And here I must make a confession, if I am to put my story honestly upon
paper. For the events of that night produced results upon which I cannot
look back with satisfaction.
True, the position in which they placed me was none of my own seeking,
but forced on me by circumstance. Still, I cannot wholly excuse myself
of fault. Like most men, I suppose, I possess a fair share of vanity;
though, heaven knows, in my case, what with lameness, poverty, and the
obscurity of my early lot, vanity had little enough, so far, to feed
upon. Perhaps, on this very account, it was all the more greedy of
sustenance. My rescue of Alice Dynevor was the nine days’ wonder of the
College. I was acclaimed a veritable hero. This affected me but little.
Granted the opportunity, a score of men, as I told them, would have done
everything I had, and probably done it ten times better. Having risked my
life once to save a few hounds, there was no great credit in risking it a
second time to save a human being.
But the matter did not end there. It would have been better had it done
so—for my conscience’ sake, and, I am afraid, for the peace of mind of
others. What my kind old friend the Master said to me I shall not repeat.
Still less shall I repeat what was said to me by Mrs. Dynevor. Who dare
measure the tenderness of a mother’s heart or the generosity of its
gratitude?
While the Lodge was refitting and rebuilding, the Master removed to a
house in Trumpington Street, near the Fitzwilliam Museum, surrounded by
large park-like grounds. The three ladies were still his guests; indeed,
report declared they had taken up their abode with him permanently. Here
I was asked to dinner often, twice a week perhaps; and told, moreover,
to consider myself on the footing of an intimate friend, free to come in
and out when I liked. And pleasant enough was that permission. Pleasant
to a lonely man, such as I, to meet bright smiling faces, to sit and
talk, or listen to music, to be petted—mothered almost—by a comely older
woman, welcomed and made much of by younger ones. The whole thing was new
to me—new as it was flattering and charming. I slipped into something
approaching intimacy before I realised what was happening.
For, as the days went by, I could not but perceive that Alice, the girl
whose life I had saved, bestowed on me very kindly glances—glances
in which I, though unskilled in such language, read something deeper
and—shall I say?—sweeter than mere gratitude. To her kiss—if kiss
indeed it was—given under the stress of great emotion, I did not attach
importance. To do so would have been, in my opinion, both unchivalrous
and fatuous. But, as between man and maid, there is a light in young
eyes which can hardly be mistaken by even the most cold-blooded or most
ignorant. And that light I beheld, evening after evening, upon her
smiling and ingenuous countenance.
She was not, as I have already said, particularly pretty, or particularly
clever, or particularly anything beyond being well educated and well
brought up, with the good manners which come of an amiable nature and the
habit of moving in the society of her equals. But for the experiences
of that fearful night I should, in all probability, have met her,
parted from her, and remembrance of her would have faded from my mind
altogether. As it was, I could not but observe—nor deny I took a certain
pleasure in observing—that she sought and preferred my company; that
when we talked she led the conversation, in as far as she knew how, to
tender, earnest, fanciful subjects—such as, in those days, were called
‘sentiment’—and tried to gain a response from me. And, within certain
limits, my vanity being flattered though my heart was untouched, I did
respond. I had no wish to mislead her; but I was weak and self-indulgent
in that, the present being agreeable, I let things drift.
I do not pretend to justify, or indeed quite to understand my own state
of mind at that period. I was still under the influence of my trouble and
disappointment about Hartover, the bitterness of my own inability to help
the dear boy, and save him from the consequences of his own ill-judged
action. I trembled for his future. I had written to him, and oh! what
a letter to write. To be at once truthful and moderate required all my
judgment and tact. I could not approve, yet I feared to alienate him by
expression of my real feeling. My love for Nellie Braithwaite told on me,
too—and the temptation to profit by Hartover’s marriage and press my own
suit. Thus, perplexed and unhappy, I fell, I own, from high standards of
endeavour. The things dearest to me I had failed in, or knew were beyond
my grasp. A cheaper, commoner way of success and of happiness—happiness,
that is, of a sort—lay open to me. Should I fling aside impossible
ideals, and take it?
