MOTHER SCUDAMORE
If we want to know how a tree or flower has borne the gale that flogged
last night, or the frost that stung the morning, the only sure plan is
to go and see. And the only way to understand how a friend has taken
affliction is to go--if it may be done without intrusion--and let him
tell you, if he likes.
Admiral Darling was so much vexed when he heard of Blyth Scudamore's
capture by the French, and duty compelled him to inform the mother, that
he would rather have ridden a thousand miles upon barley-bread than
face her. He knew how the whole of her life was now bound up with the
fortunes of her son, and he longed to send Faith with the bad news, as
he had sent her with the good before; but he feared that it might seem
unkind. So he went himself, with the hope of putting the best complexion
upon it, yet fully expecting sad distress, and perhaps a burst of
weeping. But the lady received his tidings in a manner that surprised
him. At first she indulged in a tear or two, but they only introduced a
smile.
“In some ways it is a sad thing,” she said, “and will be a terrible blow
to him, just when he was rising so fast in the service. But we must not
rebel more than we can help, against the will of the Lord, Sir Charles.”
“How philosophical, and how commonplace!” thought the Admiral; but he
only bowed, and paid her some compliment upon her common-sense.
“Perhaps you scarcely understand my views, and perhaps I am wrong in
having them,” Lady Scudamore continued, quietly. “My son's advancement
is very dear to me, and this will of course retard it. But I care most
of all for his life, and now that will be safe for a long while. They
never kill their prisoners, do they?”
“No, ma'am, no. They behave very well to them; better, I'm afraid, than
we do to ours. They treat them quite as guests, when they fall into good
hands. Though Napoleon himself is not too mild in that way.”
“My son has fallen into very good hands, as you yourself assure me--that
Captain Desportes, a gallant officer and kind gentleman, as I know from
your daughter's description. Blyth is quite equal to Lord Nelson in
personal daring, and possibly not behind him in abilities. Consider how
shockingly poor Nelson has been injured, and he feels convinced himself
that they will have his life at last. No officer can be a hero without
getting very sad wounds, and perhaps losing his life. Every one who does
his duty must at least be wounded.”
The Admiral, who had never received a scratch, was not at all charmed
with this view of naval duty; but he was too polite to enter protest,
and only made one of his old-fashioned scrapes.
“I am sure every time I have heard a gun coming from the sea, and
especially after dark,” the lady resumed, without thinking of him, “it
has made me miserable to know that probably Blyth was rushing into some
deadly conflict. But now I shall feel that he cannot do that; and I hope
they will keep him until the fighting grows milder. He used to send me
all his money, poor dear boy! And now I shall try to send him some of
mine, if it can be arranged about bank-notes. And now I can do it very
easily, thanks to your kindness, Sir Charles, his father's best friend,
and his own, and mine.”
Lady Scudamore shed another tear or two, not of sorrow, but of pride,
while she put her hand into her pocket, as if to begin the remittance at
once. “You owe me no thanks, ma'am,” said the Admiral, smiling; “if any
thanks are due, they are due to the King, for remembering at last what
he should have done before.”
“Would he ever have thought of me, but for you? It is useless to talk
in that way, Sir Charles; it only increases the obligation, which I must
entreat you not to do. How I wish I could help you in anything!”
“Every day you are helping me,” he replied, with truth; “although I am
away too often to know all about it, or even to thank you. I hope my
dear Faith has persuaded you not to leave us for the winter, as you
threatened.”
“Faith can persuade me to anything she pleases. She possesses the power
of her name,” replied the lady; “but the power is not called for, when
the persuasion is so pleasant. For a month, I must be away to visit my
dear mother, as I always have done at this time of year; and then, but
for one thing, I would return most gladly. For I am very selfish, you
must know, Sir Charles--I have a better chance of hearing of my dear
son at these head-quarters of the defence of England, than I should have
even in London.”
“Certainly,” cried the Admiral, who magnified his office; “such a number
of despatches pass through my hands; and if I can't make them out, why,
my daughter Dolly can. I don't suppose, Lady Scudamore, that even when
you lived in the midst of the world you ever saw any girl half so
clever as my Dolly. I don't let her know it--that would never do, of
course--but she always gets the best of me, upon almost any question.”
