A day or two after this visit John found himself at Fernwood.
It was not perhaps a judicious step for any of them. He came still
suffering--and, above all, still marked by his sufferings--among a
collection of strangers to whom the bank, and the fire, and the value
of the papers he had saved, were of the smallest possible consequence,
and who were intensely mystified by his heterogeneous position as
at once the betrothed of Kate Crediton and a clerk in her father’s
bank. Then there was a sense of embarrassment between him and Mr
Crediton which it was impossible either to ignore or to make an end
of--John had done so much for the man who was so unwilling to grant
him anything in return. He had not only saved the banker’s daughter,
but his papers, perhaps his very habitation, and the bulk of all he
had in the world, and Mr Crediton was confused by such a weight of
obligations. “I must take care he don’t save my life next,” he said to
himself; but, notwithstanding this weight of gratitude which he owed,
he was not in the least changed in his reluctance to pay. To give his
child as salvage-money was a thing he could not bear to think of;
and when he looked at John’s pale face among the more animated faces
round him, Mr Crediton grew wellnigh spiteful. “That fellow! without
an attraction!”--he would say to himself. John was not handsome; he
had little of the ready wit and ready talk of society; he did not
distinguish himself socially above other men; he was nobody to speak
of--a country clergyman’s son without a penny. And yet he was to have
Kate! Mr Crediton asked himself why he had ever consented to it, when
he saw John’s pale face at his table. He had done it--because Kate
had set her heart upon it--because he thought Kate would be fickle
and change her mind--because--he could scarcely tell why; but always
with the thought that it would come to nothing. He would not allow,
when any one asked him, that there was an engagement. “There is some
nonsense of the kind,” he would say, “boy and girl trash. I take it
quietly because I know it never can come to anything. He saved her
that time her horse ran away with her, and it is just a piece of
romantic gratitude on her part. If I opposed it I should make her
twice as determined, and therefore I don’t oppose.” He had said as
much to almost everybody at Fernwood, though neither of the two most
immediately concerned were aware. And this was another reason why the
strangers were mystified, and could not make out what it meant.
As for Kate, though she had been so anxious for his coming, it
cannot be said that it made her very happy; for the first time the
complications of the matter reached her. She was not, as when she had
been at Fanshawe, a disengaged young lady able to give up her time to
her lover, but, on the contrary, the mistress of the house, with all
her guests to look after, and a thousand things to think of. She could
not sit and talk with him, or walk with him, as she had done at the
Rectory. He could not secure the seat next to her, or keep by her side,
as, in other circumstances, it would have been so natural for him to
do. He got her left hand at table the first day of his arrival, and was
happy, and thought this privilege was always to be his; but, alas! the
next day was on the other side, unable so much as to catch a glimpse of
her. “I am the lady of the house. I have to be at everybody’s beck and
call,” she said, trying to smooth him down. “On the contrary, you ought
to do just what you please,” said foolish John; and he wandered about
all day seeking opportunities to pounce upon her--for, to be sure, he
cared for nobody and nothing at Fernwood but Kate, and he was ill and
sensitive, and wanted to be cared for, even petted, if that could have
been. He could not go out to ride with the rest of the party on account
of his injured hand, but Kate had to go, or thought she must, leaving
him alone to seek what comfort was possible in the library. No doubt it
was very selfish of John to wish to keep her back from anything that
was a pleasure to her, but then he was an eager, ardent lover, who
had been much debarred from her society, and was set on edge by seeing
others round her who were more like her than he was. To be left behind,
or to find himself shut out all day from so much as a word with her,
was one pang; but to find even when he was with her, that he had little
to say that interested her, and to see her return to the common crowd
as soon as any excuse occurred to make it possible, was far harder and
struck more deep. He would sit in a corner of the drawing-room and look
and listen while the conversation went on. They talked about the people
they knew, the amusements they had been enjoying, the past season
and the future one, and a hundred little details which only persons
in their own “set” could understand. John himself could have talked
such talk in college rooms or the chambers of a friend, but he would
have thought it rude to continue when strangers were present; but the
fashionable people did not think it rude. And even when he was leaning
over her chair whispering to her, he could note that Kate’s attention
failed, and could see her face brighten and her ear strain to hear
some petty joke bandied about among the others. “Was it Mr Lunday that
said that? it is so like him,” she said once in the very midst of
something he was saying. And poor John’s heart sank down--down to his
very boots.
