NIGHTINGALES.
This sudden departure of Mr. Luke Sharp, in the very marrow of his
story, left his good wife in a trying and altogether discontented
state of mind. She knew that she could have no more particulars until
he came back again; for Sharp had even less faith in the post than the
post of that period deserved. She might have to wait for days and
days, with a double anxiety urging her.
In the first place, although she felt nothing but pity for poor old
Mrs. Fermitage, and would have been really sorry to hear of anything
likely to vex her, she could not help being desirous to know if there
were any danger of a thing so sad. But her second anxiety was a great
deal keener, being sharpened by the ever moving grit of love; in the
dreadful state of mind her son was in, how would all this act upon
him? His father had been forced, by some urgency of things, to put on
his box-coat, and make off, without even time for a hurried whisper as
to the residue of his tale. Mrs. Sharp felt that there might be
something which her husband feared to spread before her, without
plenty of time to lead up to it; and having for many years been
visited (whenever she was not quite herself) with poignant doubts
whether Mr. Sharp was anchored upon Scriptural principles, she almost
persuaded herself for the moment that he meant to put up with the loss
of the money.
However, a little reflection sufficed to clear away this sadly awful
cloud of scepticism, and to assure her that Mr. Sharp, however he
might swerve in theory, would be orthodox enough in practice to follow
the straight path towards the money. And then she began to think of
nothing except her own beloved Kit.
The last hurried words of her husband had been--"Not one word to Kit,
or you ruin all; let him groan as he likes; only watch him closely. I
shall be back by Saturday night. God bless you, my dear! Keep up your
spirits. I have the whip-hand of the lot of them."
Herein lay her faith and hope. She never had known her husband fail,
when he really made up his mind to succeed; and therefore in the
bottom of her heart she doubted the genuine loss of Grace Oglander.
Sharp had discovered, and traced to their end, clues of the finest
gossamer, when his interest led him to do so. That he should be
baffled, and own himself to be so, was beyond her experience.
Therefore, although as yet she had no more than a guess at her
husband's schemes, she could not help fancying, after his words, that
they might have to do with Grace Oglander.
Before she had time to think out her thoughts, Christopher, their main
subject, returned from Wytham Wood, after holding long rivalry of woe
with nightingales. He still carried on, and well-carried off, the
style of the love-lorn Romeo. He swung his cloak quite as well as
could be expected of an Englishman--who is born to hate fly-away
apparel, all of which is womanish; but the necessities of his position
had driven him now to a very short pipe. His favourite meerschaum had
fallen into sorrow as terrible as his own. In a highly poetical moment
he had sucked it so hard that the oil arose, and took him with a hot
spot upon a white tongue, impregnated then with a sonnet. All sonnets
are of the tongue and ear; but Kit misliked having his split up, just
when it was coming to the final kick. Therefore he gave his pipe a
thump, beyond such a pipe's endurance; and being as sensitive as
himself, and of equally fine material, it simply refused to draw any
more, as long as he breathed poetry. Still breathing poetry, he
marched home, with the stump of a farthing clay, newly baked in the
Summertown Road, to console him.
Now, if this young man had failed of one of the triple human
combination--weed, and clay, and fire--where and how might he have
ended not only that one evening, but all the rest of the evenings of
his young life? His appearance and manner had at first imported to any
one whom he came across--and he truly did come across them in his wide
and loose march out of Oxford city--that he might be sought for in a
few hours' time, and only the inferior portion found. His mother
worried him, so did his father, so did all humanity, save one--who
worried him more than any, or all of it put together. The trees and
the road, and the singing of the birds, and the gladness of the green
world worried him. Luckily for himself he had bought a good box of
German tinder, and from ash to ash his spirit glowed slowly into a
more philosophic state. Gradually the beauty of the trees and hedges
and the sloping fields began to steal around him; the warbled pleasure
of the little birds made overture to his sympathy, and the lustrous
calm of shadowed waters spread its picture through his mind.
His body also responded to the influences of the time of day, and the
love of nature freshened into the natural love of cupboard. Hunger
awoke in his system somewhere, and spread sweet pictures in a tasteful
part. For a "moment of supreme agony" he wrestled with the coarse
material instinct, then turned on his heel, as our novelists say, and
made off for his father's kitchen.
His poor mother caught him the moment he came in, and pulled off his
hat and his opera-cloak, and frizzled up his curls for him. She seemed
to think that he must have been for a journey of at least a hundred
leagues; that the fault of his going was hers, and the virtue of his
ever coming back was all his own. Then she looked at him slyly, and
with some sadness, and yet a considerable touch of pride, by the light
of a three-wicked cocoa-candle; and feeling quite sure that she had
him to herself, trembled at the boldness of the shot she made:
"Oh, Kit, why have you never told me? I have found it all out. You
have fallen in love!"
Christopher Fermitage Sharp, Esquire--as he always entitled himself,
upon the collar of spaniel or terrier--had nothing to say for a
moment, but softly withdrew, to have his blush in shadow. Of all the
world, best he loved his mother--before, or after, somebody else--and
his simple, unpractised, and uncored heart, was shy of the job it was
carrying on. Therefore he turned from his mother's face, and her eager
eyes, and expectant arms.
"Come and tell me, my darling," she whispered, trying to get a good
look at his reluctant eyes, and wholly oblivious of her promise to his
father. "I will not be angry at all, Kit, although you never should
have left me to find it out in this way."
"There is nothing to find out," he answered, making a turn towards the
kitchen stairs. "I just want my supper, if there is anything to eat."
"To eat, Kit! And I thought so much better of you. After all, I must
have been quite wrong. What a shame to invent such stories!"
"You must have invented them, yourself, dear mother," said Kit with
recovered bravery. "Let me hear it all out when I have had my supper."
"I will go down this moment, and see what there is," replied his good
mother eagerly. "Is there anything, now, that can coax your appetite?"
"Yes, mother, oysters will be over to-morrow. I should like two dozen
fried with butter, and a pound and a quarter of rump-steak, cut thick,
and not overdone."
"You shall have them, my darling, in twenty minutes. Now, be sure that
you put your fur slippers on; I saw quite a fog coming over Port
Meadow, as much as half an hour ago. This is the worst time of year to
take cold. 'A May cold is a thirty-day cold.' What a stupe I must be,"
she continued to herself, "to imagine that the boy could be in love! I
will take care to say not another word, or I might break my promise to
his father. What a pity! He has a noble moustache coming, and only his
mother to admire it!"
In spite of all disappointment, this good mother paid the warmest heed
to the ordering, ay, and the cooking, of the supper of her only child.
A juicier steak never sat on a gridiron; fatter oysters never frizzled
with the pure bubble of goodness. Kit sat up, and made short work of
all that came before him.
"Now, mother, what is it you want to say?" His tone was not defiant,
but nicely self-possessed, and softly rich with triumph of digestion.
And a silver tankard of Morel's ale helped him to express himself.
"My dear boy, I have nothing to say, except that you have lifted a
great weight off my mind, a very great weight beyond description, by
leaving behind you not even a trace of the existence of that fine
rump-steak."