A TRANSITION PERIOD.
Mr. Penton’s long interview with the young solicitor had ended in
this:--and though it did not seem exactly a settlement of the question,
it had been taken for granted by both families as such--that he
consented to treat with Sir Walter Penton. The terms might take a longer
time to arrange, and there were conditions--some of a rather peculiar
character, as his opponents thought--which Mr. Penton insisted upon. But
upon the general question he was supposed to have yielded. It had taken
him a great deal of thought, and he was not happy about it. He went
about the house and his few fields with a moody countenance, avoiding
every turn or point of view which revealed Penton--those points of view
which had once been his happiness. This fact alone took a great deal of
the pleasure out of his life. It had been his relief in former days to
mount the road to that corner where the view was, or to go out and sit
on the bench under the poplar-tree; but now he turned his back upon
these favorite places. When he was low he had no longer this way of
escaping from himself. Of all points of the compass, that on which
Penton lay had become the most distasteful to him. He would have liked
to have had it blotted out from the landscape altogether: there was
nothing but pain in the sight of it, in the mere knowledge that it was
there. And winter is cruel in this particular. It spares you
nothing--not even a chimney. The weather-cock, glowing through the bare
trees, seemed to catch every ray of light and blazon it over the whole
country; the windows that faced the south were in a perpetual
scintillation. The great house would not be hidden; it made no account
of the feelings of those who were in the act of parting with it forever;
though its aspect was now a reproach and humiliation to them instead of
a pride, it seemed to force itself more and more on their eyes. Walter
felt this almost more strongly than his father, if that were possible.
He, too, went about moody, with the air of a man injured, turning his
back on the once favorite quarter where the sunset was. He said in his
haste that he never wanted to see a sunset again, and when the girls
called his attention to all the stormy gorgeous colors of the winter
afternoon, would turn his back upon them and declare that the reflection
in the river, the secondary tints in the cold gray of the east, were
enough for him. He said this with a vehemence which his father did not
display. But Walter had solaces and alleviations of which his father was
incapable; and Mr. Penton was the one who felt it most deeply after all.
In his middle-aged bosom the tide of life was not running high. He had
few pleasures; even few wishes. It no longer moved him in his habitual
self-restraint that he had no horses, no means of keeping his place
among his peers. All that had dropped away from him in the chill of
custom--in that acceptance of the inevitable which is the lowest form of
content. But there had always been Penton in which his imagination could
take refuge. Penton was still an earthly paradise into which one day or
other he should find entrance, which nobody could close from him. And
now that too was closed, and his fancy could no longer go in and dwell
there. He said very little about it, but he felt it to the bottom of his
heart. It was the sort of thing of which he might have died had the
floods been out or the atmosphere as deleterious as it sometimes was;
but happily it was not an exceptionally wet season, and the river had
not as yet been “out” that year.
The ladies from the first had taken it better, and they continued to do
so. Mrs. Penton began to make calculations with bated breath and many a
“hush!” when either father or son were nigh--of what she would now be
able to do. She thought it would be well for them all, as soon as
matters were settled, to go away; for though the waters were not out
yet, it was scarcely to be hoped for that they should not after
Christmas, in rainy February at the latest, have their way; and a
separation from the scene of their disappointment would, she thought, be
good both for Mr. Penton and Wat. Mrs. Penton said this with a sigh,
feeling already all that was involved in a removal in the middle of
winter; but it would be good, she felt, for Horry and the rest to be out
of the damp, and it would be very good for Wat. The thing for Wat would
be to go to Oxford without delay; fortunately he was not too old, and
that would take him off thinking about Penton if anything would. As for
the father, there was no such panacea for him. What can be done to
distract or divert a man who has outlived the ordinary pleasures, and
can not have his mouth stopped or his heart occupied with any new toy? A
horse or two such as he would now be able to afford would have done a
great deal for him once; but now he had got out of the habit of riding,
and might not care to take it up again. It was easier to think of the
young ones whose life lay all before them, and who would enter the world
now under so much better conditions, though not those they had
calculated upon. Mrs. Penton made up her mind that if all was settled on
the terms proposed she would be able to give the girls “every
advantage.” They should be taken to see a great many things, they should
have clothes and surroundings that suited their condition; they might
even “see a little of the season” when the proper time came round. All
these things were pondered and decided upon in the many hours when the
feminine portion of the household sat together, which were more than had
ever been before. For Wat did not care to have his sisters constantly
with him as he once had done; they set it down to his disappointment
about Penton, and the disturbance of his temper and of his life which
had ensued--which when they accused him of it he agreed in with a sort
of satisfaction. But when Anne said, without thought, “One would think
Wat had found somebody else to go with him,” he was very angry, and grew
very red, and demanded to know who else? who was he likely to have else?
with an indignation which the provocation did not justify.