And then Kate had a hundred things to do in concert with her other
guests. She sang with one, and John did not sing, and had to look
on with the forlornest thoughts, while a precious hour would pass,
consumed by duet after duet and such talk as the following:--“Do you
know this?” “Let us try that.” “I must do something to amuse all those
people,” she would say, when he complained. She was not angry with him
for complaining, but always kind and sweet, and ready, if she gave him
nothing else, to give him one of her pretty smiles.
“But I shall be gone directly, and I have not had ten minutes of you,”
he said, bitterly.
“Oh, a great deal more than ten minutes,” said Kate; “you unkind,
exacting John! When I was at Fanshawe I had all my time on my hands,
and nobody but you to think of;--I mean, no other claims upon me.
Don’t you think it hurts me as much as any one, when they all crowd
round me, and I see your dear old face, looking so pale and glum, on
the outside? Please don’t look so glum! You know I should so much, much
rather be with you.”
“Should you?” said John, mournfully. Perhaps she believed it; but he
found it so very hard to believe. “Dear, I don’t mean to be glum,
and spoil your pleasure,” he said, with a certain pathetic humility;
“perhaps I had better go and get to my work again, and wait for the old
Sunday nights when you come back.”
“That will look as if you were angry with me,” she said. “Oh, John, I
thought you would understand! You know I can’t do what I would do with
all these people in the house. What I should like would be to nurse
you and take care of you, and be with you always; but what can I do
with all these girls and people? I hate them sometimes, though they
are my great friends. Don’t go and make me think you are angry. It is
_that_ that would spoil my pleasure. Look here! come and get your
hat, and bring me a shawl; there is time for a little walk before the
dinner-bell rings.”
And then the poor fellow would be rapt into paradise for half an hour
under shadow of the elm-trees, which were beginning to put on their
bright-coloured garments. His reason told him how vain this snatch
of enjoyment was, and gave him many a warning that he was spending
his life for nought, and giving his treasure for what was not bread;
but at such moments John would not listen to the voice of reason.
Her hands were on his arm--her head inclining towards him, sometimes
almost touching his sleeve--her eyes raised to his--her smile and her
sweet kind words all his own. She was as kind as if she had been his
mother--as tender and affectionate and forbearing with him. “Don’t be
so cross and so exacting. Because I am fond of you, is that any reason
why you should tyrannise over me?” said Kate, with a voice as of a
dove close to his ear. And how could he answer her but with abject
protestations of penitence and ineffable content?
“It is because I hunger for you--and I have so little of my darling,”
said repentant John; “what do I care for all the world if I have not my
Kate?”
“But you have your Kate, you foolish boy,” she said; “and what does
anything matter when you know that? Do I ever distrust you? When I see
you talking to somebody at the very other end of the drawing-room, just
when I am wanting you perhaps, I don’t make myself wretched, as you do.
I only say to myself, Never mind, he is my John and not hers; and I am
quite happy--though I am sure a girl has a great deal more cause to be
uneasy than a man.”
And when John had been brought to this point, he would swallow such
a speech, and would not allow himself to ask whether it was possible
that his absence at the other end of the drawing-room could make Kate
wretched. Had he put the question to himself, no doubt Reason would
have come in; but why should Reason be allowed to come in to spoil the
moments of happiness which came so rarely? He held the hands which were
clasped on his arm closer to his side, and gave himself up to the
sweetness. And he kept her until ever so long after the dressing-bell
had pealed its summons to them under the silent trees. It was the
stillest autumn night--a little chill, with a new moon which was just
going to set as the dining-room was lighted up for dinner--and now and
then a leaf detached itself in the soft darkness, and came down with
a noiseless languid whirl in the air, like a signal from the unseen.
One of these fell upon Kate’s pretty head as she raised it towards her
lover, and he lifted the leaf from her hair and put it into his coat.
