There was nothing more said to Mr. Mannering on the subject of Mr.
Templar’s mission, neither did he himself say anything, either to
sanction or prevent his child from carrying out the strange desire of
her mother--her mother! Dora did not accept the thought. She made a
struggle within herself to keep up the fiction that it was her mother’s
sister--a relation, something near, yet ever inferior to the vision of a
benignant, melancholy being, unknown, which a dead mother so often is to
an imaginative girl.
It pleased her to find, as she said to herself, “no likeness” to the
suffering and hysterical woman she had seen, in that calm, pensive
portrait, which she instantly secured and took possession of--the little
picture which had lain so long buried with its face downward in the
secret drawer. She gazed at it for an hour together, and found
nothing--nothing, she declared to herself with indignant satisfaction,
to remind her of the other face--flushed, weeping, middle-aged--which
had so implored her affection. Had it been her mother, was it possible
that it should have required an effort to give that affection? No! Dora
at sixteen believed very fully in the voice of nature. It would have
been impossible, her heart at once would have spoken, she would have
known by some infallible instinct. She put the picture up in her own
room, and filled her heart with the luxury, the melancholy, the sadness,
and pleasure of this possession--her mother’s portrait, more touching to
the imagination than any other image could be. But then there began to
steal a little shadow over Dora’s thoughts. She would not give up her
determined resistance to the idea that this face and the other face,
living and dying, which she had seen, could be one; but when she raised
her eyes suddenly, to her mother’s picture, a consciousness would steal
over her, an involuntary glance of recognition. What more likely than
that there should be a resemblance, faint and far away, between sister
and sister? And then there came to be a gleam of reproach to Dora in
those eyes, and the girl began to feel as if there was an irreverence, a
want of feeling, in turning that long recluse and covered face to the
light of day, and carrying on all the affairs of life under it, as if it
were a common thing. Finally she arranged over it a little piece of
drapery, a morsel of faded embroidered silk which was among her
treasures, soft and faint in its colours--a veil which she could draw in
her moments of thinking and quiet, those moments which it would not be
irreverent any longer to call a dead mother or an angelic presence to
hallow and to share.
But she said nothing when she was called to Miss Bethune’s room, and
clad in mourning, recognising with a thrill, half of horror, half of
pride, the crape upon her dress which proved her right to that new
exaltation among human creatures--that position of a mourner which is in
its way a step in life. Dora did not ask where she was going when she
followed Miss Bethune, also in black from head to foot, to the plain
little brougham which had been ordered to do fit and solemn honour to
the occasion; the great white wreath and basket of flowers, which filled
up the space, called no observation from her. They drove in silence to
the great cemetery, with all its gay flowers and elaborate aspect of
cheerfulness. It was a fine but cloudy day, warm and soft, yet without
sunshine; and Dora had a curious sense of importance, of meaning, as if
she had attained an advanced stage of being. Already an experience had
fallen to her share, more than one experience. She had knelt, troubled
and awe-stricken, by a death-bed; she was now going to stand by a grave.
Even where real sorrow exists, this curious sorrowful elation of
sentiment is apt to come into the mind of the very young. Dora was
deeply impressed by the circumstances and the position, but it was
impossible that she could feel any real grief. Tears came to her eyes as
she dropped the shower of flowers, white and lovely, into the darkness
of that last abode. Her face was full of awe and pity, but her breast of
that vague, inexplainable expansion and growth, as of a creature entered
into the larger developments and knowledge of life. There were very few
other mourners. Mr. Templar, the lawyer, with his keen but veiled
observation of everything, serious and businesslike; the doctor, with
professional gravity and indifference; Miss Bethune, with almost stern
seriousness, standing like a statue in her black dress and with her pale
face. Why should any of these spectators care? The woman was far the
most moved, thinking of the likeness and difference of her own fate, of
the failure of that life which was now over, and of her own, a deeper
failure still, without any fault of hers. And Dora, wondering,
developing, her eyes full of abstract tears, and her mind of awe.
Only one mourner stood pale with watching and thought beside the open
grave, his heart aching with loneliness and a profound natural vacancy
and pain. He knew that she had neglected him, almost wronged him at the
last, cut him off, taking no thought of what was to become of him. He
felt even that in so doing this woman was unfaithful to her trust, and
had done what she ought not to have done. But all that mattered nothing
in face of natural sorrow, natural love. She had been a mother to him,
and she was gone. The ear always open to his boyish talk and confidence,
always ready to listen, could hear him no more; and, almost more
poignant, his care of her was over, there was nothing more to do for
her, none of the hundred commissions that used to send him flying, the
hundred things that had to be done. His occupation in life seemed to be
over, his home, his natural place. It had not perhaps ever been a
natural place, but he had not felt that. She had been his mother, though
no drop of her blood ran in his veins; and now he was nobody’s son,
belonging to no family. The other people round looked like ghosts to
Harry Gordon. They were part of the strange cutting off, the severance
he already felt; none of them had anything to do with her, and yet it
was he who was pushed out and put aside, as if he had nothing to do with
her, the only mother he had ever known! The little sharp old lawyer was
her representative now, not he who had been her son. He stood languid,
in a moment of utter depression, collapse of soul and body, by the
grave. When all was over, and the solemn voice which sounds as no other
voice ever does, falling calm through the still air, bidding earth
return to earth, and dust to dust, had ceased, he still stood as if
unable to comprehend that all was over--no one to bid him come away, no
other place to go to. His brain was not relieved by tears, or his mind
set in activity by anything to do. He stood there half stupefied, left
behind, in that condition when simply to remain as we are seems the only
thing possible to us.
