“I suppose, Clare,” said Mr. Crofton to me one morning at breakfast,
“that Alice Harley has made up her mind, like somebody I once knew, to
live for other people, and on no account to permit herself to be
married--is it so?”
“I really cannot undertake to say whether she is like that person you
once knew,” said I, somewhat demurely. I had some hopes that she was--I
was much inclined to imagine that it was a youthful prepossession, of
which, perhaps, she herself was unaware, that kept Alice Harley an
unmarried woman; but of course I was not going to say so even to
Derwent, who, with all his good qualities, was after all only a man. An
unmarried woman!--that I should call my pretty Alice by that harsh,
mature, common-place name! But I am sorry to say the appellation was
quite a just one. She was nearer eight and twenty than eighteen,
now-a-days; she had no love, no engagement, no sentimental gossip at all
to be made about her. I will not undertake to say that she had not some
ideas of another kind, with which I had but a very limited sympathy--but
an unmarried woman Alice Harley was, and called herself--with (I
thought) a little quiet secret interest, which she deeply resented any
suspicion of, in Indian military affairs.
“Because,” said Derwent, with the old affectionate laugh, and glance of
old love-triumph over his old wife, which he never outgrew or exhausted,
“there is that very good fellow, our new Rector, would give his ears for
such a wife--and from all I can see, would suit her famously; which, by
the way, Clare, now that her mother is so dependent on her, is not what
every man would. You should say a good word for Reredos--it is your duty
to look after your protégée’s establishment in life.”
I confess when Derwent said these words a great temptation came to me.
It suddenly flashed upon my mind that Alice in the Rectory would be my
nearest neighbor, and the most pleasant of possible companions. At the
same moment, and in the light of that momentary selfish illumination, it
also became suddenly visible to me that my dear girl had a great many
notions which I rather disapproved of, and was rapidly confirming
herself in that _rôle_ of unmarried woman, which, having once rather
taken to it myself, I knew the temptations of. Mr. Reredos was only
about five years older than herself, good-looking, well-connected, with
a tolerably good living, and a little fortune of his own. And how could
I tell whether my private designs would ever come to anything? Derwent,
simple-minded man, had not fallen on so potent an argument for many a
day before.
“Mamma,” said little Derwent, who heard everything without listening,
“the housekeeper at the Rectory has a son in the Guards--like the men in
the steel-coats that you showed me when we went to London; the other
sons are all comfortable, she says; but this one, when she speaks of
_him_, she puts up her apron to her eyes. Mamma, I want to know if it is
wicked to go for a soldier--Sally Yeoman’s son ’listed last year, and
_she_ puts up her apron to her eyes. Now, my cousin Bertie is in
India--was it wicked in him to go for a soldier?--or what’s the good of
people being sad when people ’list?--eh, mamma?”
“Did you ever see anybody sad about your cousin Bertie?” said I, with a
sudden revulsion of feeling and the profoundest interest.
“N--no,” said little Derwent. He applied himself after that devoutly to
his bread and jam--there was something not altogether assured in the
sound of that “N--no.” Derwent could not help having quick eyes--but the
child knew sometimes that it was best to hold his tongue.
“I should like to know,” said Derwent the elder, laughing, “why Mr.
Reredos’s housekeeper’s son in the Guards has been dragged headlong into
this consultation. Suppose you go for a soldier yourself, Derwie.
There’s your drum in the corner. I have something to say to mamma.”
Little Derwent marched off, obedient, if not very willing. His
inquisitive tendencies did not carry him beyond that rule of obedience
which was the only restraint I put upon the boy. Derwent, elder,
followed him with happy looks. He only came back to his subject after an
interval of pleased and silent observation when there suddenly fell into
the stillness of our cheerful breakfast-room the first thunder of
Derwie’s drum.
“What an inquisitive little imp it is!” said Derwent; “but in spite of
the housekeeper’s son in the Guards, I don’t think you could do a more
charitable action, Clare, than to support Reredos’s suit to Alice
Harley. Such a famous thing for both--and such an excellent neighbor for
yourself.”
“That is very true,” said I; “but still I cannot help building something
upon that son in the Guards.”
Mr. Crofton looked up somewhat puzzled, with a smile upon his lips. I
daresay he asked, “What on earth do you mean?” somewhat exasperated at
the repetition; but Derwie’s drum filled all the apartment at the
moment, and of course I could not hear, much less answer him. We had
some further talk on the subject later, when Derwent called me into the
library to read over that speech of his, which he made a few evenings
before at Simonborough, and which the Editor of the Simonborough
Chronicle had sent over in proof to ask if my husband would kindly
glance over it and see if it was correct. Mr. Reredos was coming to
dinner to meet the Harleys, among other people--and Mr. Crofton, always
good-humored, and disposed to aid and abet all honest love affairs,
could not sufficiently point out the advantages of such a connection to
me.
