Dinner falling in a time of excitement like that which I have just
described, with its suggestions of perfect calm and regularity, the
unbroken routine of life, has a very curious effect upon agitated
minds. John Mitford felt as if some catastrophe must have happened
to him as he sat alone at his side of the table, and looked across
at Kate, who was a little troubled too, and reflected how long a
time he must sit there eating and drinking, or pretending to eat and
drink; obliged to keep at that distance from her--to address common
conversation to her--to describe the boating, and the wood, and all
that had happened, as if it had been the most ordinary expedition in
the world. Kate was very kind to him in this respect, though perhaps
he was too far gone to think it kind. She took upon herself the weight
of the conversation. She told Mrs Mitford quite fluently all about the
boat and her bad steering, and all the accidents that had happened,
and how John had jumped into the water. “I know you will never forgive
me if he has caught cold,” Kate said, glibly, with even a mischievous
look in her eye; “but I must tell. And I do hope you changed your
stockings,” she said, leaning across the table to him with a smile.
It was a mocking smile, full of mischief, and yet there was in it a
certain softened look. It was then that poor John felt as if some
explosion must take place, as he sat and restrained himself, and tried
to look like a man interested in his dinner. Nobody else took any
notice of his agitation, and probably even his mother did not perceive
it; but Jervis the butler did, as he stood by his side, and helped Mr
John to potatoes. He could not dissimulate the shaking of his hand.
“My dear, I should never blame _you_,” said Mrs Mitford, with a
little tremor in her voice; “he is always so very rash. Of course you
changed, John?”
“Oh, of course,” he said, with a laugh, which sounded cynical and
Byronic to his audience. And then he made a violent effort to master
himself. “Miss Crediton thought the river was rather pretty,” he added,
with a hard-drawn breath of agitation, which sounded to his mother like
the first appearance of the threatened cold.
“Jervis,” she said, mildly, “will you be good enough to fetch me the
camphor from my cupboard, and two lumps of sugar? My dear boy, it is
not nasty; it is only as a precaution. It will not interfere with your
dinner, and it is sure to stop a cold.”
John gave his mother a look under which she trembled. It said as
plainly as possible, you are making me ridiculous; and it was pointed
by a glance at Kate, who certainly was smiling. Mrs Mitford was quick
enough to understand, and she was cowed by her son’s gravity. “Perhaps,
on second thoughts,” she said, faltering, “you need not mind, Jervis.
It will do when Mr John goes to bed.”
“The only use of camphor is at the moment when you take a cold,” said
Dr Mitford; “identify that moment, and take your dose, and you are all
safe. But I have always found that the great difficulty was to identify
the moment. Did you point out to Miss Crediton the curious effect the
current has had upon the rocks? I am not geological myself, but still
it is very interesting. The constant friction of the water has laid
bare a most remarkable stratification. Ah! I see he did not point it
out, from your look.”
“Indeed I don’t think Mr John showed me anything that was instructive,”
said Kate, with a demure glance at him. At present she was having it
all her own way.
“Ah! youth, youth,” said Dr Mitford, shaking his head. “He was much
more likely to tell you about his boating exploits, I fear. If you
really wish to understand the history and structure of the district,
you must take me with you, Miss Crediton. Young men are so foolish as
to think these things slow.”
“But then I am going away to-morrow,” said Kate, with a little pathetic
inflection of her voice. “And perhaps Mrs Mitford will never ask me to
come back again. And I shall have to give up the hope of knowing the
district. But anybody that steers so badly as I do,”--Kate continued,
with much humility, but doubtful grammar, “it is not to be wondered at
if the gentleman who is rowing them should think they were too ignorant
to learn.”
“Then the gentleman who was rowing you was a stupid fellow,” said the
Doctor. “I never had a more intelligent listener in my life; but, my
dear young lady, you must come back when the Society is here. Their
meeting is at Camelford, and they must make an excursion to the Camp.”
