Nethercoats.
We will leave Mrs. Greenow with her niece and two sisters at Yarmouth,
and returning by stages to London, will call upon Mr. Grey at his
place in Cambridgeshire as we pass by. I believe it is conceded by
all the other counties, that Cambridgeshire possesses fewer rural
beauties than any other county in England. It is very flat; it is
not well timbered; the rivers are merely dikes; and in a very large
portion of the county the farms and fields are divided simply by
ditches--not by hedgerows. Such arrangements are, no doubt, well
adapted for agricultural purposes, but are not conducive to rural
beauty. Mr. Grey's residence was situated in a part of Cambridgeshire
in which the above-named characteristics are very much marked. It was
in the Isle of Ely, some few miles distant from the Cathedral town,
on the side of a long straight road, which ran through the fields
for miles without even a bush to cheer it. The name of his place was
Nethercoats, and here he lived generally throughout the year, and
here he intended to live throughout his life.
His father had held a prebendal stall at Ely in times when prebendal
stalls were worth more than they are at present, and having also
been possessed of a living in the neighbourhood, had amassed a
considerable sum of money. With this he had during his life purchased
the property of Nethercoats, and had built on it the house in which
his son now lived. He had married late in life, and had lost his wife
soon after the birth of an only child. The house had been built in
his own parish, and his wife had lived there for a few months and had
died there. But after that event the old clergyman had gone back to
his residence in the Close at Ely, and there John Grey had had the
home of his youth. He had been brought up under his father's eye,
having been sent to no public school. But he had gone to Cambridge,
had taken college honours, and had then, his father dying exactly at
this time, declined to accept a fellowship. His father had left to
him an income of some fifteen hundred a year, and with this he sat
himself down, near to his college friends, near also to the old
cathedral which he loved, in the house which his father had built.
But though Nethercoats possessed no beauty of scenery, though the
country around it was in truth as uninteresting as any country
could be, it had many delights of its own. The house itself was as
excellent a residence for a country gentleman of small means as
taste and skill together could construct. I doubt whether prettier
rooms were ever seen than the drawing-room, the library, and the
dining-room at Nethercoats. They were all on the ground-floor, and
all opened out on to the garden and lawn. The library, which was
the largest of the three, was a handsome chamber, and so filled as
to make it well known in the University as one of the best private
collections in that part of England. But perhaps the gardens of
Nethercoats constituted its greatest glory. They were spacious
and excellently kept up, and had been originally laid out with
that knowledge of gardening without which no garden, merely as a
garden, can be effective. And such, of necessity, was the garden of
Nethercoats. Fine single forest trees there were none there, nor was
it possible that there should have been any such. Nor could there
be a clear rippling stream with steep green banks, and broken rocks
lying about its bed. Such beauties are beauties of landscape, and do
not of their nature belong to a garden. But the shrubs of Nethercoats
were of the rarest kind, and had been long enough in their present
places to have reached the period of their beauty. Nothing had been
spared that a garden could want. The fruit-trees were perfect in
their kind, and the glass-houses were so good and so extensive that
John Grey in his prudence was some times tempted to think that he had
too much of them.
It must be understood that there were no grounds, according to
the meaning usually given to that word, belonging to the house at
Nethercoats. Between the garden and the public road there was a
paddock belonging to the house, along the side of which, but divided
from it by a hedge and shrubbery, ran the private carriageway up to
the house. This swept through the small front flower-garden, dividing
it equally; but the lawns and indeed the whole of that which made
the beauty of the place lay on the back of the house, on which side
opened the windows from the three sitting-rooms. Down on the public
road there stood a lodge at which lived one of the gardeners. There
was another field of some six or seven acres, to which there was
a gate from the corner of the front paddock, and which went round
two sides of the garden. This was Nethercoats, and the whole estate
covered about twelve acres.
It was not a place for much bachelor enjoyment of that sort generally
popular with bachelors; nevertheless Mr. Grey had been constant in his
residence there for the seven years which had now elapsed since he
had left his college. His easy access to Cambridge had probably done
much to mitigate what might otherwise have been the too great tedium
of his life; and he had, prompted thereto by early associations,
found most of his society in the Close of Ely Cathedral. But, with
all the delight he could derive from these two sources, there had
still been many solitary hours in his life, and he had gradually
learned to feel that he of all men wanted a companion in his home.