Sir Charles, for the moment, forgot his best manners, and spread his
coat so that one might see between his legs. “I stand like this,” he
said, “and she stands there; and I take her to task for not paying her
bills--for some of those fellows have had to come to me, which is not
as it should be in a country place, where people don't understand the
fashionable system. She stands there, ma'am, and I feel as sure as if I
were an English twenty-four bearing down upon a Frenchman of fifty
guns, that she can only haul her colours down and rig out gangway
ladders--when, bless me and keep me! I am carried by surprise, and
driven under hatchways, and if there is a guinea in my hold, it flies
into the enemy's locker! If it happened only once, I should think
nothing of it. But when I know exactly what is coming, and have
double-shotted every gun, and set up hammock-nettings, and taken
uncommon care to have the weather-gage, 'tis the Devil, Lady
Scudamore--excuse me, madam--'tis the Devil to a ditty-bag that I have
her at my mercy. And yet it always comes to money out of pocket, madam!”
“She certainly has a great power over gentlemen”--Blyth's mother smiled
demurely, as if she were sorry to confess it; “but she is exceedingly
young, Sir Charles, and every allowance must be made for her.”
“And by the Lord Harry, she gets it, madam. She takes uncommonly good
care of that. But what is the one thing you mentioned that would prevent
you from coming back to us with pleasure?”
“I scarcely like to speak of it. But it is about that self-same Dolly.
She is not fond of advice, and she knows how quick she is, and that
makes her resent a word from slower people. She has taken it into her
head, I fear, that I am here as a restraint upon her; a sort of lady
spy, a duenna, a dictatress, all combined in one, and all unpleasant.
This often makes me fancy that I have no right to be here. And then your
sweet Faith comes, and all is smooth again.”
“Dolly has the least little possible touch of the vixen about her. I
have found it out lately,” said the Admiral, as if he were half doubtful
still; “Nelson told me so, and I was angry with him. But I believe he
was right, as he generally is. His one eye sees more than a score of
mine would. But, my dear madam, if that is your only objection to coming
back to us, or rather to my daughters, I beg you not to let it weigh a
feather's weight with you. Or, at any rate, enhance the obligation to
us, by putting it entirely on one side. Dolly has the very finest heart
in all the world; not so steady perhaps as Faith's, nor quite so fair to
other people, but wonderfully warm, ma'am, and as sound as--as a roach.”
Lady Scudamore could not help laughing a little, and she hoped for her
son's sake that this account was true. Her gratitude and good-will to
the Admiral, as well as her duty to her son, made her give the promise
sought for; and she began to prepare for her journey at once, that she
might be back in good time for the winter. But she felt very doubtful,
at leaving the Hall, whether she had done quite right in keeping her
suspicions of Dolly from Dolly's father. For with eyes which were
sharpened by jealousy for the interests, or at least the affections,
of her son, she had long perceived that his lady-love was playing a
dangerous game with Caryl Carne. Sometimes she believed that she ought
to speak of this, for the good of the family; because she felt the
deepest mistrust and dislike of Carne, who strictly avoided her whenever
he could; but on the other hand she found the subject most delicate and
difficult to handle. For she had taken good care at the outset not to be
here upon any false pretences. At the very first interview with her host
she had spoken of Blyth's attachment to his younger daughter, of which
the Admiral had heard already from that youthful sailor. And the Admiral
had simply said, as in Captain Twemlow's case: “Let us leave them to
themselves. I admire the young man. If she likes him, I shall make no
objection, when they are old enough, and things are favourable.” And now
if she told him of the other love-affair, it would look like jealousy
of a rival. Perhaps a hundred times a day, as her love for gentle Faith
grew faster than her liking for the sprightly Dolly, she would sigh
that her son did not see things like herself; but bitter affliction had
taught her that the course of this life follows our own wishes about
as much as another man's dog heeds our whistle. But, for all that, this
good lady hoped some day to see things come round as she would like to
bring them.
“No wonder that we like her son so much,” said Faith when they had done
waving handkerchiefs at the great yellow coach going slowly up the hill,
with its vast wicker basket behind, and the guard perched over it with
his blunderbus; “he takes after his mother in so many ways. They are
both so simple and unsuspicious, and they make the best of every one.”