“And you will come and stay with us, Dr Mitford,” said Kate, coaxingly;
“now, promise. It will be something to look forward to. You shall have
the room next the library, that papa always keeps for his learned
friends, he says. And if Mrs Mitford would be good, and let the parish
take care of itself, and come too----”
“Oh hush! my dear; we must not look forward so far,” said Mrs Mitford,
with a little cloud upon her face. She had found out by this time
that John was in trouble, and she had no heart to enter into any
discussion till she knew what it was. And then she opened out suddenly
into a long account of the Fanshawe family, _apropos de rien_.
Mrs Fanshawe had been calling that afternoon, and they had heard from
their granddaughter, Cicely, who was abroad for her health--for all
that family was unfortunately very delicate. And poor Cicely would have
to spend the winter at Nice, the doctor said. Kate bent her head over
her plate, and ate her grapes (the very first of the season, which
Mr Crediton’s gardener had forced for his young mistress, and sent
to Fanshawe Regis to aid her cure), and listened without paying much
attention to the story of Cicely Fanshawe’s troubles. Nobody else took
any further part in the conversation after Mrs Mitford had commenced
that monologue, except indeed the Doctor, who now and then would ask a
question. As for the two young people, they sat on either side of the
table, and tried to look as if nothing had happened. And Kate, for one,
succeeded very well in this laudable effort--so well that poor John,
in his excitement and agitation, sank to the depths of despair as he
twisted one of the great vine-leaves in his fingers, and watched her
furtively through all the windings of his mother’s story. He said to
himself, it is nothing to her. Her mind is quite unmoved by anything
that has happened. She could not have understood him, John felt--she
could not have believed him. She must have thought he was saying words
which he did not mean. Perhaps that was the way among the frivolous
beings to whom she was accustomed; but it was not the way with John.
While the mother was giving that account of the young Fanshawes, and
the father interposing his questions about Cicely’s health, their son
was working himself up into a fever of determination. He eyed Kate at
the other side of the table, with a certain rage of resolution mingling
with his love. She should not escape him like this. She should answer
him one way or another. He could bear anything or everything from her
except this silence; but that he would not bear. She should tell him
face to face. He might have lost the very essence and joy of life, but
still he should know downright that he had lost it. This passion was
growing in him while the quiet slumberous time crept on, and all was
told about Cicely Fanshawe. Poor Cicely! just Kate’s age, and sent to
Nice to die; but that thought never occurred to the vehement young
lover, nor did it occur to Kate, as she sat and ate her grapes, and
gave little glances across the table, and divined that he was rising
to a white heat. “I must run off to my own room, and say it is to do
my packing,” Kate said to herself, with a little quake in her heart;
and yet she would rather have liked--behind a curtain or door, out of
harm’s way--to have heard him say what he had to say.
Mrs Mitford was later than usual of leaving the table--and she took
Kate by the arm, being determined apparently to _contrarier_
everybody on this special evening, and made her sit down on the sofa
by her in the drawing-room. “My dear, I must have you to myself for a
little while to-night,” she said, drawing the girl’s hands into her
own. And then she sat and talked. It seemed to Kate that she talked of
everything in heaven and earth; but the old singing had come back to
her ears, and she could not pay attention. “Now he is coming,” she said
to herself; “now I shall be obliged to sit still all the evening; now I
shall never be able to escape from him.” By-and-by, however, Kate began
to feel piqued that John should show so little eagerness to follow her.
“Yes, indeed, dear Mrs Mitford, you may be sure I shall always remember
your kindness,” she said, aloud. But in her heart she was saying in the
same breath, “Oh, very well; if he does not care I am sure I do not
care. I am only too glad to be let off so easy;” which was true, and
yet quite the reverse of true.
But then Kate did not see the watcher outside the window in the
darkness, who saw all that was going on, and bided his time, though he
trembled with impatience and excitement. Not knowing he was there, she
came to have a very disdainful feeling about him as the moments passed
on. To ask such a question as that, and never to insist on an answer!
