As for Kate and Dr Mitford, they did not know very well what to say to
each other. “What a charming day!” the girl said at intervals; “and
what a pretty country! I never knew it until I took that unfortunate
ride.”
“Don’t speak of that,” said the old gentleman; “at least don’t speak of
it _so_. It was a most fortunate ride, I am sure, for us.”
“It makes me giddy when I think of it,” said Kate, shutting her eyes.
“You are very fond of riding, I suppose? I am always rather nervous
when I see a lady on a spirited horse. You are very charming riders,
and very full of courage, and all that,” said the Doctor, who was
himself considerably bothered by the mild animal he was driving; “but
it requires a man’s hand, my dear Miss Crediton. There are some
things, believe me, that require a man’s hand.”
“Yes, no doubt,” said Kate, politely, longing all the time to take the
reins into her own small nervous fingers. Dr Mitford had a nice little
white soft hand--a clergyman’s hand--without any bone or fibre in it.
“We made up our minds quite suddenly,” she went on, “that we would go
back from Humbledon to Camelford, riding. I had often heard of Fanshawe
Regis, but I never saw it before.”
“Most people have heard of Fanshawe Regis,” said the Doctor. “I
consider my library one of the lions of the country--not that it is so
very old, only Elizabethan, or, at the farthest, Henry the Seventh;
but household architecture is a thing by itself. We expect the
Archæological Society to hold its next meeting at Camelford, and then
I hope much light may be thrown upon our antiquities. We shall make
an excursion to Dulchester, Miss Crediton, and you must come with us
there.”
“Oh, I am sure I am much obliged,” said Kate.
“You would enjoy that,” said Dr Mitford. “Downy is sure to be there
from Oxford, and I should not wonder if he gave a lecture on it. He is
one of the very great guns. He understands more about it than almost
any man in England, I must say, to do him justice. But almost is not
all, my dear Miss Crediton; and when you see a man setting himself
up for an authority in presence of others who----” Here the Doctor
stopped, and laughed a conscious complacent laugh; by which Kate
perceived that Dr Mitford himself was a greater authority still, or at
least thought he was.
“It is very funny,” said Kate, “but I shall be better off going with
you than if I had half-a-dozen archæological societies. I feel quite
sure of that.”
“Well, well, we must not brag,” said Dr Mitford, waving his white hand
softly. “This camp, you must know, was one of the camps of Agricola,
which he made on his journey northwards. It is constructed----”
And so the narrative went on. Kate kept looking up at him with her
bright eyes, and said yes, and said no, and made herself very
agreeable; but I cannot undertake to say that she was much the better
for it. In the first place, she took no interest whatever in Roman
camps, and then she had a good deal on her mind. What was John about
all this time? Why did not he manage to get into the phaeton in his
father’s place, and drive her? If the horse had not been the meekest
and most long-suffering of animals, Kate felt that there must have
been another running away, and another accident. And her recent
experience had made her nervous. When she had received an immense deal
of information about the _castrum_ which she was going with so
little enthusiasm to visit, she suddenly caught a glimpse of a group of
turrets among the trees, and gave a start, which made Dr Mitford and
his horse swerve aside, and shook the hood of the phaeton so that it
nearly descended upon the party, burying them alive.
“Oh, there is Westbrook, where the Huntleys live!” cried Kate. “I beg
your pardon, Dr Mitford, I am sure. Mrs Mitford said we were to call.
Don’t you think we had better go now, in case they should be out?
There was a message, you know, that you were to give.”
“Oh, about croquet,” said the Doctor, and his brow was slightly
ruffled. He would not allow, even to himself, that his instruction
was slighted; but still he felt that she had been able to see the
towers of Westbrook at the very moment when he was affording her every
information. But he was too polite to make any objection. Westbrook was
a very fine house, but its turrets were new, and its wealth had been
made, not inherited, for which half the country said, “So much the more
credit to the Huntleys;” and all the country, even the poor clergymen
and the country doctors, looked down upon them, though not upon their
parties, which were unexceptionable. Mr Crediton being himself only
a banker, had not much indulged in this universal condescension; and
Kate was very glad to bethink herself of the Huntleys at this special
moment. They were better than Dulchester, and the phaeton with the
unsteady hood. There were two sons and two daughters. The girls were
plain, and no way remarkable; neither was Willie, the second son; but
Fred was very clever--so clever that nobody knew what was to be done
with him. He had taken a first-class at Oxford, and done everything
else a young man can do that is gratifying and honourable. He was
fellow of his college, and was understood to be able to do anything he
pleased in the way of scholarship or literature. If he had but taken
the trouble to write, a great many people were of opinion that he would
have beaten Tennyson hollow; but he was indolent, and satisfied with
his position, and had as much as ever he could desire without doing
anything for it. And consequently, his great gifts were unexercised.