His visits to London had generally been short and far between,
occasioned probably by some need in the library, or by the necessity
of some slight literary transaction with the editor or publisher of a
periodical. In one of these visits he had met Alice Vavasor, and had
remained in Town,--I will not say till Alice had promised to share
his home in Cambridgeshire, but so long that he had resolved before
he went that he would ask her to do so. He had asked her, and we
know that he had been successful. He had obtained her promise, and
from that moment all his life had been changed for him. Hitherto at
Nethercoats his little smoking-room, his books, and his plants had
been everything to him. Now he began to surround himself with an
infinity of feminine belongings, and to promise himself an infinity
of feminine blessings, wondering much that he should have been
content to pass so long a portion of his life in the dull seclusion
which he had endured. He was not by nature an impatient man; but now
he became impatient, longing for the fruition of his new idea of
happiness,--longing to have that as his own which he certainly loved
beyond all else in the world, and which, perhaps, was all he had ever
loved with the perfect love of equality. But though impatient, and
fully aware of his own impatience, he acknowledged to himself that
Alice could not be expected to share it. He could plan nothing
now,--could have no pleasure in life that she was not expected to
share. But as yet it could not be so with her. She had her house
in London, her town society, and her father. And, inasmuch as the
change for her would be much greater than it would be for him, it was
natural that she should require some small delay. He had not pressed
her. At least he had not pressed her with that eager pressure which
a girl must resist with something of the opposition of a contest,
if she resist it at all. But in truth his impatience was now waxing
strong, and during the absence in Switzerland of which we have
spoken, he resolved that a marriage very late in the autumn,--that a
marriage even in winter, would be better than a marriage postponed
till the following year. It was not yet late in August when the party
returned from their tour. Would not a further delay of two months
suffice for his bride?
Alice had written to him occasionally from Switzerland, and her
first two letters had been very charming. They had referred almost
exclusively to the tour, and had been made pleasant with some
slightly coloured account of George Vavasor's idleness, and of Kate's
obedience to her brother's behests. Alice had never written much of
love in her love-letters, and Grey was well enough contented with her
style, though it was not impassioned. As for doubting her love, it
was not in the heart of the man to do so after it had been once
assured to him by her word. He could not so slightly respect himself
or her as to leave room for such a doubt in his bosom. He was a man
who could never have suggested to himself that a woman loved him till
the fact was there before him; but who having ascertained, as he
might think, the fact, could never suggest to himself that her love
would fail him. Her first two letters from Switzerland had been very
pleasant; but after that there had seemed to have crept over her a
melancholy which she unconsciously transferred to her words, and
which he could not but taste in them,--at first unconsciously, also,
but soon with so plain a flavour that he recognised it, and made it a
matter of mental inquiry. During the three or four last days of the
journey, while they were at Basle and on their way home, she had not
written. But she did write on the day after her arrival, having then
received from Mr. Grey a letter, in which he told her how very much
she would add to his happiness if she would now agree that their
marriage should not be postponed beyond the end of October. This
letter she found in her room on her return, and this she answered at
once. And she answered it in such words that Mr. Grey resolved that he
would at once go to her in London. I will give her letter at length,
as I shall then be best able to proceed with my story quickly.
Queen Anne Street,
-- August, 186--.
DEAREST JOHN,--
We reached home yesterday tired enough, as we came through
from Paris without stopping. I may indeed say that we
came through from Strasbourg, as we only slept in Paris.
I don't like Strasbourg. A steeple, after all, is not
everything, and putting the steeple aside, I don't think
the style is good. But the hotel was uncomfortable, which
goes for so much;--and then we were saturated with beauty
of a better kind.
I got your letter directly I came in last night, and
I suppose I had better dash at it at once. I would so
willingly delay doing so, saying nice little things the
while, did I not know that this would be mere cowardice.
Whatever happens I won't be a coward, and therefore I will
tell you at once that I cannot let you hope that we should
be married this year. Of course you will ask me why,
as you have a right to do, and of course I am bound to
answer. I do not know that I can give any answer with
which you will not have a right to complain. If it be so,
I can only ask your pardon for the injury I am doing you.
Marriage is a great change in life,--much greater to me
than to you, who will remain in your old house, will keep
your old pursuits, will still be your own master, and will
change in nothing,--except in this, that you will have a
companion who probably may not be all that you expect.