Well, he might be very nice; but what should she do with a man that
took so little pains to secure his object. Or was it his object at
all? He might be cleverer than she had taken him for; he might be but
playing with her, as she had intended to play with him. Indignant with
these thoughts, she rose up when Mrs Mitford’s last words came to a
conclusion, and detached herself, not without a slight coldness, from
that kind embrace. “I must go and see to my things, please,” she said,
raising her head like a young queen. “But, my dear, there is Parsons,”
said Mrs Mitford. “Oh, but I must see after everything myself,” replied
Kate, and went away, not in haste, as making her escape, but with a
certain stateliness of despite. She walked out of the room in quite a
leisurely way, feeling it beneath her dignity to fly from an adversary
that showed no signs of pursuing; and even turned round at the door
to say something with a boldness which looked almost like bravado. He
will come now, no doubt, and find me gone, and I hope he will enjoy the
_tête-à-tête_ with his mother, she mused, with a certain ferocity;
and so went carelessly out, with all the haughtiness of pique, and
walked almost into John Mitford’s arms!
He seized her hand before she knew what had happened, and drew it
through his arm, first throwing a shawl round her, which he had picked
up somewhere, and which, suddenly curling round her like a lasso, was
Kate’s first indication of what had befallen her. “I have been watching
you till I am half wild,” he whispered in her ear. “Oh come with me
to the garden, and say three words to me. I have no other chance for
to-night.”
“Oh, please, let me go. I must see to my packing--indeed I must,” cried
Kate, so startled and moved by the suddenness of the attack, and by his
evident excitement, that she could scarcely keep from tears.
“Not now,” said John, in her ear--“not now. I must have my answer.
You cannot be so cruel as to go now. Only half an hour--only ten
minutes--Kate!”
“Hush! oh hush!” she cried, feeling herself conquered; and ere she
knew, the night air was blowing in her face, and the dark sky, with its
faint little summer stars, was shining over her, and John Mitford,
holding her close, with her hand on his arm, was bending over her,
a dark shadow. She could not read in his face all the passion that
possessed him, but she felt it, and it made her tremble, woman of the
world as she was.
“Kate,” he said, “I cannot go searching for words now. I think I will
go mad if you don’t speak to me. Tell me what I am to hope for. Give me
my answer. I cannot bear any more.”
His voice was hoarse; he held her hand fast on his arm, not caressing,
but compelling. He was driven out of all patience; and for the first
time in her life Kate’s spirit was cowed, and her wit failed to the
command of the situation.
“Let me go!” she said; “oh, do let me go! you frighten me, Mr John.”
“Don’t call me Mr John. I am your slave, if you like; I will be
anything you please. You said just now we belonged to each other; so
we do. No, I can’t be generous; it is not the moment to be generous. I
have a claim upon you--don’t call me Mr John.”
“Then what shall I call you?” Kate said, with a little hysterical
giggle. And all at once, at that most inappropriate moment, there
flashed across her mind the first name she had recognised his identity
by. _My_ John--was that the alternative? She shrank a little and
trembled, and did not know whether she should laugh or cry. Should she
call him that just as an experiment, to see how he would take it?--or
what else could she do to escape from him out of this dark place, all
full of dew, and odours, and silence, into the light and the safety of
her own room? And yet all this time she made no attempt to withdraw her
hand from his arm. She wanted something to lean on at such a crisis,
and he was very handy for leaning on--tall, and strong, and sturdy,
and affording a very adequate support. “Oh, do let me go!” she burst
out all at once. “It was only for your own good I spoke to you; I
did not mean--this. Why should you do things for _me_? I don’t
want--to make any change. I should like to have you always just as we
have been--friends. Don’t say any more just yet--listen. I like you
very very much for a friend. You said yourself we were like brother
and sister. Oh, why should you vex me and bother me, and want to be
anything different?” said Kate, in her confusion, suddenly beginning
to cry without any warning. But next moment, without knowing how it
was, she became aware that she was crying very comfortably on John’s
shoulder. Her crying was more than he could bear. He took her into his
arms to console her without any _arrière pensée_. “Oh, my darling,
I am not worth it,” he said, stooping over her. “Is it for me--that
would never let the wind blow on you? Kate! I will not trouble you
any more.” And with that, before he was aware, in his compunction and
sympathy, his lips somehow found themselves close to her cheek. It
was all to keep her from crying--to show how sorry he was for having
grieved her. His heart yearned over the soft tender creature. What did
it matter what he suffered, who was only a man? But that Kate should
cry!--and that it should be his fault! He felt in his simplicity that
he was giving her up for ever, and his big heart almost broke, as he
bent down trembling, and encountered that soft warm velvet cheek.
