LIGHT AND SHADE.
Light and shade, sunshine and shadow pursue each other over the moral as
over the material world. Every soul has a landscape that changes with
the wind that sweeps its sky, with the clouds that return after its
rain.
It was now the month of March. The middle day of it had been dreary all
over England, dreariest of all, perhaps, in London. Great blasts had
gone careering under a sky whose miles-thick vault of clouds they never
touched, but instead hunted and drove and dashed earth-clouds of dust
into all unwelcoming places, throats and eyes included. Now and then a
few drops would fall on the stones as if the day's fierce misery were
about to yield to sadness; but it did not so yield; up rose again a
great blundering gust, and repentance was lost in rage. The sun went
down on its wrath, and its night was tempestuous.
But the next morning rose bright and glad, looking as if it would make
up for its father's wildness by a gentler treatment of the world. The
wind was still high, but the hate seemed to have gone out of it, and
given place to a laborious jollity. It swept huge clouds over the sky,
granting never a pause, never a respite of motion; but the sky was blue
and the clouds were white, and the dungeon-vault of the world was broken
up and being carted away.
Everything in the room where the Raymounts were one by one assembling to
break their fast, was discolored and dark, whether with age or smoke it
would have needed more than a glance to say. The reds had grown brown,
and the blues a dirty slate-color, while an impression of drab was
prevalent. But the fire was burning as if it had been at it all night
and was glorying in having at length routed the darkness; and in the
middle of the table on the white cloth, stood a shallow piece of red
pottery full of crocuses, the earnest of the spring. People think these
creatures come out of the earth, but there are a few in every place, and
in this house Mark was one of such, who are aware that they come out of
the world of thought, the spirit-land, in order to manifest themselves
to those that are of that land.
Mr. Raymount was very silent, seemed almost a little gloomy, and the
face of his wife was a shade less peaceful in consequence. There was
nothing the matter, only he had not yet learned to radiate. It is hard
for some natures to let their light shine. Mr. Raymount had some light;
he let it shine mostly in reviews, not much in the house. He did not
lift up the light of his countenance on any.
The children were rosy, fresh from their baths, and ready to eat like
breakfast-loving English. Cornelius was half his breakfast ahead of the
rest, for he had daily to endure the hardship of being at the bank by
nine o'clock, and made the best of it by claiming in consequence an
utter immunity from the _petite norale_ of the breakfast-table.
Never did he lose a moment in helping anybody. Even the little Saffy he
allowed with perfect frigidity to stretch out a very long arm after the
butter--except indeed it happened to cross his plate, when he would
sharply rebuke her breach of manners. It would have been all the same if
he had not been going till noon, but now he had hurry and business to
rampart his laziness and selfishness withal. Mark would sooner have gone
without salt to his egg than ask Corney to pass it.
This morning the pale boy sat staring at the crocuses--things like them
peeping out of the spring-mould of his spirit to greet them.
"Why don't you eat your breakfast, Mark, dear?" said his mother.
"I'm not hungry, mamma," he answered.
The mother looked at him a little anxiously. He was not a very vigorous
boy in corporeal matters; but, unlike his father's, his light was almost
always shining, and making the faces about him shine.
After a few minutes, he said, as if unconsciously, his eyes fixed on the
crocuses,
"I can't think how they come!"
"They grow!" said Saffy.
Said her father, willing to set them thinking,
"Didn't you see Hester make the paper flowers for her party?"
"Yes," replied Saffy, "but it would take such a time to make all the
flowers in the world that way!"
"So it would; but if a great many angels took it in hand, I suppose they
could do it."
"That can't be how!" said Saffy, laughing; "for you know they come up
out of the earth, and there ain't room to cut them out there!"
"I think they must be cut out and put together before they are made!"
said Mark, very slowly and thoughtfully.
The supposition was greeted with a great burst of laughter from
Cornelius. In the midst of a refined family he was the one vulgar, and
behaved as the blind and stupid generally behave to those who see what
they cannot see. Mockery is the share they choose in the motions of the
life eternal!
