak,
father."
"What has set you against Rose?"
"Nothing in the world! I am not set against her. Nothing in
the world but her own emptiness and impossibility of being
anything like a companion to me."
"Elizabeth! --"
"Father! -- What's the matter?"
"How dare you talk in that manner?"
"Why father," said Elizabeth, her tone somewhat quieting as
his was roused, -- "I never saw the thing yet I didn't dare
say, if I thought it. Why shouldn't I?"
"Because it is not true -- a word of it."
"I'm sure I wish it wasn't true," said Elizabeth. "What I said
was true. It's a sorrowful truth to me, too, for I haven't a
soul to talk to that can understand me -- not even you, father,
it seems."
"I wish I didn't understand you," said Mr. Haye.
"It's nothing very dreadful to understand," said Elizabeth, --
"what I have been saying now. I wonder how you can think so
much of it. I know you love Rose better than I do."
"I love her so well --" said Mr. Haye, and stopped.
"So well that what?"
"That I can hardly talk to you with temper."
"Then don't let us talk about it at all," said Elizabeth,
whose own heightened colour shewed that her temper was moving.
"Unhappily it is necessary," said Mr. Haye dryly.
"Why in the world is it necessary? You can't alter the matter,
father, by talking; -- it must stand so."
"Stand how?"
"Why, as it does stand -- Rose and I as near as possible
nothing to each other."
"Things can hardly stand so," said Mr. Haye. "You must be
either less or more."
Elizabeth sat silent and looked at him. He looked at nothing
but what was on his plate.
"How would you like to have Rose take your place?"
"My place?" said Elizabeth.
"Yes," said Mr. Haye laconically.
"No place that I fill, _could_ be filled by Rose," said
Elizabeth, with the slightest perceptible lifting of her head
and raising of her brow.
"We will try that," said Mr. Haye bitterly; "for I will put
her over your head, and we will see."
"Put her _where?_" said Elizabeth.
"Over this house -- over my establishment -- at this table -- in
your place as the head of this family."
"You will take _her_ for your daughter, and discard me?" said
Elizabeth.
"No -- I will not, --" said Mr. Haye, cutting a piece of
beefsteak in a way that shewed him indifferent to its fate. "I
will not! -- I will make her my wife! --"
Elizabeth had risen from the table and now she stood on the
rug before the fire, with her arms behind her, looking down at
the breakfast-table and her father. Literally, looking down
_upon_ them. Her cheeks were very pale, but fires that were not
heaven-lit were burning somewhere within her, shining out at
her eye and now and then colouring her face with a sudden
flare. There was a pause. Mr. Haye tried what he could do with
his beefsteak; and his daughter's countenance shewed the cloud
and the flame of the volcano by turns. For awhile the father
and daughter held off from each other. But Mr. Haye's
breakfast gave symptoms of coming to an end.
"Father," said Elizabeth, bringing her hands in front of her
and clasping them, -- "say you did not mean that!"
"Ha! --" said Mr. Haye without looking at her, and brushing the
crumbs from his pantaloons.
Elizabeth waited.
"What did you mean?"
"I spoke plain enough," said he.
"Do you mean to say that you _meant_ that?" said Elizabeth, the
volcanic fires leaping up bright.
"Meant it?" said Mr. Haye, looking at her. "Yes, I meant it."
"Father, you did not! --"
Mr. Haye looked again at her hands and her face, and answered
coolly.
"Ask Rose whether I meant it, --"
And left the room.
Elizabeth neither saw nor heard, for some minutes; they might
have been many or few. Then she became aware that the servant
was asking her if he should leave the breakfast-table still
for Miss Cadwallader; and her answer, "No -- take it away!" --
was given with startling decision. The man had known his young
mistress before to speak with lips that were supreme in their
expression. He only obeyed, without even wondering. Elizabeth
in a whirl of feeling that like the smoke of the volcano hid
everything but itself, went and stood in the window; present
to nothing but herself; seeing neither the street without nor
the house within. Wrapped in that smoke, she did not know when
the servant went out, nor whether anybody else came in. She
stood there pale, with lips set, her hands folded against her
waist, and pressing there with a force the muscles never
relaxed. How long she did not know. Something aroused her, and
she discerned, through the smoke, another figure in the room
and coming towards her. Elizabeth stepped out from the window,
without altering anything but her place, and stood opposite to
Winthrop Landholm. If it had been Queen Elizabeth of old and
one of her courtiers, it would have been all one; the young
man's respectful greeting could not have been met with more
superb regality of head and brow.
