A REMONSTRANCE.
Mr. Beresford was seated in his library, as usual, in the morning; he
had breakfasted and glanced over his newspaper, and now had settled down
to ‘work,’ that is, to what he called work. He would not have been much
the worse had he idled, nor would his finances or anybody’s comfort have
suffered; probably that was one reason why he was so industrious. His
writing-table was arranged with the most perfect order: here his
blotting-book, his pens, his paper of all sizes, from ponderous foolscap
to the lightest accidental note; there his books of reference; in the
centre, the volume he was studying. John, by long practice, had learned
to know exactly where to place all his master’s paraphernalia. He sat in
front of the fire, which crackled merrily and made light _pétillements_,
in the sound of which alone there was genial company. The ruddy sunshine
of the winter morning entered in a side-long gleam; everything was
comfortable, warm, and luxurious round him; the room was lined almost as
high as the ceiling with books, and the square table near the further
window was covered with magazines and newspapers. He spared nothing in
that way, though for himself he did not read half the literature that
was placed there ready for him. He took his place at his table, opened
his book, put down the letters which he had brought with him from the
breakfast-table, and prepared to write--or rather to work--for his
object was to write a review of the serious book he was reading; his
letters were about this and other important matters--a meeting of the
Imperial Society--the arrangements to be made for a series of
lectures--the choice of a new member. He put down all these momentous
epistles on his table, and turned over a page of the book in respect to
which he was prepared to give to the world some new ideas of his own on
the relations between mind and matter, or rather, upon some of those
strange processes by which the human brain, which is as purely matter as
the human leg, pranks itself up in the appearance of a spiritual entity.
He was fond of philosophical questions. But when he had made all these
preparations he stopped suddenly short and began to think. What process
was it that brought across him, like a sudden breath of summer air with
the scent of flowers in it, that sudden flood of recollections? In a
moment, invading his breast and his mind with thoughts of the past, he
felt as people do to whom an old friend appears suddenly, bringing with
him a hundred forgotten associations. Had someone come into the warm and
pleasant room and laid a hand upon his shoulder and looked him in the
face? If James Beresford had been a superstitious man he would have
thought so. His wife had been dead for more than five years--and long
and weary and painful these years had been. Lately, however, his heart
had been lulled to rest by sweet friendliness and sympathy and help; he
had felt strong enough to take up his ordinary life again and return
into the world--not unfaithful, but consoled and soothed. Nothing had
happened to him to break this sensation of rest from trouble, and what
happened now was not painful. It was only the sudden return of thoughts
which had been in abeyance. She seemed to come and stand by him, as she
used to do, looking over his shoulder, asking after his work. ‘What are
you doing?’ he seemed to hear her say--leaning over him with that
familiar proprietorship of him and all his works and ways which was so
sweet. Why had this visitation come to him to-day? Of course it must
have been some impression on his nerves which thus reflected itself
through his being. Some chance contact had stirred one of those strings
which move what we call feelings in the strange machinery of our puppet
nature. He thought somehow that when he had said this it explained the
mystery. All at once, like a gale of spring, like a sudden thaw--or like
someone coming into the room; though the last metaphor was not so fine
as the others, it was the most true. Few of our mental processes (he
would have allowed) are pure thought--this was not thought at all; he
felt as if she stood by him--she whom he had lost: as if their life came
back as it used to be. His grief for her, he knew, had been lulled to
rest, and it was not any revival of the sharpness and bitterness of that
grief which moved him: it was a return for a few minutes of the life
they had lived together, of the conditions which life had borne before.
Perhaps it was simply because his sister was there, and the sound of the
two feminine voices, hers and Cara’s, at the breakfast-table, had
brought back memories of the old times. He leant his elbows on his open
book and his chin in the hollow of his hands. What a different life it
had been! What were his societies now, his articles, all his ‘work,’ to
the first spontaneous living of those days that were dead? How she would
come in familiar, sure of her right to be wherever he was--not timid,
like Cara, who never knew whether her father would be pleased or not
pleased to see her, nor reverential, like good Cherry, who admired and
wondered at his books and his writing. He knew how these two would look
at any moment if need or business brought them knocking to his door.
