A fortnight after came my birthday, and a family festival.
Mr. Crofton was greatly given to keeping birthdays; he was not a man to
be daunted by that coldest and vulgarest commonplace, which warns us
with lugubrious mock solemnity that these birthdays are hastening us to
the grave. The grave out of which our Lord rose was no devouring,
irresponsible monster to Derwent--it was a Christian institution,
blessed and hallowed by Him who triumphed over it. So he kept his
birthdays with thanks and a celebration of love; and I was well content
in this, as in many another kind suggestion of his genial nature, that
my husband should have his way.
Bertie was to leave us shortly after, to look after the fitting up of
his own house--the Estcourt jointure-house, which he was to occupy
during my lifetime. It was a very sufficient, comfortable house, and he
was to fit it up according to his own taste. But he was very slow to
talk of his intentions. Any suggestions which I made to him on the
subject he received in silence, or with a confused assent. Good
Bertie!--he meant that somebody else should decide these questions for
him; and somebody else was so perverse, so unaccountable, so
unsatisfactory. He sighed, and held his peace.
Johnnie Harley wandered off from Waterflag that night, after his
explanation with Miss Reredos. For a week the unfortunate lad was not
heard of, and the family spent that interval in the wildest anxiety,
making every kind of search after him, from Maurice’s hunt through
London, whither they thought it likely he would go, to fruitless
dragging in the pretty Est river, which mudded its pleasant pools, but
fortunately had no other result. At the end of a week he came
home--where he had been he never would tell. He returned ill,
remorseful, and penitent, with all his little money gone, and his
watch--his father’s watch--a catastrophe which quite completed Mrs.
Harley’s misery. Renewed and increased ill health followed this sad
escapade of poor Johnnie; but the boy was happy in his
unhappiness--nothing could part from him that all-forgiving home-love
which forgot every fault of the poor cripple boy.
And in that fortnight Bertie made a brief journey to London--a journey
which thrilled the whole household with the highest excitement, and
warmed every individual in it with a touch of the reflected glory.
Bertie was _decoré_ when he returned; but no, there is no French word in
existence which deserves to be used in connection with that supremest
badge of modern chivalry, which our boy, with a modest and shame-faced
delight, impossible to describe in words, received from his Queen.
Bertie wore his prize with a swelling breast, but an abashed cheek;
indeed, he did not wear it at all, reserving it for his private triumph,
and, as I supposed, for my birthday feast. But our hero had something
else in his mind.
The day came at last, and at last, most earnestly looked for, in a
carriage filled with the Sedgwick children, and, I believe, all the
flowers in Clara’s conservatory, and all that could be come by honestly
or dishonestly within ten miles of country--Alice Harley made her
appearance. To show emphatically how much I was mistaken in supposing
that _any reason_ could keep her away from Hilfont when her dear Mrs.
Crofton wished her to be there, Alice with rash temerity had volunteered
to take charge of the children, and come with them early and alone. In
the same spirit she had actually taken a little trouble with her dress,
which was new, full, soft, and delicate--if not white, as nearly so as
Alice’s conscience and profound conviction of her grave years could
permit it to be. She was on her defence, but not exactly defiant as
yet--a little melted in spite of herself by sundry associations of the
place and time--by good news from Maurice, which she whispered in my
ear, news of an appointment which her brother had got after much
exertion, and which would enable him to marry; and perhaps a little by
the honor which she knew her “old playfellow” had come to. I saw her
cast a momentary but somewhat eager look at Bertie’s breast when she saw
him first, but to my disappointment, as to hers, his decoration was not
there.
And then Alice had a present for me. I had by me a little present to be
given to her on the same occasion--an old ornament of my own, which I
thought, for that reason at least, the prim Alice might perhaps be
induced to wear. The children had gone away with their attendants, to be
extricated out of the many wrappings in which their mother’s care had
enveloped them. Only Derwie stayed with us in the breakfast-room; the
child was extremely anxious about these two, I could not tell why. Some
unconscious link of association, or acute childish observation,
connected them in little Derwent’s mind. He stood by my side on pretence
of waiting till Clary and the rest were ready, but I believe in my heart
from sheer curiosity and interest in these affairs of life and humanity
which were so deeply attractive to my son.
Alice was seated near the great window, her pretty figure visible
against the light, looking fresher and more youthful than she had done
for a long time, and the soft breadth of landscape without, making a
pleasant background to the picture. A little more in the shade stood
Bertie, and Derwie and I were opposite Alice, with a little table
between us, all full in the light of the large bow-window, from which
all curtains and obscuring influences--such was my husband’s cheerful
pleasure--were always drawn as much back as possible. My present to
Alice was a little gold chain for the neck. I like that fashion of
ornament. This one was long enough to encircle that pretty throat twice,
or to hang loose upon her breast if she pleased. I said it wanted a
pendant, as I threw it loosely round her neck.
Alice had been a little nervous and tremulous before; this made her
rather more so--she kissed me in a trembling, breathless way. She could
not help feeling conscious of that shadow behind her, and of a certain
want of air and cloud which betokened a crisis. She knew something was
coming, and faltered--it was quite a secret, close, appealing touch
which her arms gave me for the moment. Alice was afraid. When she sat
down again she played with the clasp of the chain and unloosed it, and
continued so, unconsciously dangling that loose end in her hand.
“It should have a heart at it, mamma--like Clary’s,” said little
Derwent.
“Yes,” said I, “certainly it wants a pendant--a locket--or, as Derwie
says, a heart, or a cross, or----”
“For once let me supply what it wants,” said Bertie, suddenly starting
forward with one of those long, noiseless steps which people only make
when they are almost past speaking. He took the end of the chain from
Alice’s fingers, slid his own matchless decoration on it, clasped it,
let it fall. “Heart and Cross!” said Bertie, breathless with feelings he
could not speak. Alice had not looked up--did not see what it was, so
rapidly was all done, till it lay dark upon the white bosom of her
dress, moving with the palpitations of her heart--cold, ugly,
glorious--a gift far beyond all Bertie’s fortune--more precious to him
than his life.
She gazed at it astonished for a moment, then glanced round at us all
with an amazed, inquiring glance--then faltering, and making the utmost
efforts to control herself, took it in her hands, put it to her lips,
and burst into an irrestrainable passion of tears.
Little Derwie and I, like sensible people, took each other’s hands, and
marched away.
Alice did not wear her hero’s cross that night to her chain. He wore it
himself, as was fit--but it did not much matter. She had taken the other
invaluable and invisible appendage which Bertie offered with his
glorious badge--had consented to be solemnly endowed with all his
worldly goods, cross and heart included, and humbly put her chain round
her neck without any pendant, in token of the unwilling bondage to which
she had yielded at last.
So ended, after eight years of disappointment, and _that_ early
love-affair, which Colonel Bertie had long ago forgotten, my solitary
enterprise in match-making. Let nobody despair. I am secure now that
Estcourt shall have no alien mistress, and that all Huntingshire will
not hold a happier household than that of Bertie Nugent, my heir, who
has already added the highest distinction of modern chivalry to the name
of his fathers and mine.
THE END.