"I have a letter for Mr. Haye," said Winthrop, "which my
brother left in my charge. That brought me here this morning,
and I ventured to make business an excuse for pleasure."
"It may lie on the table till he comes," said Elizabeth with
the slightest bend of her stately little head. She might have
meant the letter or the pleasure or the business, or all
three.
"You are well, Miss Haye?" said Winthrop doubtfully.
"No -- I am well enough," said Elizabeth. A revulsion of
feeling had very nearly brought down her head in a flood of
tears; but she kept that back carefully and perfectly; and the
next instant she started with another change, for Rose came
in. _She_ gave Winthrop a very smiling and bright salutation;
which he acknowledged silently, gravely, and even distantly.
"Aren't you well, Mr. Landholm?" was Rose's next instant
question, most sweetly given.
"Very well," he said with another bow.
"What have you been talking about, to get so melancholy?
Lizzie --"
But Rose caught sight of the gathered blackness of that face,
and stopped short. Elizabeth bestowed one glance upon her; and
as she then turned to the other person of the party the
revulsion came over her again, so strong that it was
overcoming. For a minute her hands went to her face, and it
was with extreme difficulty that the rising heart was kept
down. Will had the mastery, however, and her face looked up
again more dark than ever.
"We have talked of nothing at all," she said. "Mr. Landholm
only came to bring a letter."
Mr. Landholm could not stay after that, for anything. He bowed
himself out; and left Elizabeth standing in the middle of the
floor, looking as if the crust of the earth had given way
under her and 'chaos was come again.' She stood there as she
had stood in the window, still and cold; and Rose afar off by
the chimney corner stood watching her, as one would a wild
beast or a venomous creature in the room, not a little fear
mingled with a shadow of something else in her face.
Elizabeth's first movement was to walk a few steps up and
down, swinging one clenched hand, but half the breadth of the
room was all she went. She sunk down there beside a chair and
hid her face, exclaiming or rather groaning out, one after the
other, -- "Oh! -- oh!" -- in such tones as are dragged from very
far down in the heart; careless of Rose's hearing her.
"What is the matter, Lizzie?" -- her companion ventured
timidly. But Elizabeth gave no answer; and neither of them
stirred for many minutes, an occasional uneasy flutter of
Rose's being the exception. The question at last was asked
over again, and responded to.
"That my father has disgraced himself, and that you are the
cause!"
"There's no disgrace," said Rose.
"Don't say he has not!" said Elizabeth, looking up with an eye
that glared upon her adversary. "And before he had done it, I
wish you had never been born, -- or I."
"It's no harm, --" said Rose confusedly.
"Harm! -- harm, --" repeated Elizabeth; then putting her face
down again; "Oh! -- what's the use of living, in such a world!"
"I don't see what harm it does to you," said Rose, muttering
her words.
"Harm?" repeated Elizabeth. "If it was right to wish it, --
which I believe it isn't, -- I could wish that I was dead. It
almost seems to me I wish I were!"
"You're not sure about it," said Rose.
"No, I am not," said Elizabeth looking up at her again with
eyes of fire and a face from which pain and passion had driven
all but livid colour, -- but looking at her steadily, --
"because there is something after death; and I am not sure
that I am ready for it. I _dare_ not say I wish I was dead, Rose
Cadwallader, or you would drive me to it!"
"I'm sure, I've done nothing," -- said Rose whimpering.
"Done nothing!" said Elizabeth with a concentrated power of
expression. "Oh I wish you had done anything, before my father
had lowered himself in my eyes and you had been the cause! --"
"I'm not the cause of anything," said Rose.
Elizabeth did not answer; she was crouching by the side of the
chair in an uneasy position that said how far from ease the
spirit was.
"And he hasn't lowered himself," Rose went on pouting.
"It is done!" -- said Elizabeth, getting up from the floor and
standing, not unlike a lightning-struck tree. -- "I wonder what
will become of me! --"
"What are you going to do?"
"I would find a way out of this house, if I knew how."
"That's easy enough," said Rose with a slight sneer. "There
are plenty of ways."
"Easy enough, --if one could find the right one."
"Why you've had me in the house a great while, already," said
Rose.
"I _have had_ --" said Elizabeth. -- "I wonder if I shall ever
have anything again!"
"Why what have you lost?"
"Everything -- except myself."
"You have a great respect for Mr. Haye," said Rose.
"I had."
