THE RED HOUSE.
WOODLEIGH was a very scattered village, numbering about one thousand
inhabitants all told, yet containing only one double row of straggling
houses, which might by courtesy be termed a street.
Woodleigh Hall stood well apart from this little central cluster, in
its own grounds, on something of an eminence, from which views could be
had of pretty and undulating country around.
George Rutherford’s father had inherited the place from a distant
relative. Left at twenty-one, by his father’s death, in possession of
the property, George had steered marvellously clear of the perils sure
to assail a young man in such a position, owing much of his safety,
under a higher Power, to the companionship of a wise and loving mother.
Not until her death, in his thirty-third year, did George Rutherford
begin to think seriously of finding a wife.
After considerable hesitation he had found one in Dulcibel Lloyd;
not at all the kind of wife that any one would have expected him to
choose, the very last person that anybody else would have chosen for
him. But this was almost a matter of course. Men usually go contrary to
expectations in such matters.[?]
And whether or no Dulcibel was able to give him all that he required,
either in the way of heart or of intellect, he and she had been very
happy together. The last seventeen years had gone by with smooth
rapidity.
George Rutherford was a busy man; he always had been so, ever since
he emerged from boyhood. Property brings responsibility with it, and
George felt those responsibilities with all seriousness. Alike generous
and tender-hearted, no case of need came within his ken to be passed
over or put aside. Investigation was followed invariably by such
assistance as seemed wise.
In these matters Dulcibel was a very meet help to her husband. She
dearly loved to have half-a-dozen interesting “cases” on hand, and to
be running hither and thither after them.
Joan’s inclinations lay in a different line. Books were her prime
interest, and parish work was distasteful. With “father” she would go
anywhere, but in a cottage she always became shy and curt, and left all
the talking to him. George tried in vain to awaken wider sympathies.
All the outflow of Joan’s affections seemed to be at present towards
him, and him alone. Still she was very kind to Nessie, and Nessie was
very fond of Joan, in a gentle, colorless style.
A stranger would have been oddly struck with the contrast between the
two, as they walked side by side that afternoon, along a high road,
according to Joan’s prediction. Nessie could not endure wet grass or
stiles; but she liked walking, and could manage a very considerable
distance at a good pace. Naturally her tendency would have been to
lounge languidly onward, but Joan never would permit this.
“I do love autumn,” Joan broke out, when they had plodded steadily for
half an hour in silence—“next best to spring.”
“I don’t, because winter is coming,” said Nessie.
“Well—and spring comes after winter. One may enjoy each in turn.
Nessie, suppose we turn down this lane, and go around by that queer old
red house, with any amount of chimneys.”
“Mrs. St. John’s house.”
“I don’t know who lives there. We should just have time to do the round
before dark, if we are quick. It is not too far for you?”
“Oh, no!” and Nessie turned obediently. “I thought you called there
once with father.”
“No; he went in, and I didn’t. I hate calls. I can’t bear being
introduced to people as Miss Brooke, and having remarks made on my
name.”
“Well, you seem like one of us,” said Nessie placidly. “Is that why you
never will call on anybody, if you can help it?”
“That’s principally why,” said Joan.
“Mother doesn’t much care for Mrs. St. John,” said Nessie. “She thinks
her proud and cold. But sometimes people are called so when they are
shy.”
“At all events we don’t mean to call on Mrs. St. John now,” said Joan,
with a slight shrug of her shoulders, and a rapid movement of her
eyebrows. “I’d rather be excused, and so I dare say would you. Come, we
shall have to step out well, Nessie. It is a good way round—seven or
eight miles altogether. What a pity father didn’t come with us?”
“Why didn’t he?”
“Mother wanted him for something. Those clouds look rather suspicious
for by-and-by; but it won’t rain yet. I’d have brought my umbrella if I
had noticed them.”
The red house of which Joan had spoken was well shaded with tall trees.
