The next morning was Easter Sunday. I have no doubt Mr. Reredos would
have been glad enough to add a private joy of his own to the rejoicings
of the festival, and might not have thought it unsuitable to declare
himself even on that morning could he have had a chance. However, there
was not very much time before Church hours, and to be sure the Rector
ought to have been thinking of something else. It was a true Easter
morning, full of sunshine and that new life of spring born out of death
and darkness which to every heart must bear a certain charm. Is it
something of a compensation to the sorrowful that all the wonderful
silent symbols of Nature speak to them with a special force which does
not belong to the happy? We were all dwelling at ease, people
untroubled--our hearts were glad in the sunshine, which to us looked
like a promise of permanence and peace unclouded. Only far off with an
apprehension of the thoughts, and not of the heart, did the meaning of
the feast which we were keeping occur to us. To Derwent and myself this
was perhaps the happiest time of our lives. Perhaps to us the
Resurrection was little more than an article of belief--I think we thus
paid something for our happiness. At all events it did not jar upon us
to perceive a certain agitation in the Rector’s tones--a certain
catching of his breath in the little pleasant sermon, not without some
small sentences in it specially meant for the ear of Alice, but
perfectly “suited to the occasion,” which Mr. Reredos delivered.
Everybody was very attentive, save Maurice Harley. Maurice had some
liberal and lofty objections to the Athanasian creed; he sat down and
amused himself reading the Gunpowder Plot Service with secret smiles of
criticism, while his neighbors round him murmured forth with a universal
rustic voice that strenuous confession of the faith--and he sketched a
bracket (we were rather proud of our Church) while Mr. Reredos preached
his sermon, and comported himself generally as a highly superior man,
attending Church out of complacency to his friends, might be expected to
do.
Next day I fear Mr. Reredos ascertained beyond question what he had to
expect from Alice Harley. With a look of stormy agitation, strongly
restrained, he let me know on the Monday that it was quite necessary
for him to return to the Rectory. He had some sick people to attend to,
who demanded his presence in his own house. I did not say that there was
only half a mile of distance between the Rectory and the Hall--I
acquiesced in his explanations, and accepted his apologies. Miss
Reredos, however, was much more difficult to manage. I heard him tell
her in a low tone that she must get ready to go; and the young lady’s
answer of astonishment, and resistance, and total ignorance of any
reason why her pleasure should be balked, was audible enough to
everybody in the room.
“Go away! Leave Hilfont!” she exclaimed with a gasp of amazement. “Why
should we go away? Mrs. Crofton was good enough to ask us for a week,
and I am sure you could do your duty quite as well here as at the
Rectory. Oh, please, Mrs. Crofton, listen! The only sick people I know
of are that old man at the turnpike, and his blind daughter--he could
visit them quite as well going from Hilfont as from the Rectory. I
believe this is the nearest of the two.”
“Oh, but Mr. Williams from the little chapel goes to see old Johnnie
Dunn,” interrupted little Derwie; “he was there yesterday, and Martha’s
quite well now, and goes to chapel like anything. Miss Reredos, do you
know Martha wasn’t always blind? she used to work and make dresses when
she was young. Once she lived in Simonborough and learned her trade, and
I suppose it was there she learned to go to chapel. Martha says they’re
not Church-folks at all. I don’t think they want Mr. Reredos to go
there.”
“You’re not very complimentary, Derwie,” said the Rector, with a slight
quiver of his lip, which I recognized as a sign of the passion and deep
excitement in which he was. With that wild pain and mortification
tugging at his heart, it would have been a relief to him to burst out in
an ebulition of rage or impatience against somebody, and I instinctively
put out my hand to protect my boy. “But it is sometimes my duty to go
where they don’t want me,” he added, with a laugh as significant, “and
with many regrets and many thanks to Mrs. Crofton we must still go back
to-day. Laura, get ready, please.”
In pity for the unfortunate Rector, who, I saw, longed to escape from
the room, the inquisitive looks of Mrs. Clara, who was present, and the
distinct statement from Derwie, which I knew to be impending, to the
effect, that of his own certain knowledge nobody was ill in the
village, I interposed, and we made a compromise--the Rector left us and
his sister stayed. Miss Reredos was profoundly pleased with the
arrangement. Perhaps her dear Clement did not confide to her his private
reasons for so hasty a return, and I am not sure that she was not quite
as well satisfied with his absence, which might have possibly spoiled
her own particular sport--or interfered with it at least. So he went
away with a certain impetus and haste upon him--his romance come to an
effectual end, and his sensations somewhat bitter. He was not
lackadaisical, but savage, as men are under their mortifications when
they are no longer in their first youth. I daresay, if one could have
read his thoughts, there were ferocious denunciations there against the
women who beguile a man to commit himself so fatally, which would have
been very unjust to poor Alice. I am afraid it is very cold-hearted of
me to speak so lightly of a serious disappointment, which this certainly
was to Mr. Reredos. I have no doubt he was really unhappy; but I thought
it a good symptom that the unhappiness took a savage turn.