But he never could tell how _she_ would look, so various were her
aspects, never the same--two women sometimes in one moment, turning to
tears or to sunshine in the twinkling of an eye, cheering him, provoking
him, stimulating him. Ah, what a change! life might have its soothings
now, its consolations, little makings up and props, to give it the
appearance of being the same life as before, but nothing could ever make
it what it had been. He had not died of it, neither would he die of
it--the grief that kills is rare; but whatever might happen to him in
the world, so much was certain, that the delight of life was over, the
glory gone out of it. And he did not wish it to be otherwise, he said to
himself. There are things which a man can have but once. Some men are so
happy as to retain those best things of life till old age--but he was
not one of those blessed men----. And he was no longer wretched and a
wanderer on the face of the earth. Time had brought him a softening
quiet, a dim pleasantness of tranquillity and friends--good, tender,
soothing, kindest friends.
Someone coming in broke suddenly this strange revival of memory--and of
all people in the world it was the doctor, Maxwell, whose name was so
linked to the recollections of the old life, but who, Beresford felt,
had never been the same to him since Annie died. His mind had been so
preoccupied that he had never inquired what was the cause of this
estrangement. What did it matter to him if all the world was estranged?
He had felt vaguely; and if he thought upon the subject at all, supposed
that in the anguish of his mind he had said something or done something
to vex his old friend. But what did it matter? His life had been too
much shipwrecked at first to leave his mind at liberty to care what
might happen. And now the estrangement was a _fait accompli_. But his
heart was touched and soft that morning. The thought of Annie had come
back to him, and here was someone deeply associated with Annie. In the
little start with which he got up from his chair at the sound of
Maxwell’s name, a rush of resolution ran through his veins with a
rapidity such as leaves words hopelessly behind. ‘I will get to the
bottom of it whatever it is. I will know the cause, and make it up with
Maxwell.’ These words would have taken some definite atom of time to
think and say, but the thought rushed through his mind instantaneously
as he rose holding out his hand. ‘Maxwell! you are an unusual visitor
now-a-days. I am very glad to see you,’ he said. That he should have
come just now of all times in the world!
‘Yes; I have ceased to be about the house as I used to be,’ the doctor
said, with a slight confusion, grasping the hand offered to him. And
then they sat down on two chairs opposite to each other, and there was a
pause. They were both embarrassed a little. This kind of coolness
between two friends is more difficult to get over than an actual
quarrel. Maxwell was not at his ease. How many recollections this room
brought back to him! That strange visitor who had stood by James
Beresford’s side a minute before stood by his now. He seemed to see her
standing against the light, shaking her finger at them in reproof. How
often she had done so, the light catching her dress, making a kind of
halo round her! Was it possible she was gone--gone, disappeared from
before their eyes, making no sign? And yet how clearly she seemed to
stand there, looking at the two whose talk she had so often interrupted,
broken off, made an end of, with capricious sweet impertinences.
Maxwell, like her husband, felt the reality of her so strong that his
mind rejected with a strange vertigo the idea of her absolute severance
from this house and this life. The vertigo grew still greater, and his
head seemed to turn round and round when he remembered why he had come.
‘Why is it?’ said Beresford. ‘Something seems to have come between us--I
can’t tell what. Is it accidental, or does it mean anything? I have had
a distracted life, as you know, and I may have done something amiss----
’
‘No, no,’ said the other, hurriedly; ‘let us say nothing about that. I
meant nothing. Beresford, if you have this feeling now, what will you
think when you hear that I have undertaken a disagreeable, intrusive
mission?’
‘Intrusive?’ He smiled. ‘I don’t see what you could be intrusive about.