And I said no more to perplex him, of the son in the Guards; but for
myself remembered that mythical personage, whatever was said to me on
the subject; and appreciated with the highest admiration that singularly
delicate line of association which suggested the reference to little
Derwie’s mind and thoughts. Yes, to be sure! the old women will put up
their aprons to their eyes when they talk about the son who has
’listed; the young women will keep a shadowy corner in their hearts for
that unfortunate--and yet it is not wicked to go for a soldier. I felt
Mr. Reredos’s handsome figure quite blotted out by the suggestion
conveyed in that of his housekeeper’s son. When I had finished my
housekeeping affairs, and given orders about the visitors we expected
for Easter--this I should have said was the Easter recess, the glimpse
of spring at Hilfont, which was all we could catch now that Derwent, to
his great affliction, was a Parliament man--I took my seat in the great
cheerful window of that room where we had breakfasted, and which
overlooked half the country. Far away in the distance the sun caught the
spires and roofs of Simonborough, with its cathedral faintly shining out
from among the lower level of the housetops, and nearer at hand struck
bright upon the slow and timid river which wound through the fields down
below us, at the bottom of this great broad slope of country, which had
no pretensions to be a hill, though its advantage of altitude in our
level district was greater than that of many an elevation twice or three
times as high. Spring was stealing into the long drooping branches of
those willows which marked the irregular line of the stream. Spring
brightened with doubtful, wavering dewy smiles over all the surface of
the country. I remember when I should have been glad to turn my eyes
indoors, away from the sweet suggestions of Nature conveyed by that
sweetest and most suggestive season; but I took the fullest and freest
enjoyment of it now; rather, I sat at the window calmly pleased and
unconscious, as we are when we are happy, feeling no contrast to wound
me between the world without and the world within--and considered fully
the circumstances of Alice Harley, and how I ought to forward, as
Derwent said, my dear girl’s establishment in life.
Now I have to confess that many years before this I had formed my own
plans for Alice--had quite made up my mind, indeed, to a secret scheme
of match-making in which at the moment I had been grievously
disappointed. At that time, when little Derwie was undreampt of, and I
had prematurely made up my mind to a childless life, I had settled my
inheritance of Estcourt upon my young cousin Bertie Nugent, with a
strong hope that the boy, who had known her for so many years, would
naturally prefer my pretty Alice to all strangers, when his good fortune
and affectionate heart put marriage into his head. This did not turn out
the case, however. Bertie made his choice otherwise, was disappointed,
and went off to India, where for eight long years he had remained.
Sometimes, when he wrote to me, I found a message of good wishes to his
old playmates at the very end of the page; once or twice it had occurred
to him to ask, “Is not Alice Harley married?” but the question seemed to
proceed rather from surprise and curiosity than any tender interest. It
is impossible to imagine a greater separation than there was between
these two. Bertie, now Captain Herbert Nugent, at a remote station in
the Bengal Presidency, where, scattered over that vast, arid country, he
had friends, brothers, and cousins by the dozen; and Alice, with her
new-fangled notions, and staid single-woman dignity, hid away in the
depths of a quiet English home, where she addressed herself to her duty
and the education of her little sisters and eschewed society. Whether
any secret thoughts of each other lingered in their minds nobody of
course could tell; but they certainly had not, except in my persistent
thoughts, a single bond of external connection. So long as they were
both unmarried, I could not help putting them together with an
imagination which longed for the power of giving efficacy to its dreams;
but nobody else had ever done so--there were thousands of miles of land
and water dividing them--many long years, and most likely a world of
dissimilar dispositions, experiences and thoughts.
While on the other hand Mr. Reredos was actually present on the scene,
in a pretty Rectory just half a mile from my own house, and not a dozen
miles from Mrs. Harley’s cottage. The young clergyman lost no
opportunity of doing his duty towards that lady, though her dwelling was
certainly in another parish--and showed himself so far disposed towards
Alice’s new-fangled notions as to preach a sermon upon the changed
position and new duties of Woman, on the occasion of her last visit to
Hilfont. I trust it edified Alice, for it had rather a contrary effect
upon myself, and filled the parishioners generally with the wildest
amazement. Most people are flattered by such an adoption of their own
opinions--and a young woman aged twenty-seven, thinking herself very
old, and trying hard to make every one else believe the same, is
especially open to such a compliment. Besides, I could not say anything
even to myself against Mr. Reredos. He was well-bred, well-looking, and
well-dispositioned--the match would be particularly suitable in every
way. Dr. Harley’s daughter, had her father and his fortune survived till
the present day, would still have made quite a sensible marriage in
accepting the Rector of Hilfont. And then the advantage of having her
so near!
I sat in the great window of the breakfast-room, looking over half the
county. If I had been a woman of elevated mind or enlightened views, I
should have been thinking of all the human wishes and disappointments
that lay beneath my eyes, each one under its own roof and its own
retirement. But, on the contrary, I observed nothing but a small figure
on a small pony ascending the road from the village. In the same way I
ought to have been benevolently glad that our excellent young Rector had
inclined his eyes and heart towards my own favorite and friend--the
friend and favorite now of so many years--and that a home so suitable,
at once to her origin and her tastes, awaited the acceptance of Alice.
But I was not glad--I sent my thoughts ever so far away to Bertie’s
bungalow, and felt aggrieved and disappointed for the boy who, alas! was
a boy no longer, and most likely, instead of feeling aggrieved on his
own account, would have nothing but his warmest congratulations to send
when he heard of his old playmate’s marriage. Things are very perverse
and unmanageable in this world. The right people will not draw together,
let one wish it ever so strongly, whereas the wrong people are always
approaching each other in eccentric circles, eluding every obstacle
which one can place in their way. I could not be very melancholy on the
subject, because the pony and its little rider came every moment nearer,
and brightened the face of the earth to my eyes--but still it was in the
highest degree provoking. If it ever came to anything! There was still
that escape from this perplexing matter; for whether I felt disposed to
support his suit or not, it was still by no means certain, even when Mr.
Reredos had finally declared himself, what Alice Harley might say.