Mr Crediton’s bank was in the High Street of Camelford--a low-roofed,
rather shabby-looking office, with dingy old desks and counters, at
which the clerks sat about in corners, all visible to the public,
and liable to constant distraction. The windows were never cleaned,
on principle, and there were some iron bars across the lower half of
them. Mr Crediton’s own room was inside--you had to pass through the
office to reach it; and the banker, when he chose to open his door,
was visible to the clerks and the public at the end of the dingy
vista, just as the clerks, and the public entering at the swing-door,
and sometimes the street outside, were to him. The office was a kind
of lean-to to the house, which was much loftier, more imposing, and
stately; and Mr Crediton’s room communicated with his dwelling by a
dark passage. The whole edifice was red brick, and recalled the age
of the early Georges, or even of their predecessor Anne--a time when
men were not ashamed of their business, but at the same time did it
unpretendingly, and had no need during office hours of gilding or
plate-glass. The house had a flight of steps up to it almost as high
as the top of the office windows, and a big iron horn to extinguish
links, and other traces of a moderate antiquity. Up to these steps Kate
Crediton’s horse would be led day after day, or her carriage draw up,
in very sight of the clerks behind their murky windows. They kept their
noses over their desks all day, in order that a butterfly creature,
in all the brilliant colours of her kind, might flutter out and in in
the sunshine, and take her pleasure. That was perhaps what some of
them thought. But, to tell the truth, I don’t believe many of them
thought so. Even Mr Whichelo, the head clerk, whose children were often
ailing, and who had a good deal of trouble to make both ends meet,
smiled benign upon Kate. Had she been her own mother, it might have
been different; but she was a creature of nineteen, and everybody felt
it was natural. The clerks, with their noses at the grindstone, and
her father sombre in the dingy room, working hard too in his way--all
to keep up the high-stepping horses, the shining harness, the silks
and velvets, and the high supremacy of that thing like a rosebud who
sat princess among them,--after all, was it not quite natural? What is
the good of the stem but to carry, and of the leaves and thorns but to
protect, the flower?
But it may be supposed that John Mitford’s feelings would be of a very
strange description when he found himself dropped down in Mr Crediton’s
office, as if he had dropped from the skies. He was the junior clerk,
and did not know the business, and his perch was behind backs, not
far from one of the windows from which he could see all Kate’s
exits and entrances. He saw the public, too, coming and going, the
swing-door flashing back and forward all day long, and on Saturdays and
market-days caught sometimes the wondering glances of country folks who
knew him. He sat like a man in a dream, while all these things went on
around him. How his life had changed! What had brought him here? what
was to come of it? were questions which glided dreamily through John’s
brain from time to time, but he could give no answer to them. He was
here instead of at Fanshawe Regis; instead of serving the world and his
generation, as he had expected to do, he was junior clerk in a banker’s
office, entering dreary lines of figures into dreary columns. How had
it all come about? John was stupefied by the fall and by the surprise,
and all the overwhelming dreary novelty; and accordingly he sat the day
through at first, and did what he was told to do with a certain apathy
beyond power of thinking; but that was a state of mind, of course,
which could not last for ever. Yet even when that apathy was broken,
the feeling of surprise continued to surmount all other feelings. He
had taken this strange step, as he supposed, by his own will; nobody
had forced or even persuaded him. It was his own voluntary doing; and
yet how was it? This question floated constantly, without any power on
his part to answer it, about his uneasy brain.
