It was young Gordon himself, alarmed but not excited as by any idea of a
new discovery which could affect his fate, who brought Miss Bethune back
to herself, far better than Gilchrist could do, who had no art but to
weep and entreat, and then yield to her mistress whatever she might
wish. _A quelque chose malheur est bon._ He had been in the habit of
soothing and calming down an excitable, sometimes hysterical woman,
whose _accès des nerfs_ meant nothing, or were, at least, supposed to
mean nothing, except indeed nerves, and the ups and downs which are
characteristic of them. He was roused by the not dissimilar outburst of
feeling or passion, wholly incomprehensible to him from any other point
of view, to which his new friend had given way. He took it very quietly,
with the composure of use and wont. The sight of her emotion and
excitement brought him quite back to himself. He could imagine no reason
whatever for it, except the sympathetic effect of all the troublous
circumstances in which she had been, without any real reason, involved.
It was her sympathy, her kindness for himself and for Dora, he had not
the least doubt, which, by bringing her into those scenes of pain and
trouble, and associating her so completely with the complicated and
intricate story, had brought on this “attack.” What he had known to be
characteristic of the one woman with whom he had been in familiar
intercourse for so long a period of his life seemed to Harry
characteristic of all women. He was quite equal to the occasion. Dr.
Roland himself, who would have been so full of professional curiosity,
so anxious to make out what it was all about, as perhaps to lessen his
promptitude in action, would scarcely have been of so much real use as
Harry, who had no _arrière pensée_, but addressed himself to the
immediate emergency with all his might. He soothed the sufferer, so that
she was soon relieved by copious floods of tears, which seemed to him
the natural method of getting rid of all that emotion and excitement,
but which surprised Gilchrist beyond description, and even Miss Bethune
herself, whose complete breakdown was so unusual and unlike her. He left
her quite at ease in his mind as to her condition, having persuaded her
to lie down, and recommended Gilchrist to darken the room, and keep her
mistress in perfect quiet.
“I will go and look after my things,” he said, “and I’ll come back when
I have made all my arrangements, and tell you everything. Oh, don’t
speak now! You will be all right in the evening if you keep quite quiet
now: and if you will give me your advice then, it will be very, very
grateful to me.” He made a little warning gesture, keeping her from
replying, and then kissed her hand and went away. He had himself pulled
down the blind to subdue a little of the garish July daylight, and
placed her on a sofa in the corner--ministrations which both mistress
and maid permitted with bewilderment, so strange to them was at once the
care and the authority of such proceedings. They remained, Miss Bethune
on the sofa, Gilchrist, open-mouthed, staring at her, until the door was
heard to close upon the young man. Then Miss Bethune rose slowly, with a
kind of awe in her face.
“As soon as you think he is out of sight,” she said, “Gilchrist, we’ll
have up the blinds again, but not veesibly, to go against the boy.”
“Eh, mem,” cried Gilchrist, between laughing and crying, “to bid me
darken the room, and you that canna abide the dark, night or day!”
“It was a sweet thought, Gilchrist--all the pure goodness of him and the
kind heart.”
“I am not saying, mem, but what the young gentleman has a very kind
heart.”
“You are not saying? And what can you know beyond what’s veesible to
every person that sees him? It is more than that. Gilchrist, you and all
the rest, what do I care what you say? If that is not the voice of
nature, what is there to trust to in this whole world? Why should that
young lad, bred up so different, knowing nothing of me or my ways, have
taken to me? Look at Dora. What a difference! She has no instinct,
nothing drawing her to her poor mother. That was a most misfortunate
woman, but not an ill woman, Gilchrist. Look how she has done by mine!
But Dora has no leaning towards her, no tender thought; whereas he, my
bonnie boy----”
“Mem,” said Gilchrist, “but if it was the voice of nature, it would be
double strong in Miss Dora; for there is no doubt that it was her
mother: and with this one--oh, my dear leddy, you ken yoursel’----”
Miss Bethune gave her faithful servant a look of flame, and going to the
windows, drew up energetically the blinds, making the springs resound.
Then she said in her most satirical tone: “And what is it I ken mysel’?”
“Oh, mem,” said Gilchrist, “there’s a’ the evidence, first his ain
story, and then the leddy’s that convinced ye for a moment; and then,
what is most o’ a, the old gentleman, the writer, one of them that kens
everything: of the father that died so many long years ago, and the baby
before him.”