"Stop, stop, Cornelius!" said his father. "I suspect we have a young
philosopher where you see only a silly little brother. He has, I fancy,
got a glimpse of something he does not yet know how to say."
"In that case, don't you think, sir," said Cornelius, "he had better
hold his tongue till he does know how to say it?"
It was not often he dared speak so to his father, but he was growing
less afraid of him, though not through increase of love.
His father looked at him a moment ere he replied, and his mother looked
anxiously at her husband.
"It _would_ be better," he answered quietly, "were he not among
_friends_."
The emphasis with which he spoke was lost on Cornelius.
"They take everything for clever the little idiot says!" he remarked to
himself. "Nobody made anything of _me_ when _I_ was his age!"
The letters were brought in. Amongst them was one for Mr. Raymount with
a broad black border. He looked at the postmark.
"This must be the announcement of cousin Strafford's death!" he said.
"Some one told me she was not expected to live. I wonder how she has
left the property!"
"You did not tell me she was ill!" said his wife.
"It went out of my head. It is so many years since I had the least
communication with her, or heard anything of her! She was a strange old
soul!"
"You used to be intimate with her--did you not, papa?" said Hester.
"Yes, at one time. But we differed so entirely it was impossible it
should last. She would take up the oddest notions as to what I thought,
and meant, and wanted to do, and then fall out upon me as advocating
things I hated quite as much as she did. But that is much the way
generally. People seldom know what they mean themselves, and can hardly
be expected to know what other people mean. Only the amount of mental
and moral force wasted on hating and talking down the non-existent is a
pity."
"I can't understand why people should quarrel so about their opinions,"
said Mrs. Raymount.
"A great part of it comes of indignation at not being understood and
another great part from despair of being understood--and that while all
the time the person thus indignant and despairing takes not the smallest
pains to understand the neighbor whose misunderstanding of himself makes
him so sick and sore."
"What is to be done then?" asked Hester.
"Nothing," answered her father with something of a cynical smile, born
of this same frustrated anxiety to impress his opinions on others.
He took up his letter, slowly broke the large black seal which adorned
it, and began to read it. His wife sat looking at him, and waiting, in
expectation sufficiently mild, to hear its contents.
He had scarcely read half the first page when she saw his countenance
change a little, then flush a little, then grow a little fixed, and
quite inscrutable. He folded the letter, laid it down by the side of his
plate, and began to eat again.
"Well, dear?" said his wife.
"It is not quite what I thought," he answered, with a curious smile, and
said nothing more, but ate his toast in a brooding silence. Never in the
habit of _making_ secrets, like his puny son, he had a strong
dislike to showing his feelings, and from his wife even was inclined to
veil them. He was besides too proud to manifest his interest in the
special contents of this letter.
The poor, but, because of its hopelessness, hardly indulged ambition of
Mr. Raymount's life, was to possess a portion, however small, of the
earth's surface--if only an acre or two. He came of families both
possessing such property, but none of it had come near him except that
belonging to the cousin mentioned. He was her nearest relation, but had
never had much hope of inheriting from her, and after a final quarrel
put an end to their quarelling, had had none. Even for Mammon's sake Mr.
Raymount was not the man to hide or mask his opinions.
He worshipped his opinions indeed as most men do Mammon. For many years
in consequence there had not been the slightest communication between
the cousins. But in the course of those years all the other relatives of
the old lady had died, and, as the letter he now held informed him, he
was after all heir to her property, a small estate in a lovely spot
among the roots of the Cumberland hills. It was attended by not a few
thousands in government securities.
But while Mr. Raymount was not a money-lover in any notable sense--the
men are rare indeed of whom it might be said absolutely they do not love
money--his delight in having land of his own was almost beyond
utterance. This delight had nothing to do with the money value of the
property; he scarcely thought of that: it came in large part of a new
sense of room and freedom; the estate was an extension of his body and
limbs--and such an extension as any lover of the picturesque would have
delighted in. It made him so glad he could hardly get his toast down.
