THE RESTORATION.
Rhoda’s sitting-room was very warm and pleasant and quiet, the safest
and most comfortable place--the fire lighting it up with fitful gleams,
the windows still glimmering between the curtains with the dim twilight
which had not turned to dark, the pictures and mirrors on the walls
giving forth gleams of ruddy reflection. There were no longer flowers
outside to brighten the prospect, but within groups of plants in every
corner, and a tall pot of creamy, fragrant narcissus spreading its
delicate spring scent through the room. The warm flicker of the
firelight seemed to draw out the sweetness of the flowers, the deeper
tints of colour, the reds and browns of the furniture. There could not
have been a woman’s apartment more entirely breathing of women, and of
comfort, and tranquillity, and peace. Hetty lay on the sofa near the
fire, the ruddy glow shedding a pink colour over her still pale face.
Rhoda sat at her feet, leaning against the sofa, holding up her eager
little face, asking questions in her eager way about Hetty’s home, about
the children, about baby, who was so funny. “Oh! I wish I could see him.
Oh, I wish I could go and play with them all!” Rhoda said. Hetty, who
had been removed here in her mother’s absence to join the little party
once more, in the sweetness of that convalescence, which was almost more
than coming back to health, lay smiling, answering the child’s questions
in a little broken voice of weakness and happiness. Miss Hofland sat on
a low chair by the fire, going through her usual little calculations,
setting down all the comforts on one side against the very curious
condition of this house on the other. All these things that had happened
were very mysterious. The whispers of the maids, which could scarcely
fail to reach her, were full of suggestions. It was not pleasant to live
in a house where such strange things were heard and seen; but then, on
the other hand, it was very comfortable. There was scarcely anything one
wanted that one could not have. In some families the treatment was very
different. She was putting these things meditatively against one another
when the servant came in with the lamp. There was an abundant supply of
light, as of everything else--no stint of anything--lamps and candles,
it did not seem to matter how many were used. It was very comfortable,
enough to make up for the many unpleasant circumstances which did not
after all touch either her pupil or herself.
Just then the servant, going away after he had placed the lamp, uttered
a cry of alarm, and seemed to fall back against the wall, letting go the
handle of the door. Miss Hofland started up, feeling that if anything
dreadful came in here, into this warm and pleasant place, all the
comfort would not make up for such an interruption. She rose so
hurriedly that her chair turned over, coming down with a muffled sound
on the carpet, and turned her startled face towards the door. Mrs.
Asquith had just come in, looking very pale and excited, leaning upon
the arm of--no, she was not leaning, she was guiding him with her hand
through his arm--a tall, slim man with a strange grey coat, too large
for him, and wrapping over his shadowy thinness, a long face, with large
projecting eyes, grizzled hair hanging wildly, a ragged beard, and
drooping, melancholy moustache hiding the outlines of the tremulous
mouth. He had a bewildered, dazed look, and turned his head slowly from
side to side, as if he scarcely saw, and did not know where he was.
And before a word could be said, almost before the attention of the
girls had been roused, or Miss Hofland’s cry of alarm got vent, the
housekeeper rushed into the room. She swept into it like a whirlwind,
and placed herself at the other side of that strange figure.
“Sir, sir!” she cried, “you must go back, you must go back--you must not
be seen here!”
“John!” cried Mrs. Asquith, “don’t give way to her; this is your house,
and here is your child.”
He turned his face from one side to the other, shrinking a little from
the housekeeper, yet making a step back as if in obedience--appealing to
Mary, yet drawing his arm away from hers in a self-contradictory
movement, opening his mouth but only with a gasp, saying nothing.
Mrs. Mills put her hand upon his sleeve.
“Come back, sir,” she said; “come back, oh! come back to your own
comfortable room, where things are fit and proper for you. My mistress
would break her heart if she thought you were here. Oh, sir, come back!
You know what my mistress would say, and that it’s all for your good.
What does she think of night and day but for your good?”
He gasped again as if for breath, and then drew away, retreating a
little. “Mary,” he said, “perhapth she’s right. I’ll be better in my own
place.” As he stood thus irresolute, feeble, with a woman on each side
of him, a picture of a bewildered soul cowed with long subjection, there
came into the movement of the strange little drama another unexpected
actor. Hetty had sprung up from her sofa, forgetting her weakness,
putting out her hands at first as if to keep away the sight; and her
movement had disturbed Rhoda, who sprang up too, and stood for a moment
astonished, taking in the scene. Then with a cry the little girl flung
herself forward, clutching at the grey coat, clinging to his knees.
“Father!” she cried. Her little voice, shrill in its childish tones,
rang through the air like the ring of a pistol shot, clearing away the
mist. He gave a great, sobbing cry, shook himself clear, and stooping
down, gathered the child into his arms. They all stood round, a group of
hushed spectators, to watch that meeting. He seemed to grope for a
chair, and sat down and folded her to him. “My little girl, my darling!
my little girl, my darling! I’ve found you at latht!” Hetty tottered
across the floor to her mother, and caught her arm and clung to her,
hiding her head upon Mary’s shoulder. And behind them all young Darrell
came in, and stood looking on like the rest.
