And after all, the Rector was premature--we were all premature,
lamenting for him over whom we were so speedily to rejoice. When Derwent
put the dispatch into my hand (he did not send, but brought it, to make
more sure), I could not read the words for tears. My eyes were clear
enough when I saw that terrible _killed_, in which we believed to read
Bertie’s fate. But the dear boy’s own message, in rapid reply to one
which Derwent, out of my knowledge, had managed to have sent to him,
floated upon me in a mist of weeping. The truth came inarticulate to my
mind--I could neither see, nor scarcely hear the words in which it was
conveyed.
But, alas! alas! it _was_ Captain Nicholas Hughes who had fallen,
instead of Bertie. I inquired all that I could learn about this unknown
soldier, with a remorseful grief in the midst of my joy, which I cannot
describe. I could not join in the tumult of exultation which rose round
me. I could not forget that this news, which came so welcome to us,
brought desolation upon another house. I could not think of him but as
Bertie’s substitute, nor help a painful, fantastical idea that it was to
our prayers and our dear boy’s safety that he owed his death. I was
almost glad to find that the widow whom he had left behind him had need
of what kind offices we could do her for the bringing up of her
children, and vowed to myself, with a compunction as deep as it was, no
doubt, imaginary, that she should never want while Estcourt remained
mine. Was it not their dismal loss and bereavement which had saved the
heir of my father’s house?
“It is the fortune of war,” said Derwent, when he learned, to his
profound amazement, this idea which had taken possession of me. “It is
the will of God,” said Captain Hughes’s pale widow, lifting her tearful
face to me, from under the heavy veil of her mourning. So it was--but
sharp and poignant is the contest between grief and joy.
“See what your despised telegraph can do, after all!” cried Derwent,
rejoicing with all his honest heart over the news he had brought.
“But, ah! if Bertie’s friend had been poor!” said I. “How many souls do
we wring with additional pangs, to have our anxiety dispelled the more
easily? Think of the news of a battle, with so many killed and
wounded--and some dreadful fortnight, or maybe month, to live through
before one knows whether one’s own is dead or alive. No, ’tis a cruel
earthly Geni, and not a celestial Spirit--it does good now and then,
only because it cannot help it--relieves us, Derwent, but slaughters
poor Mrs. Hughes.”
“I believe Clare is not half-content--nobody must be killed to satisfy
you women--but, unfortunately that will not do in this world,” said
Derwent. “We have to be thankful for our own exemption, without entering
too deeply into other people’s grief. And most of us find that
philosophy easy enough.”
“Most of us are very poor creatures,” said Maurice Harley,
sententiously. He came alone to make his inquiries this time. Alice was
invisible, and not to be heard of. I could not see her even when I
called at the cottage. She had taken overpowering shame to herself, and
shrank from my eyes. It was her brother who carried our news to his
mother’s house--carried it, as I discovered incidentally, with the
rarest and most delicate care for her--rigidly keeping up the fiction of
supposing her not to care for it, nor to be specially interested, any
more than for her old playfellow. He was ill at ease himself, and
distracted with questions no longer of a _dilettante_ kind. In my eyes
this increased his kindness all the more.
“Yes, we are poor creatures the most of us,” repeated Maurice, when my
husband--who did not notice any particular improvement in the Fellow of
Exeter, and was disposed to be contemptuous, as elder men are, of his
superiority to ordinary mortals--had sauntered, half-laughing,
half-disgusted, out of the room. “Something you said the other day has
stuck to my memory, Mrs. Crofton--help me out with it, pray. Are we
worth a woman’s tears, the greater part of us? What is the good of us? I
don’t mean Bertie, who is doing something in this world, but, for
example, such a fellow as me!”
“Take care, Maurice! I see hoofs and a tail upon that humility of
yours,” said I. “You, who are so wise, do you not know that women and
their tears are no more superlative than men and their doings? Did you
think I meant the tender, heroical, sentimental tears of romance, for
the sake of which the sublime knight might be content to die? No such
thing. I meant only that there seems a kind of pathetic, homely justice
in it, when the man who dies--especially the man who dies untimely--has
a woman belonging to him, to be his true and faithful mourner; that is
all--it is nothing superlative; the sublime men are no better loved than
the homeliest ones. Alice, if you asked her, would give you the poetical
youthful interpretation of it, but I mean no such thing, Maurice. We
want no great deeds, we womenkind; we were born to like you, and to cry
over you, troublesome creatures that you are!”
“Ah! that is very well,” said Maurice, who in his heart was young enough
to like the superlative idea best. “I wish I had a supreme right to
somebody’s tears--but why should anybody cry over me? Am not I
foredoomed to shrivel up into a College Don?”
“If you please,” said I.
“And if I don’t please?” cried Maurice, starting up, and seizing, after
his usual fashion, a book off the table. He made a hurried march about
the room, as usual, too; throwing that down; and picking up another to
look at its title, then returned, and repeated, with some emphasis--“And
what if I don’t please?”
“Why then, please God, you will do something better,” said I; “I hope so
sincerely--it will give me the greatest pleasure--but you don’t make any
progress by talking of it; that is our woman’s province. _Do_, Maurice,
_do_! don’t _say_!”
The young man flashed with an angry and abashed color. “Thank you, I
will, if it were to carry a hod. I have not forgotten,” he said, with a
little bitter meaning, “that I am a widow’s son.”
“A widow’s son should be the prince of sons,” said I. “You make me
preach, you young people, though it is not my vocation. Carry a hod
then, if you will, like a gentleman and a Christian, and I, for one,
will bid you God speed.”
Maurice put down his book, and came forward to me, holding out his hand.
I suspect he liked me, though he had no great reason, and I confess,
now-a-days, that I liked him. He held out his hand to say good-bye, and
in saying good-bye opened his heart.
“Mrs. Crofton, you preach very well, considering that it is not your
vocation; but I begin to think I am coming to that big preacher, Life,
whom you once told me of. _He_ is not a college don. Do you know,” said
Maurice, with a frank, confused laugh, and rising color, “I’m in love?”
“I suspected as much,” said I. “Is all well?”
“All was ill, what with my own folly, and what with that spiteful little
witch at the Rectory,” said Maurice; “but it’s coming right again. If I
were to die to-morrow--little as I deserve them--I believe I should have
these woman’s tears.”
“My dear boy, be thankful, and go home and live!” said I, with the water
in my eyes. I was half inclined to kiss, and bless, and cry over him in
the foolishness of my heart.
“I will,” said Maurice, in the fulness and effusion of his; and he
kissed my hand with a congenial impulse, and went away abruptly, moved
beyond speaking. He left me more profoundly and pleasantly touched than
I had been for a long time. Perhaps I thought, with natural vanity, that
I had a little--just a little--share in it. Dire must be the
disappointment, and heavy the calamity, which should shrivel up Maurice
Harley now into a college don.