Mrs. Raymount was by this time tolerably familiar with her husband's
moods, but she had never before seen him look just so, and was puzzled.
The fact was he had never before had such a pleasant surprise, and sat
absorbed in a foretaste of bliss, of which the ray of March sun that
lighted up the delicate transparencies of the veined crocuses purple and
golden, might seem the announcing angel.
Presently he rose and left the room. His wife followed him. The moment
she entered his study behind him he turned and took her in his arms.
"Here's news, wifie!" he said. "You'll be just as glad of it as I am.
Yrndale is ours after all!--at least so my old friend Heron says, and he
ought to know! Cousin Strafford left no will. He is certain there is
none. She persistently put off making one, with the full intention, he
believes, that the property shall come to me, her heir at law and next
of kin. He thinks she had not the heart to leave it away from her old
friend. Thank God! It is a lovely place. Nothing could have happened to
give me more pleassure."
"I am indeed glad, Raymount," said his wife--who called him by his
family name on important occasions. "You always had a fancy for playing
the squire, you know."
"A great fancy for a little room, rather," replied her husband--"not
much, I fear, for the duties of a squire. I know little of them; and
happily we shall not be dependent on the result of my management. There
is money as well, I am glad to say--enough to keep the place up anyhow."
"It would be a poor property," replied his wife with a smile, that could
not keep itself up. I have no doubt you will develop into a model farmer
and landlord."
"You must take the business part--at least till Corney is fit to look
after it," he returned.
But his wife's main thought was what influence would the change have on
the prospects of Hester. In her heart she abjured the notion of property
having anything to do with marriage--yet this was almost her first
thought! Inside us are played more fantastic tricks than any we play in
the face of the world.
"Are the children to be told?" she asked.
"I suppose so. It would be a shame not to let them share in our
gladness. And yet one hates to think of their talking about it as
children will."
"I am not afraid of the children," returned his wife. "I have but to
tell them not. I am sure of Mark as if he were fifty. Saffy might
forget, but Mark will keep her in mind."
When she returned to the dining-room Cornelius was gone, but the rest
were still at the table. She told them that God had given them a
beautiful house in the country, with hills and woods and a swift-flowing
river. Saffy clapped her hands, cried, "Oh, mam_mah_!" and could
hardly sit on her chair till she had done speaking. Mark was perfectly
still, his eyes looking like ears. The moment her mother ceased, Saffy
jumped down and made a rush for the door.
"Saffy, Saffy, where are you going?" cried her mother.
"To tell Sarah," answered Saffy.
"Come back, my child."
"Oh, do let me run and tell Sarah! I will come back _instantly_."
"Come here," insisted the mother. "Your papa and I wish you to say
nothing whatever about it to _any_ one."
"O-oh!" returned Saffy; and both her look and her tone said, "Where is
the good of it then?" as she stood by her mother's side in momentary
check.
Not a word did Mark utter, but his face shone as if it had been heaven
he was going to. No color, only light came to the surface of it, and
broke in the loveliest smile. When Mark smiled, his whole body and being
smiled. He turned and kissed Saffy, but still said nothing.
Hester's face flushed a "celestial rosy red." Her first thought was of
the lovely things of the country and the joy of them. Like Moses on
mount Pisgah, she looked back on the desert of a London winter, and
forth from the heart of a blustering spring into a land of promise. Her
next thought was of her poor: "Now I shall be able to do something for
them!" Alas! too swiftly followed the conviction that now she would be
able to do less than ever for them. Yrndale was far from London! They
could not come to her, and she could not go to them, except for an
occasional visit, perhaps too short even to see them all. If only her
father and mother would let her stay behind! but that she dared hardly
hope--ought not perhaps to wish! It might be God's will to remove her
because she was doing more harm than good! She had never been allowed to
succeed in anything! And now her endeavor would be at an end! So her
pleasure was speedily damped. The celestial red yielded to earthly pale,
and the tears came in her eyes.