Rose at this point thought fit to burst into a great fit of
tears. Elizabeth stood by the table, taking up and putting
down one book after another, as if the touch of them gave her
fingers pain; and looking as if, as she said, she had lost
everything. Then stood with folded arms eyeing something that
was not before her; and then slowly walked out of the room.
"Lizzie --" said Rose.
"What?" said Elizabeth stopping at the door.
"What's the use of taking things so?"
"The use of necessity."
"But we can be just as we were before."
Elizabeth went on and gained her own room; and there she and
pain had a fight that lasted the rest of the day.
The fight was not over, and weary traces of it were upon her
face, when late in the afternoon she went out to try the
change of a walk. The walk made no change whatever. As she was
coming up the Parade, she was met by Winthrop going down. If
he had seen only the gravity and reserve of the morning, it is
probable he would not have stopped to speak to her; but though
those were in her face still, there was beside a weary set of
the brow and sorrowful line of the lips, very unwonted there,
and the cheeks were pale; and instead of passing with a mere
bow he came up and offered his hand. Elizabeth took it, but
without the least brightening of face.
"Are you out for a walk?" said he.
"No -- I am for home -- I have had a walk."
"It is a very fine afternoon," said he, turning and beginning
to walk along slowly with her.
"Is it?"
"Haven't you found out that it is?"
"No."
"Where have you been, not to know it?"
"Hum --" said Elizabeth, -- "if you mean where my _mind_ has
been, that is one question; as for my bodily self, I have been
on the Castle Green."
"You have lost your walk," said he. "Don't you feel inclined
to turn about with me and try to pick up what you came out
for?"
"Better there than at home," thought Elizabeth, and she turned
about accordingly.
"People come out for a variety of things," she remarked
however.
"That is true," said Winthrop smiling. "I am afraid I was
hasty in presuming I could help you to find your object. I was
thinking only of mine."
"I don't know but you could, as well as anybody," said
Elizabeth. "If you could give me your mother's secret for not
minding disagreeable things."
"I am afraid I cannot say she does not mind them," he
answered.
"What then? -- I thought you said so."
"I do not remember what I said. I might have said that she
does not struggle with them -- those at least which cannot be
removed by struggling."
"Not struggle with them?" said Elizabeth. "Sit down quietly
with them!"
"Yes," he said gravely. "Not at first, but at last."
"I don't believe in it," said Elizabeth. "That is, I don't
believe in it as a general thing. It may be possible for her.
I am sure it never could be for me."
Winthrop was silent, and they walked so for the space of half
a block.
"Would she say that it is possible for everybody?" inquired
Elizabeth then.
"I believe she would say that it is not temperament, nor
circumstance, nor stoical philosophy."
"What then?"
"A drop of some pacifying oil out of a heaven-wrought
chalice."
"I don't think figures are the easiest mode of getting at
things, Mr. Landholm. You don't make this clear."
He smiled a little, as he pushed open the little wicket gate
of the Green, and without saying anything more they sauntered
in, along the broad gravel walk sweeping round the enclosure;
slowly, till they had passed the fortifications and stood
looking upon the bay over towards Blue Point. The sun was
almost on the low ruddied horizon; a stirring north breeze
came down from the up country, roughening the bay, and the
sunbeams leapt across from the opposite western shore giving a
touch of light to every wave. The air was very fine; the sky
without a cloud, except some waiting flecks of vapour around
the sun. The two friends stood still some little time, to look
or to think; looking especially at the fair glowing western
heaven, and the tossing water between, every roll of which was
with a dance and a sparkle.
"Does _this_ make anything clear?" asked Winthrop, when some
time had gone by without speech or movement from either of
them.
He spoke lightly enough; but the answer was given in a tone
that bespoke its truth.
"Oh no! --"
And Elizabeth's face was turned away so that he could see
nothing but her bonnet, beside the tremulous swell of the
throat; that he _did_ see.
"It has very often such an effect for me," -- he went on in the
same tone. "And I often come here for the very purpose of
trying it; when my head gets thick over law-papers."
"That may do for some things," said Elizabeth. "It won't for
others."
"This would work well along with my mother's recipe," he said.
"What is that?" said Elizabeth harshly. "You didn't tell me."
"I am hardly fit to tell you," he answered, "for I do not
thoroughly know it myself. But I know she would send you to
the Bible, --and tell you of a hand that she trusts to do
everything for her, and that she knows will do all things
well, and kindly."
"But does that hinder disagreeables from being disagreeables?"
said Elizabeth with some impatience of tone. "Does that hinder
aches from being pain?"
"Hardly. But I believe it stops or soothes the aching. I
believe it, because I have seen it."