Miss Bethune put up her hands to her ears, she stamped her foot upon the
ground. “How dare ye--how dare ye?” she cried. “Either man or woman that
repeats that fool story to me is no friend of mine. My child, that I’ve
felt in my heart growing up, and seen him boy and man! What’s that old
man’s word--a stranger that knows nothing, that had even forgotten what
he was put up to say--in comparison with what is in my heart? Is there
such a thing as nature, or no? Is a mother just like any other person,
no better, rather worse? Oh, woman!--you that are a woman! with no call
to be rigid about your evidence like a man--what’s your evidence to me?
I will just tell him when he comes back. ‘My bonnie man,’ I will say,
‘you have been driven here and there in this world, and them that liked
you best have failed you; but here is the place where you belong, and
here is a love that will never fail!’”
“Oh, my dear leddy, my own mistress,” cried Gilchrist, “think--think
before you do that! He will ask ye for the evidence, if I am not to ask
for it. He’s a fine, independent-spirited young gentleman, and he will
just shake his head, and say he’ll lippen to nobody again. Oh, dinna
deceive the young man! Ye might find out after----”
“What, Gilchrist? Do you think I would change my mind about my own son,
and abandon him, like this woman, at the last?”
“I never knew you forsake one that trusted in ye, I’m not saying that;
but there might come one after all that had a better claim. There might
appear one that even the like of me would believe in--that would have
real evidence in his favour, that was no more to be doubted than if he
had never been taken away out of your arms.”
Miss Bethune turned round quick as lightning upon her maid, her eyes
shining, her face full of sudden colour and light. “God bless you,
Gilchrist!” she cried, seizing the maid by her shoulders with a half
embrace; “I see now you have never believed in that story--no more than
me.”
Poor Gilchrist could but gape with her mouth open at this unlooked-for
turning of the tables. She had presented, without knowing it, the
strongest argument of all.
After this, the patient, whom poor Harry had left to the happy
influences of quiet and darkness, with all the blinds drawn up and the
afternoon sunshine pouring in, went through an hour or two of restless
occupation, her mind in the highest activity, her thoughts and her hands
full. She promised finally to Gilchrist, not without a mental
reservation in the case of special impulse or new light, not to disclose
her conviction to Harry, but to wait for at least a day or two on
events. But even this resolution did not suffice to reduce her to any
condition of quiet, or make the rest which he had prescribed possible.
She turned to a number of things which had been laid aside to be done
one time or another; arrangement of new possessions and putting away of
old, for which previously she had never found a fit occasion, and
despatched them, scarcely allowing Gilchrist to help her, at lightning
speed.
Finally, she took out an old and heavy jewel-box, which had stood
untouched in her bedroom for years; for, save an old brooch or two and
some habitual rings which never left her fingers, Miss Bethune wore no
ornaments. She took them into her sitting-room as the time approached
when Harry might be expected back. It would give her a countenance, she
thought; it would keep her from fixing her eyes on him while he spoke,
and thus being assailed through all the armour of the heart at the same
time. She could not look him in the face and see that likeness which
Gilchrist, unconvincible, would not see, and yet remain silent. Turning
over the old-fashioned jewels, telling him about them, to whom they had
belonged, and all the traditions regarding them, would help her in that
severe task of self-repression. She put the box on the table before her,
and pulled out the trays.
Nobody in Bloomsbury had seen these treasures before: the box had been
kept carefully locked, disguised in an old brown cover, that no one
might even guess how valuable it was. Miss Bethune was almost tempted to
send for Dora to see the diamonds in their old-fashioned settings, and
that pearl necklace which was still finer in its perfection of lustre
and shape. To call Dora when there was anything to show was so natural,
and it might make it easier for her to keep her own counsel; but she
reflected that in Dora’s presence the young man would not be more than
half hers, and forbore.