The country, however, which had been cold to his family, and patronised
them, acknowledged that such condescension would be out of character to
a man who had taken a first-class. And thus the Huntleys had risen in
popular estimation. Kate recalled Mrs Mitford’s words to her mind as
they drove unwillingly up to the great door. “Frederick is at home.”
She had known Frederick for years, but he was too much self-absorbed,
Kate thought, ever to care for any girl; and so it happened that not
even flirtation had ever passed between them. “That prig to play
croquet!” she said to herself, with a shrug of her shoulders; and
then she sprang down, and received a farewell blow from the hood of
the phaeton upon her pretty bonnet. Poor Kate! It was all she could
do to restrain herself from shaking her little fist at it. The tears
almost came to her eyes as she straightened the injured bonnet with
her hands. Was it an evil omen? for the Huntleys were out, all but Mrs
Huntley--and the girls were engaged for next day; and Willie had gone
to town; and Fred----“My dear, you know I never can answer for Fred,”
his mother said, with pride. “He has his own engagements, and all sorts
of things to do.”
“Oh yes, to be sure; it is not likely he would stoop so far as to play
croquet,” said Kate; “but I am only giving Mrs Mitford’s message. You
know it is not me that asks. I will tell her what you say.”
“Tell her I am so sorry,” said Mrs Huntley. “I know what it is to be
disappointed when one tries to get up any little thing impromptu, and
the girls would have been so glad, and so would Willie--but she knows
I cannot answer for Fred. Dr Mitford, I am so sorry Mr Huntley is not
at home, nor my son. If they had known there was the least chance of
seeing you! But now you have come, you must have some tea.”
“I thank you, my dear madam,” said the Doctor, “but we have still a
good way to go. I am taking Miss Crediton to see the Roman camp at
Dulchester. It is not often I go so far, but you know I pretend to a
little antiquarian knowledge----”
“Oh, a little indeed!” said Mrs Huntley; “we all know what that means.
You may be very proud, Kate, to have such a cicerone. I can’t tell you
how I sigh for you, Doctor, when we have people down from town, and
they go to see the camp. Oh, don’t ask me, I always beg of them--you
should hear all about it if Dr Mitford were here.”
“Well, one has one’s little bits of information, of course,” said Dr
Mitford, with a deprecating wave of the hand; “one’s hobby, I suppose
the young people would call it. I am very glad that Frederick has got
his fellowship. It must be a great satisfaction to his father and you.”
“Well, we were pleased, of course,” said the lady; “though, but for the
honour of the thing, it did not matter to Fred. I often say how odd it
is that such things should fall to him who don’t want them, when so
many poor fellows, to whom it would be a real blessing, fail. He has no
business to have the money and the brains too.”
“That must make it all the more agreeable,” said the Doctor, with a
stiff bow; and the looks of the two parents made Kate wonder suddenly
whether John had been successful in his university career. Poor fellow!
he did not look remarkably bright. There was no analogy between his
looks and Fred Huntley’s sharp clever face--but then he was some years
younger than Fred.
“Won’t you be persuaded to stay to dinner?” said Mrs Huntley; “you
never can get back in time for your own. We have not seen Kate for
ages, nor you either, Dr Mitford. Do stay--my husband and all of
them will be back before dinner. Mr Huntley will be so vexed and
disappointed if I let you go.”
“But Dulchester, my dear lady,” said the Doctor, rising and making her
a bow.
“Oh, Dulchester!--is your heart so much set upon it, Kate?”