A rather small drawing-room stood on one side of the front door, and in
this drawing-room sat two ladies, working or making believe to work,
and talking without any make-believe. Both were well advanced in years:
the elder, Mrs. St. John, about seventy-five, the other only some ten
or twelve years her junior. And while Mrs. St. John, a slender, upright
little body, with white hair, and sharp eyes, and mittened hands,
expressed her thoughts with a clear and resolute utterance, the other
lady seemed too listless and depressed for ought but deliberation, and
even slowness. She was very sweet-faced, this second occupant of the
room, but there was a look of premature age about her stooping figure
and faded complexion. A careless observer might almost have mistaken
her for the senior of the two.
“The fact is my dear Amelia,” Mrs. St. John was saying—“the fact is,
you always were given to rather distorted views of your duty. And this
is a case in point.”
She spoke with the freedom of a sister, yet the ladies were not
sisters, or even relatives, but only old school-friends.
“I do not feel any doubt as to what my duty would be, if it were not
for my husband’s wishes,” the other answered in her spiritless manner.
“But, feeling as he does—”
“Knowing him to feel as he does, your course of action is quite clear,”
said Mrs. St. John decisively.
“I am not sure. If I could persuade him—”
“My dear Amelia, have you ever once, in all your married life,
succeeded in persuading your good husband that you were a better judge
than himself on any single question?”
A flickering smile crossed the other’s face.
“Hubert is very decided, certainly,” she said—“very decided, when once
he has made up his mind.”
Then the smile was quenched in sudden tears.
“No, that is it—never, never! If I ever could have touched him, it
would have been for our boy—my boy!”
“Then you see the uselessness now. But I did not mean to distress you,
Amelia. Take some eau-de-cologne—or, stay, an early cup of tea will do
you good.”
“No, thanks.”
“Well, you must not be in such low spirits—positively you must not. I
begin to think we have made a mistake in letting you come here; but you
seemed to wish it. And after about twenty years—”
“Over twenty,” breathed the other.
“About twenty, I said. After twenty years, I do think, my dear
Amelia, that for one professing to be so religious as yourself there
is a singular want of resignation to Providence, in fretting still,
year after year. You ought by this time to have learnt a spirit of
submission. Other people have their sorrows too. I have lost my dear
husband, I hope I know how to bear my loss with fortitude.”
“It is very wrong of me—very wrong, I am afraid,” the other lady said,
with a meek tremulousness. “I do hope it is not want of submission to
God’s will. He knows what is best—I know—I am sure. But still, people
do suffer so differently; and some troubles seem to cut away the very
ground from under one’s feet. If I could have seen my boy again before
he died, or if I might have watched his child growing up—have held the
little thing in my arms.”
“Quite impossible, Amelia. Your husband would never have consented.
And if the child is alive now, she is a woman. Perhaps you would have
wished to welcome her mother also to your home and heart?”
“As Hubert’s wife—yes.”
“But as the milkman’s daughter—no!”
“He was—quite a respectable farmer,” faltered the lady; “and she I
believe, was well educated.”
Mrs. St. John made an indescribable gesture.
“Perhaps, my dear Amelia, you would like to call upon Cairns the next
time my butter and milk bill has to be paid. You might take a message
from me that his butter has been very poor lately, at the same time
that you announce yourself as his daughter’s mother-in-law!”
“I don’t think you need talk like this to me. It is not quite kind,”
remonstrated her friend.
Mrs. St. John rose and walked to the window.
“Dear me, what a change in the weather! It is coming on to rain—quite a
pelt. I hope your husband is not out-of-doors.”
There was no answer to this. The other lady seemed struggling to
control her emotion; and, failing to do so, she left the room. Mrs. St.
John stood looking towards the door, tapping a small table with the
long pointed fingers of one mittened hand.
“Poor dear Amelia! She is sadly weak still—the same good creature as
always, but with such a want of mental stamina. I must do my best to
brace her up while she is here. This perpetual fretting has gone on
long enough. It is just a habit of mind now—hardly genuine. Quite out
of the question that she should hold any communication with the Cairns
family; and if there is a child of Hubert’s still living, the less
Amelia knows of her the better. Dear me, what a drench! I hope nobody
is out in it.”