Never in her life had those jewels given her so much pleasure. They had
given her no pleasure, indeed. She had not been allowed to have them in
that far-off stormy youth, which had been lightened by such a sweet,
guilty gleam of happiness, and quenched in such misery of downfall. When
they came to her by inheritance, like all the rest, these beautiful
things had made her heart sick. What could she do with them--a woman
whose life no longer contained any possible festival, who had nobody
coming after her, no heir to make heirlooms sweet? She had locked the
box, and almost thrown away the key, which, however, was a passionate
suggestion repugnant to common sense, and resolved itself naturally
into confiding the key to Gilchrist, in whose most secret repositories
it had been kept, with an occasional furtive interval during which the
maid had secretly visited and “polished up” the jewels, making sure that
they were all right. Neither mistress nor maid was quite aware of their
value, and both probably exaggerated it in their thoughts; but some of
the diamonds were fine, though all were very old-fashioned in
arrangement, and the pearls were noted. Miss Bethune pulled out the
trays, and the gems flashed and sparkled in a thousand colours in the
slant of sunshine which poured in its last level ray through one window,
just before the sun set--and made a dazzling show upon the table, almost
blinding Janie, who came up with a message, and could not restrain a
little shriek of wonder and admiration. The letter was one of trouble
and appeal from poor Mrs. Hesketh, who and her husband were becoming
more and more a burden on the shoulders of their friends. It asked for
money, as usual, just a little money to go on with, as the shop in which
they had been set up was not as yet producing much. The letter had been
written with evident reluctance, and was marked with blots of tears.
Miss Bethune’s mind was too much excited to consider calmly any such
petition. Full herself of anticipation, of passionate hope, and
visionary enthusiasm, which transported her above all common things, how
was she to refuse a poor woman’s appeal for the bare necessities of
existence--a woman “near her trouble,” with a useless husband, who was
unworthy, yet whom the poor soul loved? She called Gilchrist, who
generally carried the purse, to get something for the poor little pair.
“Is there anybody waiting?” she asked.
“Oh ay, mem,” said Gilchrist, “there’s somebody waiting,--just him
himsel’, the weirdless creature, that is good for nothing.” Gilchrist
did not approve of all her mistress’s liberalities. “I would not just be
their milch cow to give them whatever they’re wanting,” she said. “It’s
awful bad for any person to just know where to run when they are in
trouble.”
“Hold your peace!” cried her mistress. “Am I one to shut up my heart
when the blessing of God has come to me?”
“Oh, mem!” cried Gilchrist, remonstrating, holding up her hands.
But Miss Bethune stamped her foot, and the wiser woman yielded.
She found Hesketh standing at the door of the sitting-room, when she
went out to give him, very unwillingly, the money for his wife. “The
impident weirdless creature! He would have been in upon my leddy in
another moment, pressing to her very presence with his impident ways!”
cried Gilchrist, hot and indignant. The faithful woman paused at the
door as she came back, and looked at her mistress turning over and
rearranging these treasures. “And her sitting playing with her bonnie
dies, in a rapture like a little bairn!” she said to herself, putting up
her apron to her eyes. And then Gilchrist shook her head--shook it,
growing quicker and quicker in the movement, as if she would have
twisted it off.
But Miss Bethune was “very composed” when young Gordon came back. With
an intense sense of the humour of the position, which mistress and maid
communicated to each other with one glance of tacit co-operation, these
two women comported themselves as if the behests of the young visitor
who had taken the management of Miss Bethune’s _accès des nerfs_ upon
himself, had been carried out. She assumed, almost unconsciously,
notwithstanding the twinkle in her eye, the languid aspect of a woman
who has been resting after unusual excitement. All women, they say (as
they say so many foolish things), are actors; all women, at all events,
let us allow, learn as the A B C of their training the art of taking up
a rôle assigned to them, and fulfilling the necessities of a position.
“You will see what I’m reduced to by what I’m doing,” she said. “As if
there was nothing of more importance in life, I am just playing myself
with my toys, like Dora, or any other little thing.”
“So much the best thing you could do,” said young Harry; and he was
eager and delighted to look through the contents of the box with her.
