REASON AND UNREASON.
When things were in this very ticklish condition almost everywhere,
and even Cripps himself could scarcely sleep because of rumours, and
Dobbin in his own clean stable found the flies too many for him, an
exceedingly active man set out to scour the whole of the
neighbourhood. To the large and vigorous mind of the Rev. Thomas
Hardenow, the worst of all sins (because the most tempting and
universal) was indolence.
Hardenow never condemned a poor man for having his pint or his quart
of ale (with his better half to help him), when he had earned it by a
hard day's work, and had fed his children likewise. Hardenow thought
it not easy to find any hypocrisy more bald or any morality more cheap
than that or those which strut about, reviling the poor man for
taking, in the cheaper liquid form, the nourishment which "his
betters" can afford to have in the shape of meat; and then are not
content with it, unless it is curdled with some duly sour vintage. And
passing such crucial points of debate, Hardenow always could make
allowance for any sins rather than those which spring from a
treacherous, sneaking, and lying essence.
Now, a council was held at the Grange of Shotover on the Monday. A sad
and melancholy house it was, with its fine old mistress lately buried,
and its poor young master only half recovered. The young tutor had
been especially invited, and having heard everything from the Squire
(who was proud of having ridden so far, yet broke down ridiculously
among his boasts), and from Russel Overshute (who had thrown himself
back for at least three days by excitement and exertion yesterday),
and also from Mrs. Fermitage (who had lately been feeling herself
overlooked), Hardenow thought for some little time before he would
give his opinion. Not that he was, by any manner of means, possessed
with the greatness of his own ideas; but that Mrs. Fermitage, from a
low velvet chair, looked up at him with such emphatic inquiry and
implicit faith, that he was quite in a difficulty how to speak, or
what to say.
And so he said a very few short words of sympathy and of kindness, and
gladly offered to do his best, and obey the orders given him; so far,
at least, as his duty to his college and pupils permitted. He
confessed that he had thought of this matter many times before he was
invited to do so, and without the knowledge which he now possessed, or
the special interest in the subject which he now must feel for the
sake of Russel. But Mrs. Fermitage, filled with respect for the wisdom
of a fellow and tutor of a college, would not let Hardenow thus
escape; and being compelled to give his opinion, he did so with his
usual clearness.
"I am not at all a man of the world," he said; "and of the law I know
nothing. My friend Russel is a man of the world, and knows a good deal
of the law as well. A word from him is worth many of mine. But if Mrs.
Fermitage insists upon having my crude ideas, they are these. First of
the first, and by far the most important--I believe that Miss Oglander
is alive, and that her father will receive her safe and sound, though
not perhaps still Miss Oglander."
"God bless you, my dear sir!" the Squire broke in, getting up to lay
hold of the young man's hand. "I don't care a straw what her name may
be--Snooks, or Snobbs, or Higginbotham--if I only get sight of my
darling child again!"
Russel Overshute looked rather queer at this, and so did Mrs.
Fermitage; but the Squire continued in the same sort of way--"What
odds about her name, if it only is my Grace?"
"Exactly so," replied Hardenow; "that natural feeling of yours perhaps
has been foreseen and counted on; and that may be why such trouble was
taken to terrify you with the idea of her death. Also, of course, that
would paralyze your search, while the villains are at leisure to
complete their work."
"I declare, I never thought of that," cried Russel. "How extremely
thick-headed of me! That theory accounts for a number of things that
cannot be otherwise explained. What a head you have got, my dear Tom,
to be sure!"
"I wish I could believe it!" Mr. Oglander exclaimed, whilst his sister
clasped her fair fat hands, and looked with amazement at every one.
"But I see no motive, no motive whatever. My Grace was a dear good
girl, as everybody knows, and a fortune in herself; but of worldly
goods she had very little, any more than I have; and her prospects
were naturally contingent--contingent upon many things, which may not
come to pass, I hope, for many years--if they ever do." Here he looked
at his sister, and she said, "I hope so." "Therefore," continued Mr.
Oglander, "while there are so many fine girls in the county, very much
better worth carrying off--so far as mere worthless pelf is
concerned--why should anybody steal my Grace unless they stole her for
her own sake?"
Here the Squire sat down, and took to drumming with his stick. His
feelings were hurt at the idea--though it was so entirely of his own
origination--that his daughter had been carried off for the sake of
her money, not of her own dear self. Hardenow looked at him and made
no answer. He felt that it did not behove a mere stranger to ask about
the young lady's expectations; while Overshute was more imperatively
silenced by his relations towards the family. But Mrs. Fermitage came
to the rescue. Great was her faith in the value of money, and she
liked to have it known that she had plenty.