Fortunately Kate glanced at her guide before she replied, and saw that
he was red with mortification, anticipating her answer. “Oh dear, yes!
my heart is set upon it,” she cried. “Dr Mitford has come all the way
to make me understand; and, indeed, it is getting late, and we must not
stop, even for tea.”
“I will go and see that the carriage is brought round,” said her old
cavalier, with alacrity; and he shook hands with Mrs Huntley, who
mimicked him as soon as his back was turned with a sweep of her hand
and smirk of affability which tried Kate’s gravity much. “Oh, my dear,
you don’t know what you are going to encounter,” she said, in a rapid
undertone, as soon as he was gone. “I tried to save you from it, but
you would not back me up. He is the most dreadful old bore----”
“Hush! I am staying in his house, and they have been very, very kind,”
said Kate, with a sudden blush.
“Staying in their house! I must speak to your papa about that, who
never will let you come to us. But I did not know you knew the
Mitfords, Kate.”
“We did not know them--but--my horse ran away with me--and Dr
Mitford’s--son--saved my life.”
This Kate gave forth very slowly, with eyes that glittered with sudden
excitement; and Mrs Huntley, for her part, received the news with the
most eager interest.
“Oh, was it you?” she cried. “We heard something of it. They say it was
quite a wonder that he didn’t lose his own life. But, dear me, Kate!
after anything so interesting, how was it that he didn’t drive you
himself instead of his papa?”
“I suppose, because he was never consulted,” said Kate, with some
indignation; “and now I must not keep Dr Mitford waiting. Mrs Mitford
has been so good to me--oh, so kind! She has nursed me as if I had
been her own child; and papa let me stay, he was so grateful to them.
I don’t know, I am sure, what the son did for me, but I know what the
mother has done. She was as kind as if I had been her own child.”
“Her own child!” Mrs Huntley repeated to herself, with bewilderment,
when Kate ran down-stairs; “oh yes, indeed! _that_ one can easily
understand. What a nice thing for John! But I am sure I should never
think of such a little flirt for one of my sons, however rich she
was--a spoiled child!”
This would have hurt Kate’s feelings if she had heard it, for she
thought she was a favourite of Mrs Huntley’s--and so indeed she was;
but it is hard upon a woman to hear unmoved that somebody else’s son
has been braver, abler, more successful than her son, even though, as
she reminded herself with a toss of her head, her boys had no need for
that sort of thing, thank heaven! “Fred shall go, if I can persuade
him,” she said within herself, “and spoil _that_ John’s game,
though they think so much of him;” and yet there was not a shadow of a
reason why Mrs Huntley should wish to thwart _that_ John.
After this Kate had to do the camp, and did it with a heroic show of
interest. She got through it, looking up into Dr Mitford’s face with
such bright and vivid looks that the good man felt he had at last found
a congenial soul. Kate bore this, and she bore the assaults of the
unsteady hood, though it gave her yet another thump upon her bonnet,
which nearly made an end of that ornament. But there are limits to
human nature, and she was very glad when she found herself approaching
home. She called the Rectory home with the frankest satisfaction,
such as would have awakened many thoughts in Mrs Mitford’s mind. It
was sweet to see the pretty irregular house in the evening light,
with its shadow turned to the east and all its windows open, and the
great sheaves of lilies sending forth their fragrance. John suddenly
appeared to open the gate as they drove up, as if he had sprung from
the earth; and his mother was standing on the lawn with her white shawl
thrown over her, like another flower; and the expedition was over,
and the _castrum_ done with, and Dr Mitford pleased, and the
bonnet, perhaps, not spoiled for ever. Kate was so glad that she gave
Mrs Mitford an unexpected kiss as she jumped lightly down. “How nice
it is to have some one waiting for us!” she said, with almost tearful
earnestness--the poor motherless girl! Mrs Mitford was touched by the
accent, and Kate was touched herself, though of course she must have
known how much of her emotion was delight at being free of what she
considered a bore. But it was not entirely relief either, and there was
some real feeling in the girl’s perverse little heart.
“I am so grieved they cannot come,” said Mrs Mitford, when they were
all seated at dinner, which had been delayed. “I am so sorry, my dear,
for you; but perhaps you might try a game with John--and the party
could be asked for another day.”