You used to know all my affairs--and if you don’t know them now, it is
not my fault.’
‘Good heavens!’ cried the doctor, involuntarily, ‘how am I to do it?
Look here, Beresford; I said I would come, thinking that I, who knew you
so well, would annoy you less than a stranger--but I don’t feel so sure
about that now.’
‘What is this gunpowder plot?’ said Beresford, with a laugh. ‘Have I
been guilty of high treason without knowing it, and must I fly for my
life?’
The doctor cleared his throat; he grew red in the face; finally he
jumped up from his chair and went to the big fireplace, where he stood
with his back to the fire, and his face a little out of his friend’s
sight.
‘Beresford, have you ever thought what a strange position Mrs. Meredith
is in?’
‘Mrs. Meredith!’ He said this with such unfeigned surprise that his
visitor felt more awkward than ever. ‘What can she have to do with any
disunion between you and me?’
‘By Jove!’ cried the doctor, ‘we are all a pack of fools;’ and from the
fire he walked to the window in the perturbation of his thoughts.
Beresford laughed. ‘One can never say anything civil to a speech like
that--especially as, forgive me! I have not a notion what you are being
fools about.’
Maxwell looked out into the square to pluck up courage. He coughed as
men do when they are utterly at a loss--when it is worth while to gain
even a moment. ‘Don’t be angry with me,’ he said, with sudden humility.
‘I should not have taken it in hand, especially as you have that
feeling--but--look here, I _have_ taken it in hand, and I must speak.
Beresford, old Sommerville came to me yesterday. He’s Meredith’s friend,
with a general commission to look after the family.’
‘Has anything happened to Meredith?’ said Mr. Beresford, with concern.
‘This is the second time you have mentioned them. I scarcely know
him--but if there is anything wrong, I shall be very sorry for _her_
sake.’
‘There is nothing wrong, unless it is of your doing,’ said the doctor,
with abrupt determination. ‘To tell the truth, Meredith has heard, or
somebody has told him, or a gossiping has been got up--I don’t know
what--about your visits. You go there too often, they say--every
night----’
‘Maxwell!’ cried James Beresford, springing to his feet.
‘There! I told you,’ said the doctor. ‘I said you would be angry--as if
it were my fault. I am only the mouthpiece. Old Sommerville would have
come to you himself--but I was sure it could be nothing but
inadvertence, and undertook the office, knowing you too well--much too
well--to think for a moment----’
‘Inadvertence! Knowing me too well to think! In the name of heaven, what
is there to think? What have I been inadvertent about? Angry! Of course
I am angry. What have I done to be gossiped about? One of us must be out
of his senses surely, either you or I----’
‘No, it isn’t that. Gossip does not spare anyone. And, pardon me,’ said
the doctor, growing bolder now that the worst was over, ‘if you had ever
thought on the subject, you must have seen that such frequent visits--to
a woman who is married, whose husband is at the other end of the
world----’
‘Stop--stop, I tell you! I will not have _her_ discussed or her name
introduced.’
‘That is quite right, Beresford. I knew you would feel so. Is it right
then that the tenderest heart on the face of the earth should be worried
and bullied because of you?’
‘Good God!’ cried the bewildered man, ‘has she been worried and bullied?
What do you mean? Who has presumed to find fault? She is---- I am not
going to say what she is.’
‘It is not necessary. I know that as well as anyone.’
Beresford made a half-conscious pause, and looked at his reprover with a
sudden involuntary raising of his eyebrows. Knew that as well as anyone!
Did he? Vain boaster! Who but himself knew all the consoling sweetness,
all the soft wealth of sympathy in this friend of friends? He felt more
angry with Maxwell for this false pretension than for all his other
sins. ‘I am at a loss to know,’ he said, coldly, ‘by what right anyone
attempts to interfere with my liberty of action. I am not a man whose
visits to any house can be considered suspicious. I should have thought
that my character and my antecedents were enough to preserve me from
injurious comment and the gossip you speak of.’