Thus it will be seen that the circumstances of the household were much
changed. They had not been in a very flourishing condition when they
first discussed the law of entail and the possibility that it might be
attacked by a reforming parliament and their birthright taken from them;
but somehow that simple time of expectation and depression, which now
looked as if it might be years ago, had been, with all its
straitenedness, a happier time than now. A certain agitation had got
into all their veins; the girls and their mother sat mostly alone in the
evenings. There was no reading aloud. Wat was out almost always, taking
a walk, he said; or when he was not out he was in the book-room,
grinding, as he told them, at his Greek, which was quite necessary if he
was going up to Oxford in the beginning of the year. The girls would
have thought this state of affairs insupportable a little while ago, but
in the commotion of the approaching change they found so much to talk of
that they were partially reconciled to making pinafores all the evening
in the light of the paraffin lamp, though it smelled badly, and there
was no one to read to them. They had a great deal to talk about. As for
Mrs. Penton, her mouth was opened as it had never been in her life
before. She talked of balls, and theaters, and of the “things” they must
get as soon as ever matters were settled. She recounted to them her own
experiences--the dances she had gone to before her marriage, and all the
competition there had been to secure her for a partner. “They said I was
as light as a feather,” she said, with her eyes fixed upon the stocking
she was darning, and without raising her head; “and so they will say of
Ally, for Ally is just the same figure I was. But you must have some
lessons when we go to town.” She was pleased thus to talk, recalling old
recollections, to which the girls listened with astonishment; for they
had never supposed that their mother knew anything of those gayeties,
which to themselves were like the fables of golden isles unknown to men;
but they were not displeased to listen, weaving into the simple story as
it flowed the imaginations, the anticipations which filled that unknown
world upon the threshold of which they stood. It was even more absorbing
than the stories of the good and fair heroines (for Mrs. Penton was very
particular in her choice of the books which were read by them) to which
they had been in the habit of listening. But they missed Wat, to whom,
however, they allowed the narration of mother’s tales might have seemed
a little flat had he been there. Wat up to the present moment had shown
very little interest in anything of the kind; but it was a little
strange now that he should so often be “taking a turn” even when the
moon was not shining, and when the country roads were so dark.
Mr. Rochford, the solicitor, came on several occasions during this time
of transition. He came often enough to make the children quite familiar
with that trim and shining dog-cart, and the horse which was so sleek
and shining, too. Horry had been driven round and round in it, nay, had
been allowed to drive himself, making believe, before it was put up: and
he and his smaller brother assisted at the harnessing and unharnessing
of this famous animal with the greatest enthusiasm every time he came.
Young rustic lads attending at a monarch’s levee could not have been
more interested than were these babes. And Mr. Rochford made himself
more or less agreeable in other ways to the whole family, except Wat,
who did not take to him, but kept him at a distance with an amount of
unfriendly temper which he showed to no one else. There was no idea now
of a tray carried into the book-room when this visitor came. He was
introduced to the early dinner where all the children sat in their high
chairs, and where the food was more wholesome than delicate--a meal
which was too plainly dinner to be disguised under the name of luncheon.
Mr. Rochford made himself quite at home at this family dinner. He
praised everything, and declared that he was always most hungry at this
hour, and eat so heartily that Mrs. Penton took it as a personal
compliment; for though Mrs. Penton sometimes made a little moan about
the appetites of the children, she yet was much complimented when
visitors (who were so few at the Hook) eat well and seemed to relish the
simple food. “Roast mutton may be very simple,” she said, “but there is
roast mutton and roast mutton--a big, white, fat leg half cooked is a
very different thing from what is set on our table, for I must say that
Jane, if she is not much to look at, is an excellent cook.” She liked to
see people eat; not Horry getting three helps and gorging himself; that
was a different matter altogether; but a visitor who could appreciate
how good it really was.
And after dinner was over Mr. Rochford would ask whether he might not to
be taken round the garden to see, not the flowers, for there were none,
but the flood-marks of different years, and how high the river had come
on the last occasion when the waters were “out.” He had a great interest
in the floods--more than Mr. Penton, who got weary of his guest’s
enthusiasm, and stole back to the book-room, leaving him with the girls;
and more than Anne, who heard her mother calling her, or found she had
something to do in the poultry-yard, every time this little incident
occurred. Ally was the most civil, the most long-suffering, and it soon
became evident that there was only one who had patience to conduct Mr.