“I am so glad,” said Kate. “It is so nice to escape the
croquet-parties, and all the stuff one has to think about at home.”
“But, my dear, you must miss your amusements,” said Mrs Mitford. “I
should not think a quiet life was the kind of life for you.”
“Changes are what I like,” said Kate, bravely. “I could not live always
in a turmoil, and I could not live always in a hermitage. I should like
sometimes the one and sometimes the other. The dreadful thing would be,
to be always the same.”
Mrs Mitford gave her son a piteous look, and then cast an instinctive
glance round the room. She did not herself feel the full meaning that
was in her eyes. She glanced at all the signs of her own changeless
existence. For years and years she had visited the same places at the
same hours, sat down to the same work, made the same engagements,
discharged the same duties. The dinner-party, which, contrary to her
own lights, she was going to give in honour of Kate, would have the
same people at it as had been at her first dinner-party after her
wedding. She said to herself that if John were rich he could give his
wife a great deal more change; but still there remained the fact that
John’s wife would have the parish to think of, and the schools, and
the old women. It would not do, alas! it could not do, Mrs Mitford
concluded, as she rose from dinner with a sigh. And yet it would be
such a thing for John.
And to see poor John’s miserable look when he came into the
drawing-room, and found that Kate had a headache and had gone to bed.
“It must have been that confounded camp,” he said, through his teeth,
which grieved his mother more.
“Oh, my dear, don’t swear,” she said; “things are bad enough without
that.”
“What things? and what do you mean, mother?” growled John.
“It is--that girl. I am so sorry she came here--so sorry you saved her,
John; that she should come where no one wanted her, disturbing my boy!”
“Sorry I saved her! Are you mad, mother?” cried her son.
“Oh, you know I did not mean that. I am glad she is saved, poor
thing--very glad; but oh, John, my dear, why should she come disturbing
you? You must not think anything more about her, my own boy. See what
pains she takes to show you it is no use. She could not live where it
is always the same! Oh, John, after so many warnings, if you fall into
her wiles at last!”
“What folly!” he said, leaving her, and throwing himself on a sofa
in a dark corner, where the light of the lamp did not reach him. The
anxious mother could no longer see his face. It was not with her as in
days past, when he would poke into the light, under the shade of the
lamp, and put his book on the top of her work, getting many a tender
scold for it, or read aloud to her, which was her greatest pleasure.
The Doctor was in his study, busy with his paper for the Archæological
Society, and as indifferent to his wife’s loneliness as if she had
been his housekeeper. Mrs Mitford had long ago got over that. She had
accepted it as the natural course of affairs that your husband should
go back to his study after dinner. Perhaps it would have plagued
more than pleased her now had he suddenly made his appearance in the
drawing-room. What she liked was to get her work or her knitting
(John’s socks, which she always made with her own hands), and listen,
in a soft rapture of ineffable content, as he read to her. It did not
matter much what he read; his voice, and the work in her hand, and the
consciousness that her boy was there, wrapt her in a silent atmosphere
of happiness. But now how different it was! The Doctor by himself in
his study, and Kate by herself in her chamber, and the mother and
son, with almost the whole breadth of the room between them, each in
a corner, he in the dark, she in the light, alone too. And it was all
_that girl’s_ fault. It was she who was making him unhappy.
“John, won’t you read to me a little, dear?” said his mother from the
table.
“I can’t to-night,” he answered from the sofa, glad that his face was
not visible. He was so vexed and disappointed and mortified, coming
in full of the expectation of a long evening in Kate’s society, and
finding her gone. A year or two ago it would have brought tears to
John’s eyes. He was a man now, and it was not possible to cry, but he
was so disappointed that he could scarcely endure himself. Mrs Mitford
bore his silence and abstraction as long as she could. It went to her
heart--but she was all mother, down to the tips of her fingers; and
though it gave her a deep wound to think her boy had thus given her
over, she could not bear to see him unhappy. She laid down her work at
last, and stole out of the room, wondering if he noticed her going, and
went and knocked at Kate’s door. “My dear, I have just made the tea,
and it smells so refreshing. I thought, if you had not gone to bed, a
cup would do you good,” she said, coming in and taking Kate’s hand. Her
eyes were so wistful, such an unspoken prayer was in her face, that a
glimmering of what she must mean just flashed upon Kate.