Elizabeth stood still, her bosom swelling, and that fluttering
of her throat growing more fluttering. It got beyond her
command. The mixed passions and vexations, and with them a
certain softer and more undefined regret, reached a point
where she had no control over them. The tears would come, and
once arrived at that, they took their own way; with such a
rush of passionate indulgence, that a thought of the time and
the place and the witness, made nothing, or came in only to
swell the rush. The flood poured over the barrier with such
joy at being set free, that it carried all before it.
Elizabeth was just conscious of being placed on a seat, near
to which it happened that she was standing; and she knew
nothing more. She did not even know how completely she was
left to herself. Not till the fever of passion was brought a
little down, and recollection and shame began to take their
turn, and she checked her tears and stole a secret glance
around to see what part of the gravel walk supported a certain
pair of feet, for higher than the ground she dared not look.
Her surprise was a good deal to find that her glance must take
quite a wide range to meet with them; and then venturing a
single upward look, she saw that her companion standing at a
little distance was not watching her, nor apparently had been;
his attitude bespoke him quietly fixed upon something else and
awaiting her leisure. Elizabeth brought her eyes home again.
"What a strange young man!" was her quick thought; -- "to have
been brought up a farmer's boy, and to know enough and to dare
enough to put me on this seat, and then to have the wit to go
off and stand there in that manner!"
But this tribute of respect to Winthrop was instantly followed
by an endeavour to do herself honour, in the way of gaining
self-possession and her ordinary looks as speedily as
possible. She commanded herself well after once she got the
reins in hand; yet however it was with a grave consciousness
of swollen eyes and flushed cheeks that she presently rose
from her place and went forward to the side of the quiet
figure that stood there with folded arms watching the rolling
waters of the bay. Elizabeth stood at his elbow a minute in
hesitation.
"I am ready now, Mr. Landholm. I am sorry I have kept you by
my ridiculousness."
"I have not been kept beyond my pleasure," he said.
"I lost command of myself," Elizabeth went on. "That happens
to me once in a while."
"You will feel better for it," he said, as they turned and
began to walk homewards.
"He takes things coolly!" thought Elizabeth.
"Do you men ever lose command of yourselves?"
"Sometimes -- I am afraid," he said with a smile.
"I suppose your greater power of nerve and of guarding
appearances, is one secret of the triumphant sort of pride you
wear upon occasion. There --I see it in your face now."
"I hope not," said Winthrop laughing. "The best instance of
self-control that I ever saw, was most unaccompanied with any
arrogance of merit or power."
"He means his mother again," thought Elizabeth.
"Was that instance in a man or a woman, Mr. Landholm?"
"It was in a woman -- unfortunately for your ground."
"Not at all," said Elizabeth. "Exceptions prove nothing."
Winthrop said nothing, for his thoughts were busy with that
image of sweet self-guidance which he had never known to be
unsteady or fail; and which, he knew, referred all its
strength and all its stableness to the keeping of another
hand. Most feminine, most humble, and most sure.
"Mr. Winthrop, your mother puzzles me," said Elizabeth. "I
wish I knew some of her secrets."
"I wish I did," he answered with half a sigh.
"Why, don't you!"
"No."
"I thought you did."
"No; for she says they can only be arrived at through a
certain initiation which I have not had -- after certain
preliminary steps, which I have not yet taken."
Elizabeth looked at him, both surprised and curious.
"What are they?"
Winthrop's face was graver than usual, as he said,
"I wish my mother were here to answer you."
"Why, cannot you?"
"No."
"Don't you know the preliminary steps, Mr. Landholm?"
He looked very grave again.
"Not clearly enough to tell you. In general, I know she would
say there is a narrow way to be passed through before the
treasures of truth, or its fair prospects, can be arrived at;
but I have never gone that way myself and I cannot point out
the way-marks."
"Are you referring to the narrow gate spoken of in the Bible?"
"To the same."
"Then you are getting upon what _I_ do not understand," said
Elizabeth.
They had mounted the steps of No. 11, and were waiting for the
door to be opened. They waited silently till it was done, and
then parted with only a 'good night.' Elizabeth did not ask
him in, and it hardly occurred to Winthrop to wonder that she
did not.
Mr. Landholm read no classics that night. Neither law.
Neither, which may seem more strange, did he consult his Book
of books at all. He busied himself, not exactly with the study
of the human mind, but of two human minds, -- which, though at
first sight it may seem an enlargement of the subject, is in
fact rather a contracted view of the same.