Rochford to see the flood-marks.
“I have been used to them all my life,” the young lawyer said. “I have
an old aunt who lives as close to the river as this, and who has the
water in her garden every year. I used to be sent on visits there when I
was a child, and oh! the transports of the inundation and the old punt
in which we used to float about. To come up under the windows in that
punt was bliss.”
“You could not do that here,” said Ally, with that pride in the Hook
which was part of the family character. “The water never comes above the
garden. I showed you the highest flood-mark was on a level with the
terrace round the house.”
“Yes,” said the visitor, with an implicit faith which was not universal
among those who heard this tale. “What a piece of good fortune that is!
You must feel as if you were in an oasis in the midst of the desert.”
Ally felt that the metaphor was not very appropriate, but of course she
knew what he meant. She said, “The little boys are as fond of seeing the
floods as you were when you were a boy.”
“It would be difficult work if at any time the house was cut off--I beg
your pardon,” said Rochford, “that is nonsense, of course; but do you
know I dreamed the other night that the river was higher than ever had
been known, and was sweeping all round the Hook, and that the family
were in danger? I got out in my boat on the wildest whirling stream, and
steered as well as I could for your window. Which is your window, Miss
Penton? I knew quite well which it was in my dream, and steered for it.
That one! why then I was right, for that was where I steered.”
“You frighten me,” said Ally, “but the water has never come near the
house.”
“It did on this occasion. There were people at all the windows, but I
steered for yours. I heard myself calling Miss Penton, and you wouldn’t
let me save you. You kept putting the children into my arms, and I could
not refuse the children--but I shall never forget the horror with which
I woke up, finding that you always delayed and delayed and would not
come.”
“How kind of you,” said Ally, laughing, but with a little blush, “to
take so much trouble even in your dream.”
“Trouble!” he cried, “but yet it was great trouble, for you would not
come. I heard myself calling, trying every kind of argument, but you
always pushed some one in front of you to be saved first, and would not
come yourself. I awoke in a dreadful state of mind, crying out that it
was my fault, that it was because of me, that if it had been any one
else you would have come.”
“How ungrateful you must have thought me,” said Ally, blushing more and
more, “but of course I should have put the children first. You may be
sure that is what I shall do if it should ever come true.”
“I am forewarned,” he said, laughing. “I shall know how to beguile you
now that I am informed.”
“I hope you may never have the occasion,” she said.
“Of helping you? Do you think that is a kind wish, Miss Penton? for it
is a thing which would be more delightful than anything else that could
happen to me.”
Ally, being a little confused by this continuance of the subject, led
him round by the edge of the river to the poplar-tree and the bench
underneath. “We used all to be very fond of this seat,” she said,
“because of the view. If Penton is going now to be nothing to us we must
take the bench away.”
“Can it ever cease to be something to you? It is the home of your
ancestors.”
“Oh, yes; but one’s father is more near one than one’s ancestors, and if
he is to have nothing to do with Penton--”
“You regret Penton,” said the lawyer, fixing his eyes upon her; “then I
wish my hand had been burned off before I had anything to do with the
business.”
“Oh, what could that matter?” cried Ally. “I am nobody; and besides,”
she added, with gravity, “I do not suppose it could have been stopped by
anything that either you or I could do.”
This made the young man pause; but whatever was disagreeable in it was
modified by the conjunction “you and I.” Was it only civility, or had
she unconsciously fallen into the trap and associated herself with him
by some real bond of sympathy? He resumed after a pause, “Perhaps we
might not be able to cope with such grandees as your father and Mrs.
Russell Penton, but there is nothing so strong as--as an association--as
mutual help, don’t you know?”
Ally did not know, neither did he, what he meant. She replied only,
“Oh!” in a startled tone, and hurriedly changed the subject. “Will it
take a long time to draw out all the papers, Mr. Rochford? Why should it
take so long? It seems so simple.”
“Nothing is simple that has to do with the law. Should you like it to be
hurried on or to be delayed? Either thing could be done according as it
pleased _you_.”
There was the slightest little emphasis upon the pronoun, so little that
Ally perceived it first, then the next moment blushed with shame at
having for a moment allowed herself to suppose that it could be meant.