Miss Bethune had placed Dora in the little brougham, in rigorous
fulfilment of her duty to the child. Mr. Templar and the doctor had both
departed, the two other women, Mrs. Bristow’s maid and the nurse who had
accompanied her, had driven away: and still the young man stood, not
paying any attention. Miss Bethune waited for a little by the carriage
door. She did not answer the appeal of the coachman, asking if he was to
drive away; she said nothing to Dora, whose eyes endeavoured in vain to
read the changes in her friend’s face; but, after standing there for a
few minutes quite silent, she suddenly turned and went back to the
cemetery. It was strange to her to hesitate in anything she did, and
from the moment she left the carriage door all uncertainty was over. She
went back with a quick step, treading her way among the graves, and put
her hand upon young Gordon’s arm.
“You are coming home with me,” she said.
The new, keen voice, irregular and full of life, so unlike the measured
tones to which he had been listening, struck the young man uneasily in
the midst of his melancholy reverie, which was half trance, half
exhaustion. He moved a step away, as if to shake off the interruption,
scarcely conscious what, and not at all who it was.
“My dear young man, you must come home with me,” she said again.
He looked at her, with consciousness re-awakening, and attempted to
smile, with his natural ready response to every kindness. “It is you,”
he said, and then, “I might have known it could only be you.”
What did that mean? Nothing at all. Merely his sense that the one person
who had spoken kindly to him, looked tenderly at him (though he had
never known why, and had been both amused and embarrassed by the
consciousness), was the most likely among all the strangers by whom he
was surrounded to be kind to him now. But it produced an effect upon
Miss Bethune which was far beyond any meaning it bore.
A great light seemed suddenly to blaze over her face; her eyes, which
had been so veiled and stern, awoke; every line of a face which could
be harsh and almost rigid in repose, began to melt and soften; her
composure, which had been almost solemn, failed; her lip began to
quiver, tears came dropping upon his arm, which she suddenly clasped
with both her hands, clinging to it. “You say right,” she cried, “my
dear, my dear!--more right than all the reasons. It is you and nature
that makes everything clear. You are just coming home with me.”
“I don’t seem,” he said, “to know what the word means.”
“But you will soon learn again. God bless the good woman that cherished
you and loved you, my bonnie boy. I’ll not say a word against her--oh,
no, no! God’s blessing upon her as she lies there. I will never grudge a
good word you say of her, never a regret. But now"--she put her arm
within his with a proud and tender movement, which so far penetrated his
languor as to revive the bewilderment which he had felt before--“now you
are coming home with me.”
He did not resist; he allowed himself to be led to the little carriage
and packed into it, which was not quite an easy thing to do. On another
occasion he would have laughed and protested, but on this he submitted
gravely to whatever was required of him, thankful, in the failure of all
motive, to have some one to tell him what to do, to move him as if he
were an automaton. He sat bundled up on the little front seat, with
Dora’s wondering countenance opposite to him, and that other
inexplicable face, inspired and lighted up with tenderness. He had not
strength enough to inquire why this stranger took possession of him so;
neither could Dora tell, who sat opposite to him, her mind awakened, her
thoughts busy. This was the almost son of the woman who they said was
Dora’s mother. What was he to Dora? Was he the nearer to her, or the
farther from her, for that relationship? Did she like him better or
worse for having done everything that it ought, they said, have been her
part to do?
These questions were all confused in Dora’s mind, but they were not
favourable to this new interloper into her life--he who had known about
her for years while she had never heard of him. She sat very upright,
reluctant to make room for him, yet scrupulously doing so, and a little
indignant that he should thus be brought in to interfere with her own
claims to the first place. The drive to Bloomsbury seemed very long in
these circumstances, and it was indeed a long drive. They all came back
into the streets after the long suburban road with a sense almost of
relief in the growing noise, the rattle of the causeway, and sound of
the carts and carriages--which made it unnecessary, as it had been
impossible for them, to say anything to each other, and brought back the
affairs of common life to dispel the influences of the solemn moment
that was past.
When they had reached Miss Bethune’s rooms, and returned altogether to
existence, and the sight of a table spread for a meal, it was a shock,
but not an ungrateful one. Miss Bethune at once threw off the gravity
which had wrapped her like a cloak, when she put away her black bonnet.
