Very shortly after our little party separated, it was time to go back to
London to Derwent’s treadmill; our holiday was over--and as Alice had
positively declined my invitation to go with us to London, we were again
for several months quite separated from our country friends. I heard
from them in the meantime various scraps of information, from which I
could gather vaguely how their individual concerns went on. Mr. Reredos
was again a visitor at the cottage, and Mrs. Harley, who was not in the
secret of his previous rejection, wrote to me two or three long,
anxious, confidential letters about his evident devotion to her dear
girl--and what did I think of it? It was, the good mother said, the
position of all others which she would choose for her daughter, if it
lay in her decision--a country clergyman’s wife, the same position which
she herself had held long ago, when Dr. Harley lived, and she was
happy!--but she could not make out what Alice’s mind was. Alice was
sometimes cordial and sometimes distant to this candidate for her
favor--“And I often fear that it will just be with Mr. Reredos as with
the rest,” said Mrs. Harley, despondingly--“and I like him so much--he
reminds me of what her dear father was once--and the connection would
altogether be so eligible that I should be very sorry if it came to
nothing. Do you think, dear Mrs. Crofton, that you could use your
influence with her on this subject? My dear girl is so shocked and
disgusted with the idea of people marrying for an establishment, that I
really do not venture to say a word to her about her own establishment
in life; but _you_ know as well as I do, dear Mrs. Crofton, that such
things must be thought of, and really this is so thoroughly
eligible”----
Alice followed on the same key.
“Mamma teases me again on that everlasting subject, dear Mrs. Crofton;
there is some one so completely eligible, she says--and I quite feel
it--so entirely eligible that if there was not another in the world!
Mamma is provoked, and says if somebody came who was quite the reverse
of eligible that I should answer differently--and indeed I am not sure
but there is justice in what she says. But do interfere on my behalf,
please; I prefer to be always Alice Harley--do, please, dear Mrs.
Crofton, persuade my mother not to worry me, but to believe that I know
my own mind.”
From which double correspondence I inferred that Mr. Reredos had somehow
managed to resume his suit and to make a partisan of Mrs. Harley without
giving a desperate and hopeless affront to the pride of Alice, which
raised my opinion of his generalship so greatly that I began to imagine
there might possibly be some likelihood of success for the Rector--a
conclusion which I fear did not gratify me so much as Mrs. Harley had
imagined it should.
Along with this information I heard of a sister of Mr. Owen’s, who was
paying them a visit--of repeated excursions into Simonborough--of
Maurice’s growing relish for home, and some anxieties on the young man’s
part about his future life. And Johnnie’s book was published--a book
which in my wildest imagination I could not have supposed to be produced
by the cripple boy, who, out of the cottage, knew nothing whatever of
life. Johnnie’s hero was a hero who did feats of strength and skill
unimaginable--tamed horses, knocked down bullies, fought, rode, rowed,
and cricketed, after the most approved fashion of the modern youth,
heroical and muscular--and in his leisure hours made love!--such
love!--full of ecstasies and despairs, quite inconceivable to any
imagination above twenty--but all enforced and explained with such
perfect ingenuousness and good faith that one could have hugged the boy
all the time for the exquisite and delightful folly, in which there did
not mix an evil thought. Nothing could well be more remarkable than this
fiery outburst of confined and restrained life from the bosom of the
cripple, to whom all these active delights were impossible--it was
profoundly pathetic too, to me. Poor Johnnie! with that fervid
imagination in him, how was he to bear the gray life which Alice had
predicted--the life which must be his, notwithstanding all his dreams
and hopes? How, when it came to that, was he to undergo the downfall of
his first miraculous castle in the air, his vain and violent
love-passion? Poor heart, foredoomed! would he ever learn to bring the
music of Patience, so lovely to those who hear, so hard to those who
make it, out of those life-chords which were drawn all awry, beyond the
reach of happiness? I was happy myself in those days. I had little
desire to think of the marvellous life to come in which all these
problems shall be made clear. I could not cast forward my mind beyond
this existence--and the strange inequality between this boy’s mind and
his fate vexed me at the heart.
And so, quite quietly and gradually, the time stole on. I heard nothing
more from poor Bertie Nugent, in India; he meant to come home, but he
had not yet obtained his leave of absence, and it remained quite
uncertain when we should see him. Everything was very quiet at home. Our
fighting was over--our national pride and confidence in our own arms and
soldiers, revived by actual experience; everything looking prosperous
within the country, and nothing dangerous without.