For I could not but observe, further, that Mrs. Dynevor, and the Master
himself, looked on at my intercourse with Alice complacently enough;
that the former managed adroitly to throw us together, encouraged us
to sing and read together, found opportunities for leaving us alone
often—and too often. After all, I was no unfit match for her daughter.
I was already a fellow and tutor of my College, with the prospect of a
good college living hereafter: the prospect, if the Hartover interest
did fail me—and fail me, I felt pretty sure for many reasons, it would
not—of presentation to the first rich living in Lord Longmoor’s gift
which might fall vacant if I chose to apply for it. I was as well born as
the Master. He had made his way in the world, even as I was in the act of
making mine, by personal ability and scholarship. Hence, on the score of
station, there could be no valid objection to my suit.
Should I then—for there were actually times when I began to ask myself
this—renounce high romance, and the many sacrifices and sorrows which go
along with it, and content myself with a comfortable country rectory and
the company of an amiable and affectionate wife—a very respectable and
respected manner of existence after all, with chances, moreover, of doing
much good after a quiet unostentatious fashion?
Who could blame me if I accepted such a future?
No one, surely—unless I blamed myself. There was the crux, the rub. For
should I not blame myself, and that increasingly as years went on, unless
I renounced my present standards and declined upon altogether lower
levels of thought and effort; unless, in fact, I allowed myself to sink
into a certain moral and mental sloth—the sloth of one who, hearing,
refuses the call to battle, preferring ignobly to ‘stay by the stuff’?
Thus outwardly in lively and in pleasant intercourse, inwardly in travail
of spirit and indecision, time passed until the end of the Lent term was
well in sight.
Then, one evening, when I had been dining at the house in Trumpington
Street, as I bade the Master good-night, he told me that he, and Mrs.
Dynevor and her daughters, intended to spend the vacation at Bath, and
invited me to join the party as his guest.
‘You really must come, Brownlow,’ he said, ‘for my young ladies count
upon your escort for the various expeditions they propose to make in the
neighbourhood of the city of Bladud. They will be sadly put out if you
desert us—and so, my dear fellow, shall I.’
He laid his hand kindly upon my shoulder.
‘I have come to depend upon your companionship more than I ever have on
that of any man of your age. It is a pleasure and entertainment to me—I
had almost said a solace. For we portly old bachelors have our hours of
regret, you know, for the family life which, for some reason good or bad,
or from no reason at all but our own laziness, we rejected, or missed,
in our earlier years. There comes a time to most of us when, if a man is
wholesome, his heart in the right place, he grows tired of living for
and by himself, and begins to look to the second generation, to sons
and daughters, for his interest and hold on life. A risky time!—Some
old fools try to retrieve the position by marrying. That form of senile
dementia, thank heaven! has not attacked me as yet. But I own I like
having young people about me. And specially, Brownlow, I like having
you in and out of my house. So, my good fellow, be prepared to pack up
your traps by this day week, and start with us for Bath. We shall take a
post-chaise as well as my carriage, and make a two days’ journey of it.’
His affection touched me deeply, the more so that I could not disguise
from myself the meaning and purpose of that which he said. It was an
invitation, surely, to declare myself in respect of Alice Dynevor, an
assurance that such a declaration had his approval and support. I was
both embarrassed and troubled by self-reproach. Immediately, however,
my course of action was clear. I told him, with many expressions of
genuine sorrow, that it was impossible for me to accompany the party to
Bath, since I had already promised to spend the vacation with friends in
the country—friends whom I had known when I was at Hover. The promise
was of long standing, one which, without flagrant discourtesy, I could
not break. Though evidently disappointed, and even a little vexed, he
admitted the justice of what I said.
‘Well, well; perhaps, though you cannot go with us, you can join us at
Bath for a week before our return.’
And he asked me one or two questions about these Yorkshire friends, which
fortunately I could answer without making any mention of Nellie.
I walked back to my College deep in thought. For, clearly, I must not
play with the situation any longer. I must arrive at a final decision. I
must pull myself together and refuse to drift. Once and for all I must
know my own mind. But to do so I must see Nellie Braithwaite first.