She bade Gilchrist hurry to have the luncheon brought up. “These two
young creatures have eaten nothing, I am sure, this day. Probably they
think they cannot: but when food is set before them they will learn
better. Haste ye, Gilchrist, to have it served up. No, Dora, you will
stay with me too. Your father is a troubled man this day. You will not
go in upon him with that cloud about you, not till you are refreshed and
rested, and have got your colour and your natural look back. And you, my
bonnie man!” She could not refrain from touching, caressing his shoulder
as she passed him; her eyes kept filling with tears as she looked at
him. He for his part moved and took his place as she told him, still in
a dream.
It was a curious meal, more daintily prepared and delicate than usual,
and Miss Bethune was a woman who at all times was “very particular,” and
exercised all the gifts of the landlady, whose other lodgers demanded
much less of her. And the mistress of the little feast was still less as
usual. She scarcely sat down at her own table, but served her young
guests with anxious care, carving choice morsels for them, watching
their faces, their little movements of impatience, and the gradual
development of natural appetite, which came as the previous spell
gradually wore off. She talked all the time, her countenance a little
flushed and full of emotion, her eyes moist and shining, with frequent
sallies at Gilchrist, who hovered round the table waiting upon the young
guests, and in her excitement making continual mistakes and stumblings,
which soon roused Dora to laugh, and Harry to apologise.
“It is all right,” he cried, when Miss Bethune at last made a dart at
her attendant, and gave her, what is called in feminine language, “a
shake,” to bring her to herself.
“Are you out of your wits, woman?” Miss Bethune exclaimed. “Go away and
leave me to look after the bairns, if ye cannot keep your head. Are you
out of your wits?”
“Indeed, mem, and I have plenty of reason, Gilchrist said, weeping, and
feeling for her apron, while the dish in her hand wavered wildly; and
then it was that Harry Gordon, coming to himself, cried out that it was
all right.
“And I am going to have some of that,” he added, steadying the kind
creature, whose instinct of service had more effect than either
encouragement or reproof. And this little touch of reality settled him
too. He began to respond a little, to rouse himself, even to see the
humour of the situation, at which Dora had begun to laugh, but which
brought a soft moisture, in which was ease and consolation, to his eyes.
It was not until about an hour later that Miss Bethune was left alone
with the young man. He had begun by this time to speak about himself. “I
am not so discouraged as you think,” he said, “I don’t seem to be
afraid. After all, it doesn’t matter much, does it, what happens to a
young fellow all alone in the world? It’s only me, anyhow. I have no
wife,” he said, with a faint laugh, “no sister to be involved--nothing
but my own rather useless person, a thing of no account. It wasn’t that
that knocked me down. It was just the feeling of the end of everything,
and that she was laid there that had been so good to me--so good--and
nothing ever to be done for her any more.”
“I can forgive you that,” said Miss Bethune, with a sort of sob in her
throat. “And yet she was ill to you, unjust at the last.”
“No, not that. I have had everything, too much for a man capable of
earning his living to accept--but then it seemed all so natural, it was
the common course of life. I was scarcely waking up to see that it could
not be.”
“And a cruel rousing you have had at last, my poor boy.”
“No,” he said steadily, “I will never allow it was cruel; it has been
sharp and effectual. It couldn’t help being effectual, could it? since I
have no alternative. The pity is I am good for so little. No education
to speak of.”
“You shall have education--as much as you can set your face to.”
He looked up at her with a little air of surprise, and shook his head.
“No,” he said, “not now. I am too old. I must lose no more time. The
thing is, that my work will be worth so much less, being guided by no
skill. Skill is a beautiful thing. I envy the very scavengers,” he said
(who were working underneath the window), “for piling up their mud like
that, straight. I should never get it straight.” The poor young fellow
was so near tears that he was glad from time to time to have a chance
of a feeble laugh, which relieved him. “And that is humble enough! I
think much the best thing for me will be to go back to South America.
There are people who know me, who would give me a little place where I
could learn. Book-keeping can’t be such a tremendous mystery. There’s an
old clerk or two of my guardians"--here he paused to swallow down the
climbing sorrow--“who would give me a hint or two. And if the pay was
very small at first, why, I’m not an extravagant fellow.”
“Are you sure of that?” his confidante said.
He looked at her again, surprised, then glanced at himself and his
dress, which was not economical, and reddened and laughed again. “I am
afraid you are right,” he said. “I haven’t known much what economy was.
I have lived like the other people; but I am not too old to learn, and I
should not mind in the least what I looked like, or how I lived, for a
time. Things would get better after a time.”
They were standing together near the window, for he had begun to roam
about the room as he talked, and she had risen from her chair with one
of the sudden movements of excitement. “There will be no need,” she
said,--“there will be no need. Something will be found for you at home.”
He shook his head. “You forget it is scarcely home to me. And what could
I do here that would be worth paying me for? I must no more be dependent
upon kindness. Oh, don’t think I do not feel kindness. What should I
have done this miserable day but for you, who have been so good to
me--as good as--as a mother, though I had no claim?”
She gave a great cry, and seized him by both his hands. “Oh, lad, if you
knew what you were saying! That word to me, that have died for it, and
have no claim! Gilchrist, Gilchrist!” she cried, suddenly dropping his
hands again, “come here and speak to me! Help me! have pity upon me! For
if this is not him, all nature and God’s against me. Come here before I
speak or die!”