Even the housekeeper had been paralysed by
[Illustration: “‘MY LITTLE GIRL, MY DARLING!’” (_p. 374._)]
this touching sight; she had not been able to speak or interfere, but at
the appearance of Darrell she recovered herself. “Doctor,” she said,
going up to him, “you know what our orders are, you know he’ll hurt
himself by this, you know it’s for his good--for his good. What were we
put here for but for his good? And who is this lady that has ventured to
interfere? Doctor, call Turner, call the man, and take him back. I order
you,” cried the woman, “in my mistress’s name, take him back. Sir, sir,
Mr. Prescott! take the child from him, take him back.”
No one paid any attention to her cries, and the woman was almost beside
herself. “Miss Hofland,” she said, “it’s as much as our places are
worth. You said yourself it was a comfortable house. Oh, for goodness’
sake take the child from him, take the child from him! Don’t you know
he’s off his head? I’ve got my mistress’s authority.
Turner--doctor--this moment, he must be taken back!”
Little Rhoda here released herself from her father’s arms. She put
herself before him like a guardian spirit, not angel, for her eyes
flashed fire, and her little hands clenched. “If you touch him I’ll kill
you! I’ll kill you!” cried the little girl, setting her white teeth.
“Mrs. Mills,” said Mary, “the time for all that is over; I am here to
protect my cousin. Whatever your mistress may do or say, I am his
nearest relation here. We can take care of Mr. Prescott without you; he
shall neither be shut up nor coerced again. Doctor, he knows us all; he
only wants his child; he is as gentle as an infant. Why should he be
shut up and banished from the light of day?”
“There is no reason at all,” young Darrell said. “I am ashamed of my
part in it. It was I who opened the door to him to-night; I hoped that
this would happen which has happened. I don’t know if you will ever
believe that I acted at first in good faith. There is no reason, no
reason at all, for keeping him confined now.”
John Prescott sat holding his child with one arm round her, looking out
solemnly upon the group about him. There was something in the aspect of
his large immovable eyes, showing that he saw imperfectly if at all,
which strangely heightened the effect of the scene. He put out his other
arm as if feeling for some one. “Mary, Mary! Wasn’t Mary here?”
She came up to him and took his hand. “Yes, John, I am here, I am here:
nobody shall touch you. They daren’t touch you while I am here.”
It was the second time in twenty-four hours that she had brought peace
and security by these words--she, a helpless woman, the poor parson’s
wife, never of much account in the world--and yet they were true! But
probably John Prescott did not make any question to himself how that
was, or even understand clearly what she was doing for him. He grasped
her hand, making no reply to what she said. “Mary,” he said slowly, “I
want your advice.”
“Yes, John.”
“Mutht a man do all his wife says? She’s clever, and I’m not. I never
was one of the clever fellowths. She’s gone away, and I promithed-- But,
Mary, I want my little girl.”
“Yes, John, and you shall have her. You shall not be parted again,” Mary
cried with tears.
“I want my little girl. They say I frightened thome one that wasn’t
mine; I ask her pardon, I’m sure. I never meant to frighten any one; all
I want ith my little girl.”
“Father, here I am!” cried little Rhoda, one arm clasping his, one
uplifted in defence.
“And, Cousin John, oh! I love you too: I wasn’t frightened,” Hetty
cried.
The sound of this prodigious falsehood, told with all the conviction of
the heart, brought a note of something like laughter into the room, when
this scene ended, the strange little drama, which, but for Hetty’s
fright and Mary’s arrival, might have been a tragedy, and ended in a
very different way.
The explanation of the circumstances was not difficult to give. John
Prescott had married, or rather, to use a juster phraseology, had been
married to, a Californian lady with a great fortune, who had come to
England to dazzle the old civilization, as so many do. But the earl, or
the viscount, or the duke’s son, who are the natural prey of such
conquering invaders, had not turned up, and the beautiful old house, and
the armorial bearings of the Prescotts, and all that was old and
traditionary about them, had been felt by Miss Rotherham to be next
best. To say that her husband belonged to the old untitled aristocracy,
who looked upon new lordships with contempt, was so refined and
exquisite a piece of brag that the imagination of the daughter of the
wilds was captivated by it. And John looked every inch an effete
aristocrat, languid with over-civilization. She took him, with his old
place and impoverished estate, as if he had been a choicer piece of
antiquated lumber than all the rest. But when she had been married for a
few years to John, that vivacious representative of the New World had
found her stupid Englishman too much for her. His very goodness had
driven her frantic. He had submitted to almost anything she exacted,
with a dull amiability which took all her patience from her. Finally he
had got blind, or almost blind, but never otherwise than patient,
uncomplaining, and kind, adoring his child, who adored him, and very
submissive to his wife. And she did not find her untitled aristocracy
did her much good in a social point of view. The compatriots who had
secured the earls and the viscounts laughed, and the Prescotts had
fallen out of society too long in the days of their poverty to recover
their position easily. And John was dull. Ye heavens! how dull he
was--dull even to the simple people who loved him at home--how much more
dull to the lively Transatlantic who had intended to build her
advancement upon him, but never had loved him at all!
