A MINT OF PHRASES IN HIS BRAIN
Love's Labor's Lost, i. 1.
The disappointment of Maurice at the failure of his effort to secure
his aunt's fortune was perhaps rather more than less keen because the
property had never tangibly been his. The title of the fancy is that of
which men are most tenacious, and the thing which has been held in fee
of the imagination is precisely that which it is most grievous to lose.
Maurice returned to Boston completely overcome by the result of his
expedition, his mind overflowing with chagrin and anger.
It was not only the money which he had missed, but he had to his
thinking lost also the hope of being in a position to press his suit
with Berenice. However intangible might be his plans for winning her,
they none the less filled his mind. He refused to regard her coldness
as enduring. He had in his thoughts imagined so many tender scenes of
reconciliation in which he magnanimously forgave her for the sharpness
of the repulse of their last meeting or humbly besought pardon for his
own offenses, that he came to feel as if all misunderstanding had
really been done away with. It had been in his mind that if he were but
in a position to meet Berenice on equal terms in regard to fortune all
might be well; and to be deprived of this hope was infinitely bitter.
Meanwhile he had before him the problem of reshaping his life. It was
necessary that he decide what should take the place of the profession
which he had laid down. Fortunately the decision was not difficult, as
former inclination had practically settled the matter. The definite
shaping of his plans came one day in a talk which he had with his
cousin.
"It isn't exactly my affair, Maurice," Mrs. Staggchase said, "but I
want to know, and that always makes a thing her affair with a
woman,--what are you going to do with your life now that you have
pulled it out of the mouth of the church?"
"It is good of you to care to ask," he answered. "I suppose I shall
study law."
"May I talk with you quite frankly?" she asked. "Fred does me the honor
to say that for a woman I have a reasonably clear head."
"You may say whatever you like, Cousin Diana. I shall only be grateful."
"Well, then, in the first place, how much have you to live on?"
"I've about a thousand dollars a year. What was left of the estate at
mother's death amounts to about that. I wanted to give it all to the
church when I went into the Clergy House."
"Why didn't you?"
"Father Frontford wouldn't allow it. He said that a continual sacrifice
meant more than an act that stripped me of power to decide, and which
might be regretted."
"That was a noble temper," Mrs. Staggchase remarked thoughtfully. "A
priest is a strange being. As for you, you say you have never believed,
and yet you would have given up everything you possessed."
Maurice flushed, and looked a little shamefaced.
"I never did believe, so far as I can see now; but I thought I did, if
you see the difference. My wanting to give up everything wasn't belief;
it was a sort of instinctive desire to play fair. If I were to do the
thing at all, my impulse was to do it thoroughly. It isn't in my blood
to do a thing half way. I'm afraid the explanation doesn't speak very
well for my common sense; but so far as I can understand myself that's
the way of it."
"But if you didn't believe what were you there for?"
"I was there because Phil was. I don't pretend to understand why I, who
led Phil in everything else, who did all sorts of things that he
couldn't and had to decide everything else for him, should have
followed his lead so in religion; but I did. It was part of my caring
for him. It would have hurt him so much if I hadn't, that of course I
had to."
Mrs. Staggchase regarded him keenly. He turned away his eyes, thinking
of his friend and of the wide gulf which had opened between them, so
that he but half heard and did not understand the comment she made
softly.
"The _ewigweibliche_ in masculine shape," she murmured, smiling to
herself. "When the real came, it couldn't hold its power any longer."
"What?" he asked.
"Nothing. I was speaking in riddles. To come back to business,--you say
you've decided upon the law."
"Yes. That was always my choice. I read a good deal of law while I was
in college. It wasn't till I graduated two years ago that I fell into
theology. It's two years wasted."
"Oh, perhaps, and perhaps not. After all, experience in youth is
generally worth what it costs, little as we think so when we pay the
price. Well, then, you can easily live on your income if you choose.
Mr. Staggchase and I will be glad to have you make this your home,
and"--
"But, Cousin Diana," he interrupted in astonishment, "there is
certainly no reason why you should burden yourself with me. Not that I
am not a thousand times obliged to you, but"--
"Be as obliged as you like," interrupted she in turn, "only don't be
foolish. Fred and I are not exactly sentimentalists, and we both know
what we wish. He likes to have you to talk with, and when you have
learned to smoke you will find him a very clever and agreeable
companion after dinner. He knows the world, and he'll teach you a great
many things that you'd be slow to find out for yourself. As for me, you
amuse me, let us say. The gods have spared us the bother of children;
but the gifts of the gods are always to be paid for, and we begin to
feel as if there were a sort of loneliness ahead of us with nobody to
be especially interested in. To have somebody younger to care for is a
luxury when you are young yourself, but it's a necessity to age. I
assure you that we shouldn't have you here if we didn't want you, and
that we shall turn you out without scruple when we are tired of you."
"Very well, then," he responded with a laugh, "I am rejoiced to remain
to be a blessing."
They looked into the fire a little time as if they were considering
what effect upon the future this new arrangement would have; then Mrs.
Staggchase glanced up with a smile.
"Just now," she remarked, "before you are plunged in the study of the
law, you may do escort duty for me. I am going to call on Berenice
Morison."
"On Miss Morison?"
"Yes. Her grandmother is staying with her. Mr. Frostwinch has gone
abroad, you know, and as the old house belongs to Bee, she is staying
on there."
"But--but she won't care to see me."
"Very likely not," assented his cousin coolly, "but she'll endure you
for my sake."
"I don't like being endured," he retorted, between fun and earnest.
"Besides, she's so much money"--
"You are not such a cad as to be afraid of her money, I hope."