He was close to Kate, sitting writing all day long under a roof
adjoining the very roof that sheltered her, with herself before his
eyes every day. For he could not help but see her as she went out and
in. But still it was doubtful whether there was much comfort in those
glimpses of her. Mr Crediton had not been unkind to him; but he had
never pretended, of course, to be deeply delighted with the unexpected
choice which his daughter had made. “If I consent to Kate’s engagement
with you,” he had said, “it must be upon my own conditions. It is
likely to be a long time before you can marry, and I cannot have a
perpetual philandering going on before my eyes. She might like it,
perhaps, for that is just one of the points upon which girls have no
feeling; but you may depend upon it, it would be very bad for you,
and I should not submit to it for a moment. I don’t mean to say that
you are not to see her, but it must be only at stipulated times. Thus
far, at least, I must have my own way.” John had acquiesced in this
arrangement without much resistance. It had seemed to him reasonable,
comprehensible. Perpetual philandering certainly would not do. He had
to work--to acquire a new trade foreign to all his previous thoughts
and education--to put himself in the way of making money and providing
for his wife; and he too could see as well as her father that to be
following her about everywhere, and interrupting the common business
of life by idle love-making, however beatific it might be, was simply
impossible. To be able to look forward now and then to the delight of
her presence--to make milestones upon his way of the times in which he
should be permitted to see her, and sun himself in her eyes,--with that
solace by the way, John thought the time would pass as the time passed
to Jacob--as one day; and he accordingly assented, almost without
reluctance.
But he did not know when he consented thus to the father’s conditions
that Kate would be flashing before him constantly under an aspect
so different from that in which he had known her. The engagement,
though it made such an overwhelming difference to him, made little
difference to Kate. She had come home to resume her usual life--a life
not like anything that was familiar to him. Poor John had never known
much about young ladies. He had never become practically aware of the
place which amusement holds in such conditions of existence--how, in
fact, it becomes the framework of life round which graver matters
gather and entwine themselves; and it was a long time before he fully
made the discovery, if, indeed, he did ever make it. Society could
scarcely be said to exist in Fanshawe Regis; and those perpetual
ridings and drivings and expeditions here and there--those dinners and
dances--those afternoon assemblages--the music and the chatter, the
_va et vient_, the continual flutter and movement, confounded the
young man. He tried to be glad at first that she had so much gaiety,
and felt very sorry for himself, who was shut out from all share in
it. And then he got a little puzzled and perplexed. Did this sort of
thing go on for ever? Was there never to be any break in it? Kate
herself unconsciously unfolded to him its perennial character without
the remotest idea of the amazement she was exciting in his mind. So
far as John’s experience went, a dance, or even a dinner-party, or a
croquet-party, or a picnic, were periodical delights which came at
long intervals; but they were the common occupations of life to Kate.
He felt that he could have lived and worked like Jacob for twice seven
years, had his love been living such a life as Rachel did by his
side--going out with the flocks, tending the lambs, drawing water at
the fountain, smiling shy and sweet at him from the tent-door. These
were the terms in which his imagination put it. Had he seen Kate trip
by the window as his mother did with her little basket, or trip back
again with a book, after his own ideal of existence, his heart would
have blessed her as she passed, and he himself would have returned
to his ledger and worked twice as hard, and learned his duties twice
as quickly; but to see her flash away from the door amid a cavalcade
of unknown riders--to see her put into her carriage by some man whom
he longed to kick on the spot--to watch her out of sight going into
scenes where his imagination could not follow her, was very hard upon
John. And thus to see her every day, and yet never, except once a-week
or so, exchange words with her! Against his will, and in spite of all
his exertions, this sense of her continual presence, and of her unknown
friends, and life which was so close to him, and yet so far from him,
absorbed his mind. When he should have been working his office work he
was thinking where could she have gone to-day? When he ought to have
been awakening to the interests of the bank, he was brooding with a
certain sulkiness quite unnatural to him over the question, who that
man could be who put her on her horse? It is impossible to describe how
all this hindered and hampered him, and what a chaos it made of his
life.