"Tut, tut," she cried, shaking out her new brocaded silk--a mourning
dress certainly, but softly trimmed with purple--"why should we make
any mystery of things, when the truth is most important? And the truth
is, Mr. Hardenow, that my dear niece had very good expectations. My
deeply lamented husband, respected, and I may say reverenced, for
upwards of half a century, in every college of Oxford, and even more
so by the corporation, for the pure integrity of his character, the
loftiness of his principles, and--and the substance of his--what they
make the wine of--he was not the man, Mr. Hardenow, to leave a devoted
wife behind him, who had stepped perhaps out of her rank a little, not
being of commercial birth, you know, but never found cause to regret
it, without some provision for the earthly time which she, being many
years his junior----"
"Come, come, Joan, not so very many," exclaimed the truthful Squire;
"about five, or say six, at the utmost. You were born on the 25th of
June, A.D.----"
"Worth, I was not asking you for statistics. Mr. Hardenow, you will
excuse my brother. He has always had a rude style of interruption; he
learned it, I believe, in the army, and we always make allowance for
it. But to go back to what I was saying--my good and ever to be
lamented husband, being, let us say, ten years my senior--Worth, will
that content you?--left every farthing of his property to me; and a
good husband always does the same thing, I am told, and I believe they
are ordered in the Bible; and, of course, I have no one to leave it to
but Grace; and being so extraordinarily advanced in years, as my dear
brother has impressed upon you, they could not have any very long time
to wait; and my desire is to do my duty; and perhaps that lies at the
bottom of it all."
After relieving her mind in this succinct yet copious manner, the good
lady went into her chair again, carefully directing, in whatever state
of mind, the gathering and the falling of her dress aright. And though
it might be fancied that her colour had been high, anybody now could
see that her dignity had conquered it.
"Now, the whole of this goes for next to nothing," said the Squire,
while the young men looked at one another, and longed to be out of the
way of it. "As we have got into the subject, let us go right down to
the bottom of it. What are filthy pence and halfpence, or a cellar,
like Balak's, of silver and gold, when compared with the life of one
pure dear soul? I may not express myself theologically, but you can
see what I mean exactly. I mean that I would kick old Port-wine's
dross to the bottom of the Red Sea, where Pharaoh lies, if it turns
out that that has killed my child, or made her this long time dead to
me."
Having justified his feelings thus, the old man stood up, and went to
the window, to look for his horse. The very last thing he desired
always was to let out what he felt too much. But to hear that old
thief of a "Port-wine Fermitage" praised, and his lucre put forward,
quite as if it were an equivalent for Grace, and to think that he owed
to that filthy cause the loss of the liveliest, loveliest darling,
without whom he had neither life nor love--such things were enough to
break the balance of his patience; and the rest might think them out
amongst them.
Now, this might have made a very serious to-do between Mr. Oglander
and his sister Joan, both of them being of the stiff-necked order, if
he had been allowed to ride away like this. Mrs. Fermitage had her
great carriage in the yard, and two black horses with wide valleys
down their backs, rattling rings of the brightest brass, while they
stood in the stable with a bail between them, and gently deigned to
blow the chaff off from the oats of Shotover. This goodly pair made a
great rush now into the mind of their mistress--the only sort of rush
they ever made--and seeing her brother in that state of mind to get
away from her, she became inspired with an equal desire to get away
from him.
"Will you kindly ring the bell," she said, "and order my horses to be
put to? I think I have quite said every word I had to say. And being
the only lady present, of course I labour under some--well, some
little disadvantages. Not, of course, that I mean for a moment----"
"To be sure not, Joan! You never do know what you mean. You would be a
very nasty woman if you did. Now, do let us turn our minds the
pleasant way to everything. If any word has come from me to lead to
strong kind of argument, I beg pardon of everybody; and then there
ought to be an end of it."
Mrs. Fermitage scarcely knew what to say, but in a relenting way
looked round for some one to take it up for her. And she was not long
without somebody.
"Mr. Oglander," said Russel Overshute, "you really ought to give us
time to think. You are growing so hasty, sir, since you came back to
your seat in the saddle, and your cross-country ways, that you want to
ride over every one of us--ladies and gentlemen, all alike."
The old Squire laughed, he could not help it, at the thought of his
own effrontery. He felt that there might be some truth about it, ever
since it had come into his mind that he might not after all be
childless. He would not have any one know, for a thousands pounds, why
he was laughing; or that half another word might turn it into weeping.
He had seen it proved in learned books that no man knew the way to
weep at his time of life; and if his own case went against it, he had
the manners to be ashamed of it. So he waited till he felt that his
face was right, and then he went up to his sister Joan, who was
growing uneasy about her own words; and he took her two plump hands in
his, and gave a glance, for all there present to be welcome witnesses.
And then, having knowledge for the last ten years how much too fat she
was to lift, he managed to kiss her in the two right places,
disarranging nothing.
His sister looked up at him, as soon as he had done it, with a sense
of his propriety and study of her harmonies; and she whispered to him
quietly, "I beg you pardon, brother." And he spoke up for all to hear
him, "Joan, my dear, I beg your pardon."
"Now, the first thing to be done," said Hardenow, "is to find
Cinnaminta and her husband Smith. But allow me to make one important
request, that even your adviser, Mr. Luke Sharp, shall not be informed
of what has passed to-day, or what Overshute found out yesterday."
With some little surprise they agreed to this.