‘Beresford,’ said the other, hastily, ‘who thinks of you? No amount of
gossip could do you any real harm. You must see that. The question is
about _her_.’
It was Beresford’s turn now to be excited. He began to pace about the
room in deep annoyance and agitation. Of course this was true. What was
nothing to a man might be everything to a woman; and no man worthy the
name would expose a woman to comment. He took refuge, first, in furious
abuse of gossip. What had anyone to do with his proceedings? A man is
always more shocked and angry to find himself the object of remark than
a woman is. It seemed incredible to him that _he_, of all people in the
world, _he_ should be the object of impertinent remark. The idea was
intolerable to Beresford. The doctor wisely said nothing, but let him
have his ravings out, withdrawing himself to a chair by the table, where
he sat writing out imaginary prescriptions with the worn stump of a pen
which he found there, and keeping as far out of the passionate stream of
monologue as possible. This was wise treatment, the best he could have
adopted, and after a while the subject of the operation calmed down. He
flung himself at last into his chair, and there was a stormy pause.
‘I suppose,’ said Beresford, with a long-drawn breath of mingled pain
and anger, ‘this was what Cherry meant. I could not make her out. She is
in it too. Have you all laid your heads together and consulted what was
the thing that would pain me most--the most susceptible point left?’
Maxwell made no direct reply. ‘If Miss Cherry has spoken to you,
Beresford, you know your sister,’ he said. ‘She would not hurt a
fly--much less you, whom she holds in such high respect; and she would
not think evil readily--would she, now? If she has spoken, you must
understand that there is something in it. Listen, my dear fellow. There
are things that must be done and left undone in this world for the sake
of the fools in it merely. You know that as well as I do. Say the fools
ought to be defied and crushed if you like, but in reality we have all
to consider them. The people of bad imaginations and low minds and mean
views really make the laws for the rest of the world. We can’t help it.
For ourselves it might not matter; but for those who are dear to us--for
those who are less independent than we----’
Again there was a pause. Beresford sat with his elbows on the table and
bit his nails savagely. In this painful amusement there seemed a certain
relief. He stared straight before him, seeing nothing. At last he turned
round sharply upon the doctor, who, with his head bent down, still sat
scribbling without any ink with the old stump of the pen in his hand.
‘What do you want me to do?’ he said.
‘Beresford, I did not come here to dictate to you. I came simply to call
your attention----’
‘Oh, let us not quibble about words! Dictation! yes, and something more
than dictation. Of course I am helpless before the plea you bring up.
Of course I have nothing to do but submit, if there is any question of
annoyance to---- Low minds and bad imaginations, indeed! That anyone
should suggest the most distant possibility, the shadow of a reproach!’
‘We suggest nothing of the sort, Beresford. We suggest only a most
simple precaution--a rule ordinarily observed.’
He made a gesture of impatience, stopping further explanation, and again
for two minutes, which looked like an hour, the two men sat silent
together, not, it may be supposed, with any increase of friendliness
towards each other in their thoughts. Perhaps, however, it was only on
the side of the reproved that this feeling was really strong. The
reprover was compunctious and eager to do anything he could to
conciliate. He kept a furtive watch upon his victim as he scribbled.
Beresford had retreated within that most invulnerable of all
fortresses--silence, and sat, still biting his nails, staring into the
vacant air, neither by word nor look making any communication of his
thoughts. Nothing is more difficult than to maintain a silence like
this; the least absorbed of the two engaged in the passage of arms comes
to feel after a time that he must speak or die--and what to say? More
upon the same subject might lessen the impression already made, and to
introduce another subject would be impossible. When the pause had lasted
as long as possibility permitted, Maxwell got up, put the pen slowly
back in the tray from which it had strayed, tossed the piece of paper he
had been scribbling upon into the waste-basket, gathered up his gloves,
his stick, his hat. Nothing could be more slow and hesitating than all
these preparations for departure, which were somewhat ostentatious at
the same time, by way of calling the attention of Beresford, and perhaps
drawing forth something more. ‘I must be going,’ he said at last,
holding out his hand. ‘I hope you won’t think me--unfriendly, Beresford,
in anything I have said.’