And even Kate herself found it very different from what she had
anticipated. She sent in a servant for him several times at first; and
once, when she had some little errand in the town, had the audacity
to walk into the bank in her proper person and call her lover from
his desk. “Please tell Mr Mitford I want him,” she said, looking Mr
Whichelo full in the face, with an angelical blush and smile; and when
he came to her, Kate turned to him before all the clerks, who were
watching with a curiosity which may be imagined. “Oh John,” she said,
“come with me as far as Paterson’s. It is market-day, and I don’t like
to walk alone.” Of course he went, though he had his work to do. Of
course he would have gone whatever had been the penalty. The penalty
was that Mr Crediton gave Kate what she called “a dreadful scold.” “It
was like a fishwoman, you know,” she confided to John afterwards. “I
could not have believed it of papa; but I suppose when people are in a
passion they are all alike, and don’t mind what they say.”
“It is because he grudges you to me,” said poor John, with a sigh, “and
I don’t much wonder;” upon which Kate clasped her two pretty hands on
his arm, and beguiled him out of all his troubles. This was on one of
the Sunday evenings which it was his privilege to spend with her. Mr
Crediton was old-fashioned, and saw no company on Sundays, and that
was the day on which John was free to come to spend as much of it as he
pleased with his betrothed. At first he had begun by going to luncheon,
and remaining the whole afternoon in her company; but very soon it came
to be the evening only which was given up to him. Either it was that
Mr Crediton made himself disagreeable at luncheon, or that he thrust
engagements upon Kate, reminding her that she had promised to read to
him, or copy letters for him, or some altogether unimportant matter.
Mr Crediton, though he was so much the best off of the party that he
had thus the means of avenging himself, was not without grievances
too; indeed, had he been consulted, he would probably have declared
himself the person most aggrieved. His only child was about to be
taken from him, and her society was already claimed by this nameless
young man, without any particular recommendation, whom in her caprice
she preferred. The Sunday afternoons had been the banker’s favourite
moment; he had nothing to do, and his doors were shut against society,
and his child was always with him. No wonder that he used all the
means in his power to drive back the enemy from that sacred spot.
And Mr Crediton had means in his power,--unlike Mrs Mitford, who sat,
more alone than he, by her bedroom window all the hours when she was
not at church, and wiped noiselessly again and again the tears out of
her eyes. John’s mother suffered more from this dreary change than
words could say. She had not the heart to sit down-stairs except
when it was necessary for that outline of family life consisting of
prayers and meals, which, to Dr Mitford’s mind, filled up all possible
requirements. Mrs Mitford did not tell her husband what she was
thinking. There seemed no longer any one left in the world who cared to
know. And she could not punish Kate as Mr Crediton could punish John.
Probably she would not have done it if she could, for to punish Kate
would have been to punish him too; but oh, she sometimes thought to
herself, if her horse had only run away with her before somebody else’s
door, this might never have been!
Thus it will be seen that this pretty young lady and that first
caprice for the subjugation of John which came into her mind before
she had seen him, in the leisure of her convalescence, had affected
the friends of both in anything but a happy way. Indeed nobody except
perhaps Kate herself got any good out of the new bond. To her, who at
the present moment was not called upon to make any sacrifice or give
up anything, the possession of John, as of some one to fall back upon,
was pleasant enough. She had all her usual delights and pleasures,
lived as she had always lived, amused herself as of old, was the
envy of her companions, the ringleader in all their amusements, the
banker’s only, much-indulged, fortunate child; and at the same time
she had John to worship her on those Sunday evenings which once had
been rather dull for Kate. When Mr Crediton dozed, as he sometimes did
after dinner, or when he was busy with the little private pieces of
business he used to give himself up to on Sunday evenings, there was
her lover ready to bow down before her. It was the cream and crown of
all her many enjoyments. Everybody admired, petted, praised, and was
good to Kate--and John adored her. She looked forward to her Sunday
ramble round the old-fashioned garden, sometimes in the dark, sometimes
in the moonlight, with an exquisite sense of something awaiting her
there which had a more subtle, penetrating, delicious sweetness than
all the other sweets surrounding her. And she felt that he was happy
too as soon as she had placed her little hand on his arm--and forgot
that there was anything in his lot which could make him feel that he
had bought his happiness dearly. Kate was young, and knew nothing about
life, and therefore was unconsciously selfish. She was happy, without
any drawback to her happiness; and so, naturally and as a matter of
course, she took him to be, forgetting that he had purchased that
hour on the Sunday evenings by the sacrifice of all the prejudices
and all the habits and prospects and occupations of his life. This
unconsciousness was one from which she might awaken any day. A chance
word might open her eyes to it, and show her, to her own disgust
and confusion, the immense price he was paying for so transitory
a delight; but at present nothing had awakened such a thought in
her mind, and she was the one happy among the five most intimately
concerned.