How it happened I cannot tell. He did not mean it, and she did not mean
it. But certainly Kate committed herself hopelessly by crying there
quite comfortably on his shoulder, and suffering herself to be kissed
without so much as a protest. He was so frightened by his own temerity,
and so surprised at it, that even had she vindicated her dignity after
the first moment, and burst indignant from his arms, John would have
begged her pardon with abject misery, and there would have been an end
of him. But somehow Kate was bewildered, and let that moment pass;
and after the surprise and shock which his own unprecedented audacity
wrought in him, John grew bolder, as was natural. She was not angry;
she endured it without protest. Was it possible that in her trouble she
was unconscious of it? And involuntarily John came to see that boldness
was now his only policy, and that it must not be possible for her to
ignore the facts of the case. That was all simple enough. But as for
Kate, I am utterly unable to explain her conduct. Even when she came to
herself, all she did was to put up her hands to her face, and to murmur
piteously, humbly, “Don’t! oh, please, don’t!” And why shouldn’t he,
when that was all the resistance she made?
After this, the young man being partly delirious, as might have been
expected, it was Kate who had to come to the front of affairs and take
the lead. “Do, please, be rational now,” she said, shaking herself free
all in a moment. “And give me your arm, you foolish John, and let us
take a turn round the garden. Oh, what would your mother say if she
knew how ridiculous you have been making yourself? Tell me quietly what
it is you want now,” she added, in her most coaxing tone, looking up
into his face.
Upon which the bewildered fellow poured forth a flood of ascriptions
of praise and pæans of victory, and compared Kate, who knew she was
no angel, to all the deities and excellences ever known to man. She
listened to it all patiently, and then shook her head with gentle
half-maternal tolerance.
“Well,” she said, “let us take all that for granted, you know. Of
course I am everything that is nice. If you did not think so you would
be a savage; but, John, please don’t be foolish. Tell me properly. I
have gone and given in to you when I did not mean to. And now, what do
you want?”
“I want you,” he said; “have you any doubt about that? And, except for
your sake, I don’t care for anything else in the world.”
“Oh, but I care for a great many things,” said Kate. “And, John,”
she went on, joining both her hands on his arm, and leaning her head
lightly against it in her caressing way, “first of all, you have
accepted my conditions, you know, and taken my advice?”
“Yes, my darling,” said John; and then somehow his eye was caught by
the lights in the windows so close at hand, the one in the library, the
other in the drawing-room, where sat his parents, who had the fullest
confidence in him; and he gave a slight start and sigh in spite of
himself.
“Perhaps you repent your bargain already,” said impetuous Kate, being
instantly conscious of both start and sigh, and of the feeling which
had produced them.
“Ah! how can you speak to me so,” he said, “when you know if it was
life I had to pay for it I would do it joyfully? No; even if I had
never seen you I could not have done what they wanted me. That is the
truth. And now I have you, my sweetest----”
“Hush,” she said, softly, “we have not come to that yet. There is a
great deal, such a great deal, to think about; and there is papa----”
“And I have so little to offer,” said John; “it is only now I feel how
little. Ah! how five minutes change everything! It never came into my
mind that I had nothing to offer you--I was so full of yourself. But
now!--you who should have kingdoms laid at your feet--what right had a
penniless fellow like me----”
“If you regret you can always go back,” said Kate, promptly; “though,
you know, it is a kind of insinuation against me, as if I had consented
far too easy. And, to tell the truth, I never did consent.”
Here poor John clutched at her hand, which seemed to be sliding from
his arm, and held it fast without a word.
“No, I never did consent,” said Kate. “It was exactly like the savages
that knock a poor girl down and then carry her off. You never asked me
even--you took me. Well, but then the thing to be drawn from that, is
not any nonsense about giving up. If you will promise to be good, and
do everything I tell you, and let me manage with papa----”
“But it is my business to let him know,” said John. “No, my
darling--not even for you. I could not skulk, nor do anything
underhand. I must tell _him_, and I must tell them----”
“Then you will have your way, and we shall come to grief,” said Kate;
“as if I did not know papa best. And then--I am not half nor quarter so
good as you; but in some things I am cleverer than you, John.”