‘Good morning,’ said the other, sullenly; then he made a visible effort
to command himself and rose up, but slowly, putting out his hand. ‘Very
likely not,’ he said. ‘I don’t say it was unfriendly. You would not have
taken such a disagreeable office on yourself if you had meant
unkindness, No; I suppose I should thank you, but it is rather hard to
do it. Good-by.’
There was no more said. Maxwell went away, not feeling very victorious
or proud of himself. Was not he a fool to have undertaken it in order to
prevent scandal, he said to himself, in order to save a woman from
annoyance, in order to help James Beresford out of trouble--a man whom
he had liked, and from whom he had been estranged? What business had he
to meddle with other people’s business? This, I fear, was his
reflection, as it has been the reflection of so many who have strained a
point to aid a friend, and whose self-denial has not been appreciated.
‘Catch me doing such a foolish thing again,’ he said to himself.
As for Beresford, he resumed his seat and his thoughts when the other
was gone. Those thoughts were hot within him, and full of pain. He who,
even when this messenger of evil arrived, had been thinking with
faithful love of his wife; he whose life had been made a desert by her
dying, whose whole existence was changed, who had not cared for years
what became of him, because of that loss--to be met by this unjust and
insane reproval as soon as he had screwed his courage to the
sticking-place, and resumed his natural position in his own house. It
had been a hard thing to do; at every corner he had expected to meet
her--in the silence he had fancied he heard her calling him--the whole
house was full of her, echoing with her steps and her voice. Yet he had
schooled himself to come back, to resume so much as remained to him of
life under his own roof--so much as remained, not thinking of years, but
of value and merit. He was not of very much use to anyone, nor had he
been much missed, perhaps, except in the working of the societies, and
there were so many people who could do that. But he had been patient and
come back, and established himself ‘at home,’ because it was his duty.
He had not shrunk from his duty. And this was his reward. His one source
of soft consolation--the one gentle friend on whose constant sympathy he
could reckon--who made this life of endurance supportable to him, and
kept him up by kind words, by understanding his wants and troubles--she
was to be taken from him. He got up, and walked up and down his room,
and then went to the window and looked blankly out. Almost without
knowing what it was, he saw a brougham come to the next door, and old
Mr. Sommerville step out of it, and enter Mrs. Meredith’s house. He had
gone to warn her, to disturb the sweet composure of her mind, to
embitter all her thoughts. Beresford turned round, and began to walk up
and down more and more hotly. Could anything in the world be more
innocent? He asked, nay, he wanted, nothing more of her. To go and sit
by her now and then (this was how he characterized his long and daily
visits), what was there in that to justify this insulting demand upon
him? He lashed himself up into a fury when he thought of it. He, the
truest of mourners, and she, the least frivolous of women. If ever there
was a true friendship, full of support and mutual comfort, this was the
one. And now, at the pleasure of a set of wretched gossips, ill-minded
men, disagreeable women, was this gentle makeshift and substitute for
domestic happiness to be torn from him? And how--good heavens, how?
That was the question. It was easy to talk, and say that such a thing
must cease; but how was it to be done? Was he supposed capable of
telling her that he must resign her friendship? Was Sommerville,
perhaps, making the communication at this very moment--telling her that
it must not be; suggesting thoughts that would distress her mind, and
disturb the whole tenor of her life? For to give pain would be worse
than misfortune to her, and she could not so cast him off without giving
pain and feeling it. He thought--it was an imagination--that he heard
voices high in discussion on the other side of the wall that separated
the two houses. Was that old meddler taking it upon him to lecture _her_
now?