“Including themselves, I suppose,” answered Dolly. “Well I like people
who have something on their minds, and make the worst of everybody. They
have so much more to talk about.”
“You should never try to be sarcastic, dear. And you know that you don't
mean it. I am sure you don't like to have the worst made of yourself.”
“Oh, I have long been used to that. And I never care about it, when I
know it is not true. I am sure that Mother Scudamore runs me down, when
I am out of hearing. I never did like those perfect people.”
“Mother Scudamore, indeed! You are getting into a low way of talking,
which is not at all pretty in a girl. And I never heard her say an
unkind word about you. Though she may not have found you quite so
perfect as she hoped.”
“I tell you, Miss Darling,” cried Dolly, with her bright colour
deepened, and her grey eyes flashing, “that I don't care a--something
that papa often says--what she thinks about me, or you either. I know
that she has come here to spy out all my ways.”
“You should not have any to be spied out, Dolly,” Faith answered, with
some sternness, and a keen look at her sister, whose eyes fell beneath
her gaze. “You will be sorry, when you think of what you said to me, who
have done nothing whatever to offend you. But that is a trifle compared
with acting unfairly to our father. Father is the kindest man that ever
lived; but he can be stern in great matters, I warn you. If he ever
believes that you have deceived him, you will never be again to him what
you have always been.”
They had sent the carriage home that they might walk across the fields,
and this little scene between the sisters took place upon a foot-path
which led back to their grounds. Dolly knew that she was in the wrong,
and that increased her anger.
“So you are another spy upon me, I suppose. 'Tis a pretty thing to have
one's sister for an old duenna. Pray who gave you authority to lord it
over me?”
“You know as well as I do”--Faith spoke with a smile of superior
calmness, as Dolly tossed her head--“that I am about the last person in
the world to be a spy. Neither do I ever lord it over you. If anything,
that matter is very much the other way. But being so much older, and
your principal companion, it would be very odd of me, and as I think
most unkind, if I did not take an interest in all your goings on.”
“My goings on! What a lady-like expression! Who has got into a low way
of talking now? Well, if you please, madam, what have you found out?”
“I have found out nothing, and made no attempt to do so. But I see that
you are altered very much from what you used to be; and I am sure that
there is something on your mind. Why not tell me all about it? I would
promise to let it go no further, and I would not pretend to advise,
unless you wished. I am your only sister, and we have always been
together. It would make you so much more comfortable, I am certain of
that, in your own mind, darling. And you know when we were little girls,
dear mother on her death-bed put her hands upon our heads and said, 'Be
loving sisters always, and never let anything come between you.' And
for father's sake, too, you should try to do it. Put aside all nonsense
about spies and domineering, and trust me as your sister, that's my own
darling Dolly.”
“How can I resist you? I will make a clean breast of it;” Dolly sighed
deeply, but a wicked smile lay ambushed in her bright eyes and upon her
rosy lips. “The sad truth is that my heart has been quite sore since I
heard the shocking tidings about poor old Daddy Stokes. He went to bed
the other night with his best hat on, both his arms in an old muff he
found in the ditch, and his leathern breeches turned inside out.”
“Then the poor old man had a cleaner breast than yours,” cried Faith,
who had prepared her heart and eyes for tears of sympathy; “he goes upon
his knees every night, stiff as they are, and his granddaughter has
to help him up. But as for you, you are the most unfeeling, mocking,
godless, unnatural creature that ever never cared what became of
anybody. Here we are at the corner where the path divides. You go home
that way, and I'll go home by this.”
“Well, I'm so glad! I really did believe that it was quite impossible to
put you in a rage. Now don't be in a hurry, dear, to beg my pardon.”
“Of that you may be quite sure,” cried Faith across the corner of the
meadow where the paths diverged; “I never was less in a passion in my
life; and it will be your place to apologise.”
Dolly sent a merry laugh across the widening interval; and Faith, who
was just beginning to fear that she had been in a passion, was
convinced by that laugh that she had not. But the weight lifted from her
conscience fell more heavily upon her heart.