"You don't like the thought of leaving London, Hester!" said her mother
with concern: she thought it was because of Vavasor.
"I am very glad for you and papa, mother dear," answered Hester. "I was
thinking of my poor people, and what they would do without me."
"Wait my child," returned her mother, "I have sometimes found the very
things I dreaded most serve me best. I don't mean because I got used to
them, or because they did me good. I mean they furthered what I thought
they would ruin."
"Thank you, dear mother, you can always comfort me," rejoined Hester.
"For myself I could not imagine anything more pleasant. If only it were
near London!--or," she added, smiling through her tears, "if one hadn't
a troublesome heart and conscience playing into each other's hands!"
She was still thinking of her poor, but her mother was in doubt.
* * * * *
"I suppose, father," said Cornelius, "there will be no occasion for me
to go to the bank any more?"
"There will be more occasion than ever," answered his father: "will
there not be the more to look after when I am gone? What do you imagine
you could employ yourself with down there? You have never taken to
study, else, as you know, I would have sent you to Oxford. When you
leave the bank it will be to learn farming and the management of an
estate--after which you will be welcome to Yrndale."
Cornelius made no reply. His father's words deeply offended him. He was
hardly good at anything except taking offense, and he looked on the
estate as his nearly as much as his father's. True the father had not
spoken so kindly as he might, but had he known his son, he would often
have spoken severely. From the habit of seeking clear and forcible
expression in writing, he had got into a way of using stronger vocal
utterances than was necessary, and what would have been but a blow from
another, was a stab from him. But the feelings of Cornelius in no case
_deserved_ consideration--they were so selfish. And now he
considered that mighty self of his insulted as well as wronged. What
right had his father to keep from him--from him alone, who had the first
right--a share in the good fortunes of the family? He left the study
almost hating his father because of what he counted his injustice; and,
notwithstanding his request that he would say nothing of the matter
until things were riper, made not even an effort to obey him, but, too
sore for silence, and filled with what seemed to him righteous
indignation, took the first opportunity of pouring out everything to
Vavasor, in a torrent of complaint against the fresh wrong. His friend
responded to the communication very sensibly, trying, without exactly
saying it, and without a shadow of success, to make him see what a fool
he was, and congratulating him all the more warmly on his good fortune
that a vague hope went up in him of a share in the same. For Cornelius
had not failed to use large words in making mention of the estate and
the fortune accompanying it; and in the higher position, as Vavasor
considered it, which Mr. Raymount would henceforth occupy as one of the
proprietors of England, therefore as a man of influence in his country
and its politics, he saw something like an approximative movement in the
edges of the gulf that divided him from Hester: she would not unlikely
come in for a personal share in this large fortune; and if he could but
see a possibility of existence without his aunt's money, he would, he
_almost_ said to himself, marry Hester, and take the risk of his
aunt's displeasure. At the same time she would doubtless now look with
more favor on his preference--he must not yet say _choice!_ There
could be nothing insuperably offensive to her pride at least in his
proposing to marry the daughter of a country squire. If she were the
heiress of a rich brewer, that is, of a brewer rich enough, his aunt
would, like the rest of them, get over it fast enough! In the meantime
he would, as Cornelius, after the first burst of his rage was over, had
begged him, be careful to make no illusion to the matter.
Mr. Raymount went to look at his property, and returned more delighted
with house, land, and landscape, than he had expected. He seldom spoke
of his good fortune, however, except to his wife, or betrayed his
pleasure except by a glistening of the eyes. As soon as the warm weather
came they would migrate, and immediately began their preparations--the
young ones by packing and unpacking several times a day a most
heterogeneous assemblage of things. The house was to be left in charge
of old Sarah, who would also wait on Cornelius.