“I will give you a better flower,” said Kate; “but oh, John, I must
go in. I shall never have time to dress. Well----then, just one more
turn: and never say I am not the most foolish yielding girl that ever
was, doing everything you like to ask--though you scold me and threaten
to go away.”
This interview made the evening bearable for John; and it was all the
more bearable to him, though it is strange to say so, because Fred
Huntley had returned, and sat next him at dinner. He had hated Fred
for some days, and was not yet much inclined towards him; but still
there was a pleasure in being able to talk freely to some one, and to
feel himself, to some extent at least, comprehended, position and all.
He was very dry and stiff to Huntley at first, but by degrees the ice
broke. “I have never seen you since that night,” said Fred. “My heart
has smote me since for the way in which I left you, lying on those
door-steps. In that excitement one forgets everything. But you bear
considerable marks of it, I see.”
“Nothing to signify,” said John; and Fred gave him a nod, and began to
eat his soup with an indifference which was balm to the other’s excited
feelings. Finding thus that no gratitude was claimed of him, John grew
generous. “I hear it was you who dragged me out; and I have never had a
chance of thanking you,” he said.
“Thanking me--what for? I don’t remember dragging any one out,” said
Fred. “It was very hot work. I did not rush into the thick of it, like
you, to do any good; but I daresay I could give the best description
of it. Have they found out how much damage was done?--but I suppose the
bank is still going on all the same.”
“Banks cannot stop,” said John, “unless things are going very badly
with them indeed.”
“That comes of going in for a special study,” said Huntley; “you always
did know all about political economy, didn’t you? No, it wasn’t you, it
was Sutherland--never mind; if you have not studied it theoretically,
you have practically. I often think if I had gone in for business it
would have been better for me on the whole.”
“You have less occasion to say so than most men,” said John.
“Because we are well off?--or because I have got my fellowship, and
that sort of thing? I don’t know that it matters much. A man has to
work--or else,” said Fred, with a sigh, swallowing something more than
that _entrée_, “he drifts somehow into mischief whether he will or
no.”
Did he cast a glance at the head of the table as he spoke, where Kate
sat radiant, dispensing her smiles on either hand? It was difficult
to imagine why he did so, and yet so it seemed. John looked at her
too, and for the moment his heart failed him. Could he say, as she
herself had suggested, “After all, she is my Kate and no one’s else,”
as she sat there in all her splendour? What could he give her that
would bear comparison? Of all the men at her father’s table, he was
the most humble. At that moment he caught Kate’s eye, and she gave him
the most imperceptible little nod, the brightest momentary glance. She
acknowledged him when even his own faith failed him. His heart came
bounding up again to his breast, and throbbed and knocked against it,
making itself all but audible in a kind of shout of triumph. Then he
turned half round to his companion, with heightened colour, and an
animation of manner which was quite unusual to him. He found Huntley’s
eyes fixed upon his face, looking at him with grave, wondering,
almost sympathetic interest. Of course Fred’s countenance changed as
soon as he found that it was perceived, and sank into the ordinary
expressionless look of good society. He was the spectator looking on
at this drama, and felt himself so much better qualified to judge than
either of those more closely concerned.
“How do you like Fernwood?” Huntley began, with some precipitation. “It
is rather too full to be pleasant while you are half an invalid, isn’t
it? Does your arm give you much pain?”
“It is very full,” said John, “and one is very much alone among a crowd
of people whom one does not know.”
“You will soon get to know them,” said Fred, consolingly; “people are
very easy to get on with nowadays on the whole.”
“I am going away on Thursday,” said John.
“What! the day after to-morrow? before your arm is better, or--anything
different? Do you know, Mitford, I think you stand a good deal in your
own light.”
“That may be,” John said, hotly, “but there are some personal matters
of which one can only judge for one’s self.”
Fred made no answer to this; he shrugged his shoulders a little as who
should say, It is no business of mine, and began to talk of politics
and the member for Camelford, about whose election there were great
searchings of heart in the borough and its neighbourhood. An inquiry
was going on in the town, and disclosures were being made which excited
the district. The two young men turned their thoughts, or at least
their conversation, to that subject, and seemed to forget everything
else; but whether the election committee took any very strong hold upon
them, or if they were really much interested about the doings of the
Man in the Moon, it would be hard to say.