“How good of you to come and tell me! May Parsons go down and bring me
a cup?” said the girl. She had been seated by the open window, with the
breath of the lilies stealing up from the dark garden, and a reverie
had stolen over her, about nothing in particular; only the soft night
was in it, and the lilies, and the vague delights of youth. I almost
think she had felt John Mitford’s incipient undeveloped sentiment
breathing up to her in the vagueness and darkness, with an indefinite
perfume, like the flowers. And Kate had no mind to leave this sweet
confusion of dreams and odours and far-off suggestion, for actual talk
and commonplace intercourse; and her first impulse was to get gently
rid of her visitor, if that might be.
“It would lose all its fragrance coming up-stairs,” said Mrs Mitford.
“You have not begun to undress, or even taken down your pretty hair;
come down, my dear, for half an hour,--I know it will do your head
good. You know, everybody says ours is such good tea.”
“Don’t I know it!” said Kate; “but----”
“But I can’t take any refusal,” said Mrs Mitford, drawing the girl’s
arm within her own. Oh, how little she wanted her at that moment, had
the truth been known! and yet she coaxed and wooed her as if it were
a personal grace. And the girl yielded, thinking more a great deal of
the sweetness of being thus sought and coaxed by the mother, than of
the son who was sitting in the dumps on the sofa in the dark corner
down-stairs.
“If _you_ want me,” she said, with a faint accent of inquiry, and
gave Mrs Mitford a soft little kiss. “I think mamma must have been
like you,” she said in apology, a remark which confused John’s mother,
and made her feel guilty. For it was not kindness to this motherless
creature that moved her, but the maternal passion which paused at
nothing which could give pleasure to her boy.
John was standing in the open window hesitating whether he should
plunge out into the darkness, when he heard the voices of the two
ladies coming down-stairs, and all the room immediately filled with
radiance and splendour. In a moment he was back again, standing,
hovering over Kate, who sank into an easy-chair close to the light, and
gave herself up to the delights of the promised cup of tea. He did not
say a dozen words to her all the rest of the evening, but he was happy;
and she lying back at her ease, with the consciousness of an admiring
audience, chattered and sipped, and was happy too. It did not occur
to Kate that every word she said was being closely criticised by the
woman who had gone to seek her, who was basking in the pleasant rays
of her youth, and smiling at all her nonsense and chatter, and looking
so wistfully at her by times. She thought she had made a conquest
of Mrs Mitford _too_, and was pleased and proud. “I cannot be
just a little flirt and a stupid,” Kate was saying to herself, “for
Mrs Mitford is fond of me _too_.” And with this pleasant sense
of having an utterly indulgent audience, she rattled on more freely
than she had ever before found it possible to do at Fanshawe. And Mrs
Mitford made secret notes of all the nonsense, and laid up in her
memory everything that was said. And then the Doctor came in from his
study, and the bell was rung, and the servants appeared dimly, and sat
down in a row against the further wall where it was dark; and they
had prayers. Mrs Mitford was scrupulous about having a shade over the
lamp--she thought it was good for the eyes--so that there was one
brilliant spot round the table, and all the rest was dim and vague,
darkness deepening into the corners, and intensifying to a centre in
the great window full of night, the open abyss into the garden all
sweet with roses and lilies, through which there puffed by times a
breath of summer wind. Now that the tea-things were removed, it was Dr
Mitford’s white head, and his open book, and the whiter hand which was
laid upon it, that were the foremost objects in the room; and in the
middle distance among the shadows was Mrs Mitford; and at the back,
like ghosts, the maids and the man. Kate joined very devoutly in the
prayers, and felt glad she had come down-stairs. “How good they are,
how quiet it is, how nice to have prayers! and oh, what sweetness in
the air!” she said to herself, when she ought to have been praying. It
was novel to her, and the composition of the picture was so pretty.
And they were all so kind--fond of her, indeed. Kate went back to her
room, when all was over, with a soft complacency and satisfaction with
herself possessing her heart.