But I must change everything. It will be to me as though
I were passing through a grave to a new world. I shall
see nothing that I have been accustomed to see, and must
abandon all the ways of life that I have hitherto adopted.
Of course I should have thought of this before I accepted
you; and I did think of it. I made up my mind that, as I
truly loved you, I would risk the change;--that I would
risk it for your sake and for mine, hoping that I might
add something to your happiness, and that I might secure
my own. Dear John, do not suppose that I despair that it
may be so; but, indeed, you must not hurry me. I must tune
myself to the change that I have to make. What if I should
wake some morning after six months living with you, and
tell you that the quiet of your home was making me mad?
You must not ask me again till the winter shall have
passed away. If in the meantime I shall find that I have
been wrong, I will humbly confess that I have wronged
you, and ask you to forgive me. And I will freely admit
this. If the delay which I now purpose is so contrary
to your own plans as to make your marriage, under such
circumstances, not that which you had expected, I know
that you are free to tell me so, and to say that our
engagement shall be over. I am well aware that I can have
no right to bind you to a marriage at one period which you
had only contemplated as to take place at another period.
I think I may promise that I will obey any wish you may
express in anything,--except in that one thing which you
urged in your last letter.
Kate is going down to Yarmouth with Mrs. Greenow, and I
shall see no more of her probably till next year, as she
will be due in Westmoreland after that. George left me at
the door when he brought me home, and declared that he
intended to vanish out of London. Whether in town or out,
he is never to be seen at this period of the year. Papa
offers to go to Ramsgate for a fortnight, but he looks so
wretched when he makes the offer, that I shall not have
the heart to hold him to it. Lady Macleod very much wants
me to go to Cheltenham. I very much want not to go, simply
because I can never agree with her about anything; but
it will probably end in my going there for a week or two.
Over and beyond that, I have no prospects before Christmas
which are not purely domestic. There is a project that we
shall all eat our Christmas dinner at Vavasor Hall,--of
course not including George,--but this project is quite
in the clouds, and, as far as I am concerned, will remain
there.
Dear John, let me hear that this letter does not make you
unhappy.
Most affectionately yours,
ALICE VAVASOR.
At Nethercoats, the post was brought in at breakfast-time, and Mr.
Grey was sitting with his tea and eggs before him, when he read
Alice's letter. He read it twice before he began to think what he
would do in regard to it, and then referred to one or two others
which he had received from Switzerland,--reading them also very
carefully. After that, he took up the slouch hat which he had been
wearing in the garden before he was called to his breakfast, and,
with the letters in his hand, sauntered down among the shrubs and
lawns.
He knew, he thought he knew, that there was more in Alice's mind than
a mere wish for delay. There was more in it than that hesitation to
take at once a step which she really desired to take, if not now,
then after some short interval. He felt that she was unhappy, and
unhappy because she distrusted the results of her marriage; but it
never for a moment occurred to him that, therefore, the engagement
between them should be broken. In the first place he loved her too
well to allow of his admitting such an idea without terrible sorrow
to himself. He was a constant, firm man, somewhat reserved, and
unwilling to make new acquaintances, and, therefore, specially
unwilling to break away from those which he had made. Undoubtedly,
had he satisfied himself that Alice's happiness demanded such a
sacrifice of himself, he would have made it, and made it without a
word of complaint. The blow would not have prostrated him, but the
bruise would have remained on his heart, indelible, not to be healed
but by death. He would have submitted, and no man would have seen
that he had been injured. But it did not once occur to him that such
a proceeding on his part would be beneficial to Alice. Without being
aware of it, he reckoned himself to be the nobler creature of the
two, and now thought of her as of one wounded, and wanting a cure.
Some weakness had fallen on her, and strength must be given to her
from another. He did not in the least doubt her love, but he knew
that she had been associated, for a few weeks past, with two persons
whose daily conversation would be prone to weaken the tone of her
mind. He no more thought of giving her up than a man thinks of having
his leg cut off because he has sprained his sinews. He would go up to
town and see her, and would not even yet abandon all hope that she
might be found sitting at his board when Christmas should come. By
that day's post he wrote a short note to her.
"Dearest Alice," he said, "I have resolved to go to London at once. I
will be with you in the evening at eight, the day after to-morrow.
"Yours, J. G."
There was no more in the letter than that.
"And now," she said, when she received it, "I must dare to tell him
the whole truth."