The drawing-room was very bright and very gay that evening--like a
scene in a play, John was tempted to think. There was a great deal of
music, and he sat in his corner and looked and saw everything, and
would have been amused had he felt no special interest in it. Kate
was in the very centre of it all, guiding and directing, as it was
natural she should be. The spectator in the corner watched her by the
piano, now taking a part, now accompanying, now throwing herself back
into her chair with an air of relief when something elaborate had
been set agoing, and whispering and smiling behind her fan to some
favoured being, though never to himself. At one moment his vague pain
in watching her rose to a positive pang. It was when Fred Huntley
was the person with whom she talked. He was stooping down over her,
leaning on the back of a chair, and Kate’s face was raised to him
and half screened with her fan. Their talk looked very confidential,
very animated and friendly; and it seemed to John (but that must have
been a mistake) that she gave him just the tips of her fingers as she
dismissed him. Fred rose from the chair on which he had been half
kneeling with a little movement of his head, which Kate reciprocated,
and went off upon a meandering passage round the room. She had given
him some commission, John felt--to him, and not to me, he said bitterly
in his heart, and then tried to comfort himself, not very successfully,
with the words she had taught him, “After all, she is my Kate and not
his.” Was she John’s? or was it all a dream and phantasmagoria, that
might vanish in an instant and leave no trace behind? He covered his
eyes with his hand for a second in the sickness of jealous love with
which he was struggling; but when he looked up again, found that a new
revelation waited him, harder than anything he had yet had to undergo.
It was that Fred Huntley was approaching himself, and that the mission
with which Kate, giving him the tips of her fingers, had intrusted
the man to whom of all others he felt most antagonistic, concerned
himself. Fred managed the business very cleverly, and would have taken
in any unsuspicious person; but John, on the contrary, was horribly
suspicious, looking for pricks at all possible points. The ambassador
threw himself into a vacant chair which happened to be handy, and
stretched himself out comfortably in it, and said nothing for a minute.
Then he yawned (was that, too, done on purpose?) and turned to John.
“Were you asleep, Mitford?” he said; “I don’t much wonder. It’s very
amusing, but it’s very monotonous night after night.”
“I have not had so much of it as you have, to get so tired,” said John.
“Well, perhaps there is something in that; and, after all, there are
some nice people here. The worst for a new-comer,” said Fred, poising
himself lazily in his chair, “is, that everybody has made acquaintance
before he comes; and till he has been here for some time and gets used
to it, he is apt to feel himself left out in the cold. Of course you
can’t have any such sensations in this house--but _I_ have felt
it; and Ka--Miss Crediton, though she is an admirable hostess, can’t be
everywhere at once.”
“But she can send ambassadors,” said John, with a faint attempt at a
smile.
“Oh yes; of course she can send ambassadors,” said Huntley, confused,
“when she has any ambassadors to send. I wanted to ask you, Mitford,
about that archæological business your father takes so much interest
in. I hear they are to visit Dulchester----”
“Did she tell you that?” said John. “My dear fellow, say to me plainly,
I have been sent to talk to you and draw you out. That is reasonable
and comprehensible, and I should not be ungrateful. But never mind my
father. Let us talk since we are required to do so. When are you likely
to be at Westbrook? I want to go home one of these days; and my mother
would like to see you, to thank you----”
“To thank me for what?” said Fred, with much consternation.
“For dragging me out of that fire. I don’t say for saving my life,
for it did not come to that--but still you have laid me under a great
obligation,” said John, with a setting together of his teeth which did
not look much like gratitude; and then he rose up suddenly and went
away out of his corner, leaving Huntley alone there, and not so happy
as his wont. As for John himself, he was stung to exertions quite
unusual to him. He went and talked politics, and university talk, and
sporting talk, with a variety of men. He did not approach any of the
ladies--his heart was beating too fast for that; but he stood up in
the doorway and against the wall wherever the men of the party most
congregated. And he never so much as looked at the creature who was
at once his delight and his torment during all the long weary tedious
evening, which looked as if it never would come to an end and leave him
at peace.