“Oh, we could not wish for either one thing or another,” she said. “I
shall be sorry when it is altered, and I shall be glad. Naturally it is
Walter that feels it most.”
“Ah, he is the heir.”
“He _was_ the heir, Mr. Rochford. I feel for him. He has to change all
his ways of thinking, all that he was looking forward to. But why should
we talk of this? I ought not to talk of it to any stranger. It is
because you have so much to do with it, because you--”
“Because I am mixed up with it from the beginning,” he said,
regretfully. “How kind you are to receive me at all, when it was I whose
fate it was to introduce so painful a subject. But one never knows,” he
went on, in a lower tone, “when one drives up to a door that has never
been opened to one’s steps before, what one may find there; perhaps the
most commonplace, perhaps”--he turned his head away a little, but not
enough to make the last two words, uttered in a lowered but distinct
voice, inaudible to Ally--“perhaps one’s fate.”
The girl heard them, wondered at them, felt herself grow pale, then red.
There is something in words that mean so much, which convey a sort of
secondary thrill of comprehension without revealing their meaning all
out. Ally, who was unprepared for the real revelation, felt that there
was something here which was not usual to be said, which concerned her
somehow, which made it impossible for her to continue the conversation
calmly. She turned away to examine some moss on the trunk of the nearest
tree. Did he mean her to hear that? Did he mean her not to hear? And
what did it mean? His fate--that must mean something, something more
than people generally said to each other while taking a turn round the
garden, whether it might be to see the roses or to examine the
flood-marks.
At this moment the most fortunate thing occurred--a thing which ended
the interview without embarrassment, without any appearance of running
away upon Ally’s part. Mrs. Penton suddenly appeared in the porch, which
was within sight, holding a letter in one hand and beckoning with the
other. She called, not Ally, but “Alice!” which in itself was enough to
mark that something had occurred out of the common. Her voice thrilled
through the still damp air almost with impatience; its usual calm was
gone; it was full of life, and haste, and impetuosity--more like the
quick voice of Anne than that of the mother. And then little Horry came
running out, delighted to escape out-of-doors in his pinafore, without
cap or great-coat, or any wrap, his red stockings making a broken line
of color as he ran along the damp path, his curls of fair hair blowing
back from his forehead.
“Ally! Anne!--Ally! Anne!” he cried, “mother wants you! Ally-Anne!
mother wants you!--she wants you bovth She’s got news for you bovth.
Ally-Anne! Ally-Anne!” shouted the small boy.
“I’m coming, Horry,” cried the girl; and from the other side of the
house came the same cry from her sister. Ally entirely forgot Mr.
Rochford and his fate. She ran home, leaving him without another
thought, encountering midway Anne, who was flying from the poultry-yard,
in which she had taken refuge. What was it? At their age, and in such
simplicity as theirs, a letter suddenly arrived with news might mean
anything. What might it not mean? It might mean that the queen had sent
for them to Windsor Castle. It might mean that some very great lady
unheard of before had invited them on the score of some old unknown
friendship. It might mean that somebody had left them a fortune. The
only thing it could not mean was something unimportant. Of that only
they were assured.
Mrs. Penton stood at the door in her excitement, with the letter in her
hands. Her tall figure was more erect, her head borne higher than usual.
When she saw the girls running from different directions she turned and
went in-doors, and presently Walter appeared in answer to another
summons, walking quickly up to the door. Young Rochford, standing under
the poplar looking at them, felt ridiculously “out of it,” as he said.
It would have pleased him to feel that he had something to do with the
family, that their consultations were not entirely closed to him. He had
been so much mixed up with it--all the details of their future means,
every bit of land which they relinquished, every penny of that which
they got as compensation, would pass through his hands. He had been
feeling of late as if he really had a great deal to do with the Pentons.
But here arose at once a matter with which he had nothing to do, upon
which he could not intrude himself, to which he was left as much a
stranger as though he did not know exactly what their income would be
next year. He went slowly into the book-room, with feelings that were
utterly unreasonable, though not without the excuse of being natural.
The book-room, that was his place, and Mr. Penton and the formal
business. But he must not even ask what was the other business which was
so much more interesting, the letter which had been sent to Mrs. Penton,
which the young ones had been called in such excitement to hear, and no
doubt to give their opinions on. He had certainly no right to have an
opinion on the subject, whatever it might be. He was only the solicitor
managing an external piece of business--and treated with great civility
and kindness--but nothing more. How could he be anything more?