Miss Reredos left behind, pursued, as I have said, her own sport. She
was prettier than I thought her at first--she had a little of that
teasing wit which clever young ladies exercise upon attractive young
men, and she had a strong sentimental reserve, much more in keeping with
her pale complexion and black ringlets than the lighter mood. A couple
of days had not passed over us before we all perceived that the poor
lame boy, Johnnie Harley, was hopelessly taken in her toils. Just at
first nobody had paid particular attention to the intercourse between
these two. It was very kind of Miss Reredos to talk to the unfortunate
young man, and interest herself about his pictures, and listen to his
dreams; and so wonderful a prominence has one’s actual self to one’s own
eyes, however unselfish, that I believe Alice was quite of opinion that
Miss Reredos, expecting to be connected with the family by-and-by, was
paying all these friendly attentions to Johnnie by way of conciliating
herself. Nothing could be further from the intentions of the Rector’s
sister. She was strongly of opinion that each man for himself was the
most satisfactory rule, and being possessed of that spirit of conquest
which some women have by nature, commenced her operations from the
moment of entering the house. I do not think she could help it, poor
girl--it was natural to her. There were in Hilfont only two persons
accessible to her charms--Maurice, in every way an eligible victim, and
poor cripple Johnnie, to whom, one could have supposed, not even a
coquettish girl at a loss for a prey, would have had the heart to offer
her sweet poison. But the heart, I fear, has little to do with such
concerns, and almost before the suspicions of the other women of the
party, from myself downward, were awakened, the mischief was done. Miss
Reredos, we had no difficulty in perceiving, had set her heart upon the
subjugation of Maurice, whether for any personal reason, or for sport,
or as a means of retaliation, it was difficult to tell; and really I was
not in the least concerned about the peace of mind of the Fellow of
Exeter. But Johnnie! we all rose up together to his defence, with secret
vows of self-devotion. All the women of us guarded him about, shielding
his little table and his stereoscope from the approach of the
enemy--even Di, tall, timid, and twelve years old, stood by the lad with
a natural instinct. But we were too late. He answered Miss Polly, I
fear, rather sharply, turned his back upon myself, and gave Mrs. Clara a
brotherly push away from him. He wanted none of us--he wanted only the
Siren who was charming the poor boy among such rocks and quicksands as
his frail boat had never yet ventured upon. When Miss Reredos addressed
herself to Maurice, his unfortunate brother turned savage looks upon
that all-accomplished young man. In our first indignation we were all
rather cold to Miss Reredos, and Johnnie, quick-sighted as his
infirmities helped to make him, perceived it in a moment, and resented
the neglect, which of course he attributed to our envy of her
perfections. Then we tried artifice instead, and Clara, sister of the
victim, got up a very warm sudden regard for the enchantress, whose
opinion she sought upon everything; but this Miss Reredos speedily
discovered, exposed, and exulted in; there was no help for it--the
damage which was done, was done, and could not be repaired.
Meanwhile the flirtation with Maurice did not advance so
satisfactorily--he was so much accustomed to admire himself, that the
habit of admiring another came slowly to him; and then, as Miss Reredos
took the initiative, and did not spare to be cleverly rude to the young
man, he, taking advantage of his privileges, was cleverly rude to her in
reply, from which fashionable mode of beginning, they advanced by
degrees to closer friendship, or, at least, familiarity of address.
Alice looked on at all this with the most solemn disapproval--it was
amusing to see the dead gravity of her glances towards them, the tacit
displeasure, and shame, and resentment on account of “her sex!” Poor
Alice took the responsibility on her own shoulders; she watched the
levity of the other girl, who did not resemble herself in a single
particular, with a solemn sense of being involved in it, which struck me
as the oddest comicality I had seen. Could anybody suppose Maurice
Harley concerned about another man’s shortcomings, only because the
culprit was a man, and one of his own _sex_? If it had not been so
entirely true and sincere, it would have been absurd--this championship
of Alice; only women ever dream of such an _esprit de corps_--but she
maintained it with such absolute good faith and solemn gravity, that
while one laughed one loved her the better. There she sat, severe in her
youthful virtue, gravely believing herself old, and past the period of
youth, but in her heart as high-flying, as obstinate, as heroical as if
she were seventeen. Mrs. Clara knew nothing of that romance; perhaps
there are delicate touches of feminine character, which only show
themselves to perfection in the “unmarried woman”--the woman who has
come to maturity without having the closer claims of husband and
children to charm her out of her thoughts and theories--though it is
only in a very gracious subject that such an example as Alice Harley
could be produced.