He was far better acquainted with their value than she was, and while
she told him the family associations connected with each ornament, he
discussed very learnedly what they were, and distinguished the
old-fashioned rose diamonds which were amongst those of greater value,
with a knowledge that seemed to her extraordinary. They spent, in fact,
an hour easily and happily over that box, quite relieved from graver
considerations by the interposition of a new thing, in which there were
no deep secrets of the heart or commotions of being involved: and thus
were brought down into the ordinary from the high and troublous level of
feeling and excitement on which they had been. To Miss Bethune the
little episode was one of child’s play in the midst of the most serious
questions of the world. Had she thought it possible beforehand that such
an interval could have been, she would, in all likelihood, have scorned
herself for the dereliction, and almost scorned the young man for being
able to forget at once his sorrow and the gravity of his circumstances
at sight of anything so trifling as a collection of trinkets. But in
reality this interlude was balm to them both. It revealed to Miss
Bethune a possibility of ordinary life and intercourse, made sweet by
understanding and affection, which was a revelation to her repressed and
passionate spirit; and it soothed the youth with that renewing of fresh
interests, reviving and succeeding the old, which gives elasticity to
the mind, and courage to face the world anew. They did not know how long
they had been occupied over the jewels, when the hour of dinner came
round again, and Gilchrist appeared with her preparations, still further
increasing that sense of peaceful life renewed, and the order of common
things begun again. It was only after this meal was over, the jewels
being all restored to their places, and the box to its old brown cover
in Miss Bethune’s bedroom, that the discussion of the graver question
was resumed.
“There is one thing,” Miss Bethune said, “that, however proud you may
be, you must let me say: and that is, that everything having turned out
so different to your thoughts, and you left--you will not be
offended?--astray, as it were, in this big unfriendly place----”
“I cannot call it unfriendly,” said young Gordon. “If other people find
it so, it is not my experience. I have found you.” He looked up at her
with a half laugh, with moisture in his eyes.
“Ay,” she said, with emphasis, “you have found me--you say well--found
me when you were not looking for me. I accept the word as a good omen.
And after that?”
If only she would not have abashed him from time to time with those dark
sayings, which seemed to mean something to which he had no clue! He felt
himself brought suddenly to a standstill in his grateful effusion of
feeling, and put up his hand to arrest her in what she was evidently
going on to say.
“Apart from that,” he said hurriedly, “I am not penniless. I have not
been altogether dependent; at least, the form of my dependence has been
the easiest one. I have had my allowance from my guardian ever since I
came to man’s estate. It was my own, though, of course, of his giving.
And I am not an extravagant fellow. It was not as if I wanted money for
to-morrow’s living, for daily bread.” He coloured as he spoke, with the
half pride, half shame, of discussing such a subject. “I think,” he
said, throwing off that flush with a shake of his head, “that I have
enough to take me back to South America, and there, I told you, I have
friends. I don’t think I can fail to find work there.”
“But under such different circumstances! Have you considered? A poor
clerk where you were one of the fine gentlemen of the place. Such a
change of position is easier where you are not known.”
He grew red again, with a more painful colour. “I don’t think so,” he
said quickly. “I don’t believe that my old friends would cast me off
because, instead of being a useless fellow about town, I was a poor
clerk.”
“Maybe you are right,” said Miss Bethune very gravely. “I am not one
that thinks so ill of human nature. They would not cast you off. But
you, working hard all day, wearied at night, with no house to entertain
them in that entertained you, would it not be you that would cast off
them?”
He looked at her, startled, for a moment. “Do you think,” he cried,
“that poverty makes a man mean like that?” And then he added slowly: “It
is possible, perhaps, that it might be so.” Then he brightened up again,
and looked her full in the face. “But then there would be nobody to
blame for that, it would be simply my own fault.”
“God bless you, laddie!” cried Miss Bethune quite irrelevantly; and then
she too paused. “If it should happen so that there was a place provided
for you at home. No, no, not what you call dependence--far from it, hard
work. I know one--a lady that has property in the North--property that
has not been well managed--that has given her more trouble than it is
worth. But there’s much to be made of it, if she had a man who would
give his mind to it as if--as if it were his own.”
“But I,” he said, “know nothing about the North. I would not know how to
manage. I told you I had no education. And would this lady have me,
trust me, put that in my hands, without knowing, without----”
“She would trust you,” said Miss Bethune, clasping her hands together
firmly, and looking him in the face, in a rigid position which showed
how little steady she was--“she would trust you, for life and death, on
my word.”
His eyes fell before that unfathomable concentration of hers. “And you
would trust me like that--knowing so little, so little? And how can you
tell even that I am honest--even that I am true? That there’s nothing
behind, no weakness, no failure?”
“Don’t speak to me,” she said harshly. “I know.”