Next after Kate in contentment with the new state of affairs was Dr
Mitford, who saw a prospect of a very satisfactory “settlement in life”
for his son, though he did not feel any very great satisfaction in the
preliminaries. It was a pain to him, though a mild one, that John had
abandoned the Church and become a clerk in a banker’s office. It was a
pain, and a little humiliation too, for everybody in Fanshawe Regis,
and even the neighbouring clergymen, shook their heads and were very
sorry to hear it, and wounded Dr Mitford’s pride. But, after all, that
was a trifling drawback in comparison with the substantial advantage
of marrying so much money as was represented by Kate Crediton. “And
fond of her too,” he would say to himself in his study when he paused
in one of his articles and thought it over. But yet the articles were
interrupted by thinking it over as they had never been used to be. It
gave him a passing twinge now and then, but it was he who suffered the
least after Kate.
As for Mr Crediton, there was a certain sullen wrath in his mind
which he seldom suffered to have expression, yet which plagued him
like a hidden wound. To think that for this lout, this country lad,
his child should, as it were, have jilted him, made light of all his
wishes, shown a desire to separate herself from him and the life which
he had fenced round from every care, and made delightful with every
indulgence that heart could desire! He had gone out of his way to
contrive pleasures for her, and to surround her with everything that
was brilliant and fair like herself. She was more like a princess
than a banker’s daughter, thanks to his unchanging, unremitting
thoughtfulness; and this was how she had rewarded him the very
first opportunity she had. Mr Crediton was very sore and wroth, as
fathers are sometimes. Mothers are miserable and lonely and jealous
often enough, heaven knows! but the fathers are wroth with that
inextinguishable wonder--how the love-making of some trumpery young
man should, in a day or two, or a week or two, obliterate their deeper
love and all the bonds of nature--which lies as deep in the heart as
does the young impulse which calls it forth. Mr Crediton was angry,
not so much, except at moments, with Kate, as with the world, and
nature, and things in general--and John. He could not cross or thwart
his child, but he would have been glad in his heart if something had
happened to the man whom his child loved. Such sentiments are wicked,
and they are very inconsistent--but they exist everywhere, and it would
be futile to deny them; and the consequence was, that Mr Crediton was
much less happy after his daughter’s engagement, and put up with it by
an effort; and, while John had his moment of delight on those Sunday
evenings, was, for his part, anything but delighted. It even made him
less good a man. He sat and fretted by himself, and found it very
difficult to occupy his mind with any other subject. It vexed him to
think of his Kate thus hanging on a stranger’s arm. Of course he had
always known that she must marry some time, but he had thought little
of it as an approaching calamity; and then it had appeared certain that
there would be a blaze of external advantage, and perhaps splendour, in
any match Kate could make, which perhaps, prospectively at least, would
lessen the blow. If it had exalted her into the higher circles of the
social paradise, he felt as if the deprivation to himself would have
been less great. But here there was nothing to make amends--no salve to
his wounded tenderness. Poor John! Mr Crediton had the justice now and
then to feel that John was paying a hard price for his felicity. “Serve
the fellow right,” he said, and almost hated him; and pondered, with a
_sourd_ sense of cruelty and wrong-doing, how he might be got rid
of and removed out of the way.