"Not in one way, but don't you see now that she has so much, and I have
lost Aunt Hannah's"--
"Really, Maurice," she interrupted brusquely, "you must learn not to
speak your thoughts out like that! I'm not asking you to go to propose
to Bee. You have the theological habit of taking things with too
dreadful seriousness. Come with me for a call, and don't bother about
consequences and possibilities."
Maurice blushed at his own folly in betraying his secret scruples, but
his cousin spared him any farther teasing, and they went on their way
peacefully. It seemed to him when he entered the stately Frostwinch
house that it had somehow been transformed. Everything was much as it
had been in the lifetime of Mrs. Frostwinch, yet to his fancy all
looked fresher and more cheerful. He smiled to himself, feeling that
the change must simply be the result of his knowledge that this was now
the home of Berenice; yet even so he could not persuade himself that
the alteration was not actual. He felt joyously alert as he followed
Mrs. Staggchase to the library, where Bee was sitting with old Mrs.
Morison.
He had never been in this apartment before. It was high, and heavily
made, with an open fire on the hearth, and enough books to justify its
name. Berenice came forward to meet them, and Mrs. Morison remained
seated near the fire.
"I am so glad to see you, Mrs. Staggchase," Bee said cordially. "It is
just one of those dreary days when it proves true courage to come out."
"And true friendship, I hope," the other answered, passing on to Mrs.
Morison. "My dear old friend, I wish I could believe you are as glad to
see me as I am to see you."
Berenice in the mean time gave her hand to Maurice graciously, but with
a certain grave courtesy which he felt to put them upon a purely
ceremonious footing.
"It is kind of you to come," she said. "Grandmother will be glad to see
you."
Maurice tried hard to look unconscious, but he could not help
questioning her with his eyes. She flushed under his eager regard, and
drew back a little.
"I am very glad of the chance to see--Mrs. Morison," he answered.
Bee flushed more deeply yet. Then she turned mischievously to Mrs.
Morison.
"Grandmother," she said, "it seems that Mr. Wynne came to see you and
not me."
The old lady greeted him kindly.
"I am glad to see you looking so well, Mr. Wynne," she said. "I hope
that your arm does not trouble you at all."
"Not at all. I was too well taken care of at Brookfield."
Mrs. Staggchase laughed, spreading out her hands.
"There," said she gayly, "you see! He has only been in my hands a few
weeks, but I call that a very pretty speech."
"He probably has a natural gift for pleasing speeches," Berenice
remarked meaningly.
Maurice crimsoned, but his education had not proceeded far enough for
him to have any reply.
"Well, take him away, Bee, and give him tea or gossip. I want to talk
to your grandmother about old friends, and you young people won't
understand."
"He may have tea if he is tractable," responded Bee. "We are evidently
not appreciated, Mr. Wynne. Will you ring the bell over there, please."
He did as he was directed, and then followed her to the tea-table at a
little distance from the fire. He was full of a troubled joy, the
mingled delight of being with her and the consciousness that he had
firmly determined in his own mind that he had no right to show her his
feelings. He said to himself that he could bear anything else better
than that she should think of him as a fortune-hunter. Her wealth
loomed between them as a wall which it were dishonorable even to
attempt to scale. His brain was busy phrasing things which he longed to
say to her, words seemed to seethe in his head, yet he found himself
strangely tongue-tied and awkward. When most of all he desired to
appear at his ease, he was most completely uncomfortable and
self-conscious.
A servant came with the tea, and he was able to cover to some extent
his uneasiness by serving the ladies. When this was done, and he sat
nervously stirring his own cup, he found himself searching his mind in
vain for those things which it would be safe to say. His brain was full
of things which must not be said. He could think only of things which
it was not safe to utter; and his discomfiture increased as he saw Miss
Morison watching him with a half-veiled smile.
"By the way," she said at length, when the silence was becoming too
marked, "I fulfilled your request."
"My request?" he echoed, unable to remember that he had made any.
"Yes. Have you forgotten that you came to ask me"--
He put out his hand impulsively.
"Please don't!" he interrupted. "It is bad enough to remember what an
unmitigated idiot I was without the humiliation of thinking that you
remember it too."
"I remember," she responded, with a sparkle in her eye, "that you did
not seem to relish the mission on which you were sent. However, I
accepted the intention, and I have promised the men a continuance of
their stipends." Her face grew suddenly grave, and she added: "I can't
joke about it, though. I really did it because Cousin Anna would have
wished it."
They were silent now because they had come so near a solemn subject
that neither of them cared to speak. The thoughts of Maurice went back
to the day he had come to do the errand of Father Frontford, and his
cheek grew hot.
"I hope you will believe," he said eagerly, "that I had really no idea
of how very ill your cousin was. She seemed so well when I saw her that
it was all unreal to me. I wish I could tell you how sorry I have been
for you. I have thought of you."
She raised her eyes to his, and they exchanged a look in which there
was more than sympathy. Maurice felt her glance so deeply that for the
moment he forgot all else. Obstacles no longer existed. He was looking
into the eyes of the woman he loved, and thrilling as if her heart was
questioning his. It seemed to him that her very self was demanding how
deep and how true had been his thought of her in her time of sorrow. He
bent forward, sounding her gaze with his, trying to convey all the
unspoken words which jostled in his brain. Her eyes fell before his
burning look, and her head drooped. The room was darkening with the
coming dusk, and they sat at some distance from the others. He laid his
hand on hers.
"Berenice!" he whispered.
She rose as if she had not noted.
"Don't you think it is time for lights, grandmother?" she said in a
voice so unemotional that it sent a chill to his heart.
"It is certainly time for us to be going home," Mrs. Staggchase
interposed, rising in her turn.
And far into the night Maurice Wynne vexed his soul with vain endeavors
to decide what Berenice meant by her treatment of him.