Mrs. Asquith found out by degrees that her cousin’s wife had tried to
make him out incapable of managing his affairs, and to get him shut up,
which was unkind, seeing that he was perfectly content to commit to her
hands the management of these affairs, and never grumbled at her
absences, or found fault with her proceedings, too happy to be left with
Rhoda in the home he loved. Mrs. Prescott-Rotherham, however, had failed
in this, and thereupon had organized another plan for freeing herself
from circumstances which she would not tolerate. To have great wealth
and belong to a new civilization in which there is little bondage of
precedent, and not to have whatever you like, whatever you can pay for,
is intolerable. It is always intolerable not to be able to do what one
pleases, and have what one likes; but these are things which most people
have to put up with. Mrs. Prescott-Rotherham did not see why she should
put up with anything she disliked so much, and she went off to America
to obtain a divorce. If she had told John this, the probabilities were
that, unless some sudden gleam of religious objection had crossed the
tranquillity of his dulled brain, he would have acquiesced, as he did
everything else. But there are limits to the boldness even of a rich
Californian, accustomed to see all obstacles disappear before her. And
what she did was to persuade her husband that to confine himself
entirely to his own rooms would be good for his eyes and for his health,
and that until her return it was his policy to lead a secluded life. She
pointed out to him the misery of being plagued by visitors, the trouble
which even Rhoda’s governess would bring upon him, and that to seclude
himself in the east wing while she was absent was the best thing he
could do. Poor John did not know till she was gone that he was to be
secluded from Rhoda too; but though it was very difficult to manage him
when he learned this, yet he was smoothed down and coaxed into patience
for the time. Needless to say that of the divorce suit going briskly on
on the other side of the Atlantic nobody knew. The citation to John to
appear had been conveyed to him in a newspaper, which he had solemnly
opened, as was his wont, looked at with his half-blind eyes, and put
away with the remark that there was nothing in it. He was indeed more
than half blind, and the paper conveyed to him no information at all.
It is needless to say that Mrs. Prescott-Rotherham obtained her divorce
in the American court, but that the English law, as was natural, took no
notice of that decree, and altogether refused to take Rhoda from her
father’s keeping. It is equally of course that from the moment when Mary
led him back into his own house, there could be no question of secluding
him any more. He was as sane as he had ever been, understanding
everything that was kind and friendly, not wise nor yet abundant in
speech, which would have been out of nature. The poor relation, who was
only Mary, and the poor parson whom she had married, protected his
gentle weakness, and John Prescott, with his patient yet half-tragic
face, his almost sightless eyes, and his little story of undeserved
wrong, wrong of which even now he was barely conscious, opining that his
wife had only gone to visit her relations and meant no harm, made a
great impression upon the Commissioners in Lunacy who examined him, and
pronounced in his favour authoritatively, adding however a gentle
recommendation that in view of his yielding character he should have
some relation to stay with and to take care of him. This condition was
fulfilled by the return of his sister Anna from India, widowed, shortly
after, and thus everything was set right.
Hetty took no harm from that attack, which might have been shortened or
even averted if any one had been as bold as her mother. Mr. Darrell was
of opinion that she required very careful watching for a long
time--watching which the young man was too willing to give. He remained
in the position of the family doctor for some time after for this cause,
in his anxiety about Hetty’s health: and as soon as her parents consider
her old enough there is little doubt that he will get his reward.
John Prescott was left poor when his wife, baffled yet emancipated, took
away her money, as when the negotiations were all over she was at
liberty to do--but without the child, who clung to him, and would not
hear a word said of her mother. He was left quite poor, poorer even than
the Prescotts had been in Mary’s early days. But yet there was something
in Cousin John’s power. One morning, about a year after, the post
brought news of the death of the Rev. Hugh Prescott, the rector of
Horton, in one of the villages of the Riviera where he had lived so
long. In strict justice the appointment ought to have gone to the old
clergyman who had officiated as his _locum tenens_ for a dozen years.
But when was strict justice ever regarded in this world? John would
receive no council on this matter. He had been pronounced able to manage
his own affairs, and in this one point at least he was determined to do
so. He tried, in his blindness to write a letter to Mary with his own
hands offering the Rectory to her husband. The letter was illegible, but
the purpose was carried out, and thus Mary returned with all her
children to the home of her youth.
“Don’t speak of it, Miss Hetty; don’t speak of it,” said the old
clergyman. “If you think I know so little of the world as to believe
that the claims of pure justice, as you call it, could ever stand
against the claims of the Squire’s cousin-- But your father is a good
man, and you and your mother have been the saving of the Prescotts, and
I don’t grudge it, though perhaps it is a little hard upon me.”
Everything that is good for one is a little hard perhaps for some one
else--or almost everything. Mary thinks sometimes that it is a little
hard upon Mrs. Rotherham, once Prescott, to be deprived of her only
child; but then, when a woman cannot put up with a dull husband, which
is so much less a matter than many other matrimonial burdens, what can
she expect? And on the whole, no doubt everything is for the best.
_Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._