Mrs Mitford, for her part, was simply unhappy, without hoping to mend
matters, or thinking any more than she could help about the cause.
She had lost her boy. To be sure it is what most mothers have to look
forward to; but she, up to the very last, had been flattering herself
that she should not be as most mothers. It had seemed so clear that
his lot was cast at home, where surely his duty was; and the change had
this double aggravation to her, that she had expected him not only to
make her personally happy, but to carry on and develop the work of her
life. It was she who had been for all these years the real spiritual
head of Fanshawe Regis. Dr Mitford had done the “duty,” and had
preached the sermons, but every practical good influence, every attempt
to mend the rustic parish, to curb its characteristic vices, or develop
its better qualities, had come from his wife. And she had laboured
on for years past, with the conviction that her son would perfect
everything she began; that he would bring greater knowledge to it, and
a more perfectly trained mind, and all the superior understanding which
such humble women hold to be natural to a man. When she had to give up
this hope, it seemed to her at first as though the world had come to
an end. What was the use of doing anything more, of carrying on the
plans which must now die with her? The next new curate would probably
care nothing about her schemes, and even might set himself to thwart
her, as new curates sometimes do when a clergywoman is too active in
a parish. And she was sick of the world and everything in it. The
monotony of her life, from which all the colour seemed to have died out
in a moment, suddenly became apparent to her, and all the failures, and
obstructions, and hindrances which met her at every side. What could
she do, a weak woman, she said to herself, against all the powers of
darkness, as embodied in Fanshawe Regis? Would it not be best to resign
the unprofitable warfare and sink back into quiet, and shut out the
mocking light?
Poor Mrs Mitford! wherever she went the people asked her questions
about Mr John. Was he not to be a clergyman after all? Was it along
o’ his lass that wouldn’t let him do as he wished? What was it? His
mother came home with her heart wearied by such inquiries, and sick
with disappointment and misery. And she would go up to the room in
which he was born, and cry, and say to herself that she never never
could encounter it again. And oh, how dreary it was sitting down-stairs
for the few moments which necessity and Dr Mitford required, in those
summer nights when the moths were flying by scores in at the open
window, and dimness reigned in all the corners, and the lamp shone
steady and clear on the table! In all the obscurity round her, her son
was not lurking. He was not ready to step in by the open window as
he had done so often. He was with Kate Crediton, giving up his whole
heart and soul to her; and his father and mother rang for the servants,
and had prayers, as though they had never had any children. What a
change, what a change it was! Mrs Mitford knew that it was impossible
to thwart providence, let its plans be ever so unsatisfactory; but oh,
she said to herself, why did not Kate’s accident happen close to the
Huntleys, or to any house but hers? Other boys were not so romantic,
not so tender-hearted; and other mothers had heaps of children, and
could not brood over the fortunes of every individual among them, as
Mrs Mitford, with an ache of helpless anger at herself, knew that she
brooded over John’s. But all was in vain. She could not mend matters
now. She could not mend her own bleeding, aching heart. And after all,
the only thing possible was to go back to her work, whatever might
come of it, and do her best. She could bear anything, she thought, but
those Sunday nights--moments which had once been so sweet, and were now
so solitary. She said not a word to any one, and tried hard to keep
herself from thinking; and she wrote kind, cheerful little letters to
her boy, who, for his part, was so very good in writing regularly--so
unlike most young men, as she told the people. But after she had
finished those cheery, pleasant, gossiping letters, with all the news
of the parish in them, Mrs Mitford would sit down and have a good cry.
Oh what a change there was! how silent the house was, how ghostly the
garden where she was always thinking she heard his step! The servants
came in and went out again, and the father and the mother would sit
together softly without a word, as if they had no child. Thus it will
be seen that, of all concerned, it was Mrs Mitford who suffered most;
but that none was satisfied, or felt the slightest approach of anything
like happiness in the new state of affairs, unless, indeed, it might be
Kate.
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.