“In everything, dear,” he said, with one of those ecstatic smiles
peculiar to his state of folly, though in the darkness Kate did not
get the benefit of it. “I never have, never will compare myself to my
darling. It is all your goodness letting me--all your sweetness and
humility and----”
“Please don’t,” said Kate, “please stop--please don’t talk such
nonsense. Oh, I hope I shall never behave so badly that you will be
forced to find me out. But now about papa. It must be me to tell him;
you may come in afterwards, if you like. I know what I shall do. I will
drive the phaeton to the station to meet him. I _will_ be the one
to tell him first. John, I know what I am talking of, and I must have
my own way.”
“Are you out there, John, in the dark? and who have you got with
you?” said Mrs Mitford’s voice suddenly in their ears. It made them
jump apart as if it had been the voice of a ghost. And Kate, panting,
blazing with blushes in the darkness, feeling as if she never could
face those soft eyes again, recoiled back into the lilies, and felt
the great white paradise of dew and sweetness take her in, and busk
her round with a garland of odour. Oh, what was she to do? Would he
be equal to the emergency? Thus it will be seen that, though she was
very fond of him, she had not yet the most perfect confidence in the
reliability of her John.
“Yes, mother, I am here,” said John, with a mellow fulness in his voice
which Kate could not understand, so different was it from his usual
tone, “and I have Kate with me--my Kate--your Kate; or, at least, there
she is among the lilies. She ought to be in your arms first, after
mine.”
“After yours!” His mother gave a little scream. And Kate held up her
head among the flowers, blushing, yet satisfied. It was shocking of him
to tell; but yet it settled the question. She stood irresolute for a
moment, breathing quick with excitement, and then she made a little run
into Mrs Mitford’s arms. “He has made me be engaged to him whether I
will or not,” she said, half crying on her friend’s shoulder. “He has
_made_ me. Won’t you love me too?”
“O Kate!” was all the mother could say. “O my boy! what have you
done?--what have you done? John, her father is ten times as rich as we
are. He will say we have abused his trust. Oh! what shall I do?”
“Abused his trust indeed!” said Kate. “John, you are not to say a
word; she does not understand. Why, it was I who did it all! I gave
him no peace. I kept talking to him of things I had no business with;
and he is only a man--indeed he is only a boy. Mamma, won’t you kiss
me, please?” said Kate, all at once sinking into the meekest of tones;
upon which Mrs Mitford, quite overcome, and wanting to kiss her son
first, and with a hundred questions in her mind to pour out upon him,
yet submitted, and put her arm round the stranger who was clinging
to her and kissed Kate--but not with her heart. She had kissed her a
great deal more tenderly only yesterday, just to say good-night; and
then the three stood silent in the darkness, and the scene took another
shape, and John’s beatitude was past. The moment the mother joined
them another world came in. The enchanted world, which held only two
figures, opened up and disappeared like a scene at a theatre; and lo!
there appeared all round a mass of other people to whom John’s passion
was a matter of indifference or a thing to be disapproved. Suddenly
the young pair felt themselves standing not only before John’s anxious
mother, but before Mr Crediton, gloomy and wretched; before Dr Mitford,
angry and mortified; before the whole neighbourhood, who would judge
them without much consideration of mercy. John’s reflections at this
moment were harder to support than those of Kate, for he knew he was
giving up for her sake the vocation he had been trained to, and the
awful necessity of declaring his resolution to his father and mother
was before him. Whereas the worst that could be said of Kate was that
she was a little flirt, and had turned John Mitford’s head--and she had
heard as much before. But, notwithstanding, they were both strangely
sobered all in a moment as they stood there, fallen out of their fairy
sphere, by Mrs Mitford’s side.
“My dears, I must hear all about this after,” she said, with a kind of
tremulous solemnity, “but in the mean time you must come in to tea.
Whatever we do, we must not be late for prayers.”