Her face showed satisfaction as a comely, courtly old gentleman, with
flowing white locks; entered the room.
“Mr. Brooke! I am delighted to see you indoors. What tremendous rain.”
“Coming down in bucketsful!” said Mr. Brooke. “Very sudden change; but
the glass showed a tendency to fall this morning. Can you tell me where
Amelia is?”
“She will be back, I think, directly. We happened to touch upon the old
subject, and she was overcome.”
“As usual,” said Mr. Brooke, his features taking a grim set.
“Yes; but I hope it will not last. Dear Amelia is evidently in rather a
low state just now; and associations in this neighborhood are trying.”
“Amelia has never been here before.”
“No,” said Mrs. St. John slowly—“no, certainly; but somebody was here.
And if Amelia does not know many particulars, imagination supplies
material to fill up gaps.”
“No doubt,” said Mr. Brooke. “Ha, two young ladies out in the rain!”
“Where?”
Mrs. St. John gazed through the panes, speedily descrying a couple
of girlish figures. They seemed to be taking shelter under a small
elm, just outside the garden gate; but the shelter was evidently very
partial.
“Foolish young things. No umbrella, of course,” said Mr. Brooke.
Mrs. St. John was putting up her eye-glass.
“I know who they are,” she said. “One of them is a daughter of Mr.
Rutherford, and the other, no doubt, is her sister. The youngest came
to call on me once with her mother—a washed-out, uninteresting little
thing—not two ideas in her head.”
“She is likely to be washed-out now, in good earnest. Ha, ha!” laughed
Mr. Brooke, pleased with his own joke. “Who is this Mr. Rutherford?”
“He has property at Woodleigh. A very philanthropic sort of individual,
I believe;” and a sneer was apparent. “He came in once on business,
about a needy person whom he wished to help. His wife has taken the
trouble to call on me twice during the three years and a half that I
have lived here. I do not think it incumbent on me, at my age, to pay
return calls, beyond leaving my card; and people ought to understand
this; but probably Mrs. Rutherford does not. She certainly has not
given herself much trouble about me. As it happens, her calling or
non-calling makes little difference to me; for she did not at all take
my fancy.”
“Nevertheless, it might be a charity to offer her daughters a shelter
in the storm,” suggested Mr. Brooke, getting rather tired of Mrs. St.
John’s utterances. “There is lightning—pretty near too. One of those
girls is frightened; and standing under a tree is not particularly
safe.”
“Perhaps they would come in if we beckoned,” suggested Mrs. St. John.
Mr. Brooke threw up the window, and signs of invitation were freely
made, not at once to be responded to. The girls seemed very slow to
hear or heed, Joan being extremely reluctant to enter the house.
But Nessie was timid in a storm, and her fears overruled Joan’s
unwillingness. They crossed the open space at a run, and stood under
the porch.
Mr. Brooke himself opened the door.
“Come in, pray,” he said. “Mrs. St. John thought you might be glad of
shelter.”
“I don’t mind it, but Nessie does. Thank you,” Joan said, not very
graciously, as she preceded Nessie into the drawing-room.
Mrs. St. John’s hand was extended to Nessie first. “How do you do?” she
said, rather distantly. “You and I have met before, I believe. Is this
your sister?”
“It is—Joan,” Nessie answered, with a slight break, recalling Joan’s
words as to introductions.
“My friend, Mr. Brooke. The two Misses Rutherford,” Mrs. St. John said,
by way of introduction. “Pray come to the fire, and dry yourselves.”
Joan’s black eyes had given one startled flash at the sound of the
gentleman’s name. A Brooke was not necessarily a connection of her
own, but she never liked to hear the word. She said nothing, however,
placing herself in front of the fire. Nessie followed tamely, being
much given when with Joan to act as Joan’s shadow.