It was at this time that the dreadful news of the Indian mutiny came
upon the country like the shock of an earthquake. News more frightful
never startled a peaceful people. Faces paled, and hearts sickened, even
among people who had no friends in that deadly peril; and as for us, who
had relatives and connections to be anxious for, it is impossible to
describe the fear that took possession of us. I knew nobody there but
Bertie, and he, thank Heaven, was but a man, and could only be killed at
the worst; but I had people belonging to me there, though I did not know
them; people whom I had heard of for years and years, though I had never
seen them; cousins, and such like--Nugents--with women among them--God
help us! creatures who might have to bear tortures more cruel than
death. The thought woke me up into a restless fever of horror and
anxiety, which I cannot describe. Perhaps I felt the hideous contrast
more because of my own perfect safety and happiness, but I could neither
sleep by night nor smile by day, for the vision of that horrible anguish
which had fallen upon some, and might be--might be--for anything I
knew--at any moment--ah! the thought was too much for flesh and blood.
It was growing towards autumn, yet I, who hated London, was reluctant
that year to leave it. We were nearer to those news which it was so
sickening to hear, yet so dreadful to be out of reach of, and it seemed
to me as if it would be impossible to go into those tranquil country
places, where all was happy, and still, and prosperous, with such a
cloud of horror, and fear, and rage about one’s heart. At that time I
almost think I could have heard without any great additional pang that
Bertie himself had been killed. He was a man, thank Heaven, and they
could only kill him! Mere family affection was lost for the moment in
the overpowering horror of the time.
But the first miseries were over by the time we went to Hilfont--it had
begun to be a fight of man to man--that is to say, of one man to some
certain number of heathen creatures, from a dozen to a hundred--and the
news, breathless news, mad with gasps of grief, anxiety, and
thanksgiving, did not now strike such horror and chill to our blood. We
went home and quieted ourselves, and grew anxious about Bertie--very
anxious. Of course he was in the thick of the fight. If he had not been,
could we ever have forgiven him?--but he was, and we had only to wait,
and long, and tremble for news, to catch here and there a glimpse of him
through obscure telegraphic reports, and slow dispatches, coming long,
long, and slow, after that bewildering, tantalizing snatch of
half-comprehensible tidings. Then I saw, for the first time, how
thoroughly the young man, though he had been away eight years, kept his
hold upon our hearts. Derwent would ride a dozen miles to the railway
for a chance of hearing a little earlier than was possible at Hilfont,
when the _new_ news came in; everybody about the house looked breathless
till they heard if the Captain, as they called him, was still safe. As
for Alice Harley, I do not remember that she ever asked a question--she
went and came about the house, read all the papers, listened to all the
conversations, stood by and heard everything, while her sister Clara
poured forth inquiry upon inquiry, while the gentlemen discussed the
whole matter, and decided what everybody must do; while even Lady
Greenfield, drawn towards me, though we were but indifferent friends,
by a common touch of nature (for I cannot deny that she liked her
nephews), consulted and argued where Bertie could be now, and wished him
safe home. My little Derwent, with a flush on his childish cheeks, and
tears in his eyes, cried out against her; “Do you think Bertie will come
safe home when they are murdering the women and the babies?” cried
Derwie, with a half-scream of childish excitement. “Bertie?--if he did,
I would like to kill him; but he never, never, will till they’re all on
board the ships--he had better be killed than come safe home!”
The tears were in my own eyes, so that I did not see the child very
clearly as he spoke; but I saw Alice bend quickly down to kiss him, and
heard in the room the sound of one sob--a sound surprised out of
somebody’s heart. Not Lady Greenfield’s, who put her handkerchief to her
eyes, and said that really she was only human, and might be forgiven for
wishing her own relations safe. Miss Polly had come with her
sister-in-law that day--she was paler than ever, the tender old lady.
She cried a little as we talked, but it was not out of her calm old
heart that such a sob of anguish and passion came.
“My dear,” said Miss Polly, speaking as if she addressed me, but not
looking in my direction, “I’m afraid Derwie’s right; if he die he must
do his duty--there’s no talk of being safe in such times.”
“It is very easy for you to speak,” said Lady Greenfield, and I believe
she thought so; “but Clare and I feel differently--he is not a relation
of yours.”
“I pray for the dear boy, night and morning, all the same. God bless
him, at this moment, wherever he may be!” said Miss Polly. I was
conscious of a quick, sudden movement as the words fell, soft and grave,
from her dear old lips. It was Alice who had left the room.
She could not bear it any longer. _She_ did not belong to him--she was
not old enough to speak like Miss Polly--she durst not flutter forth her
anxiety for her old playfellow as Clara did. Her heart was throbbing and
burning in her young warm breast. She did not say a word or ask a
question; but when the tender old woman bade God bless him, Alice could
stand quiet no longer. I knew it, though she had not a word to say.