THE FATHER.
'I do think this lady
To be my child.'--King Lear.
Nuttie, in her fresh holland Sunday dress, worked in crewels with wild
strawberries by her mother's hands, and with a white-trimmed straw hat,
was almost shoved into the little drawing-room by Mr. Dutton, though he
was himself invisible.
Her eyes were in such a daze of tears that she hardly saw more at first
than that some one was there with her mother on the sofa. 'Ah, there
she is!' she heard her mother cry, and both rose. Her mother's arm was
round her waist, her hand was put into another, Mrs. Egremont's voice,
tremulous with exceeding delight, said, 'Our child, our Ursula, our
Nuttie! Oh, this is what I have longed for all these years! Oh,
thanks, thanks!' and her hands left her daughter to be clasped and
uplifted for a moment in fervent thanksgiving, while Nuttie's hand was
held, and a strange hairy kiss, redolent of tobacco-smoking, was on her
forehead--a masculine one, such as she had never known, except her
cousin Mark's, since the old rector died, and she had grown too big for
Mr. Dutton's embraces. It was more strange than delightful, and yet
she felt the polish of the tone that said, 'We make acquaintance
somewhat late, Ursula, but better late than never.'
She looked up at this new father, and understood instantly what she had
heard of his being a grand gentleman. There was a high-bred look about
him, an entire ease and perfect manner that made everything he did or
said seem like gracious condescension, and took away the power of
questioning it at the moment. He was not above the middle size, and
was becoming unwieldy; but there was something imposing and even
graceful in his deportment, and his bald narrow forehead looked
aristocratic, set off between side tufts of white hair, white whiskers,
and moustaches waxed into sharp points, Victor Emmanuel fashion, and a
round white curly beard. His eyes were dark, and looked dull, with
yellow unwholesome corners, and his skin was not of a pleasant colour,
but still, with all Nuttie's intentions of regarding him with horror,
she was subdued, partly by the grand breeding and air of distinction,
and partly by the current of sympathy from her mother's look of perfect
happiness and exultation. She could not help feeling it a favour,
almost an undeserved favour, that so great a personage should say, 'A
complete Egremont, I see. She has altogether the family face.'
'I am so glad you think so,' returned her mother.
'On the whole it is well, but she might have done better to resemble
you, Edda,' he said caressingly; 'but perhaps that would have been too
much for the Earlsforth natives. William's girls will have enough to
endure without a double eclipse!' and he laughed.
'I--I don't want--' faltered the mother.
'You don't want, no, but you can't help it,' he said, evidently with a
proud delight in her beauty. 'Now that I have seen the child,' he
added, 'I will make my way back to the hotel.'
'Will you--won't you stay to tea or dinner?' said his wife, beginning
with an imploring tone which hesitated as she reviewed possible chops
and her aunt's dismay.
'Thank you, I have ordered dinner at the hotel,' he answered, 'and
Gregorio is waiting for me with a cab. No doubt you will wish to make
arrangements with Madame--the old lady--and I will not trouble her
further to-night. I will send down Gregorio to-morrow morning, to tell
you what I arrange. An afternoon train, probably, as we shall go no
farther than London. You say Lady Kirkaldy called on you. We might
return her visit before starting, but I will let you know when I have
looked at the trains. My compliments to Miss Headworth. Good evening,
sweetest.' He held his wife in a fond embrace, kissing her brow and
cheeks and letting her cling to him, then added, 'Good evening, little
one,' with a good-natured careless gesture with which Nuttie was quite
content, for she had a certain loathing of the caresses that so charmed
her mother. And yet the command to make ready had been given with such
easy authority that the idea of resisting it had never even entered her
mind, though she stood still while her mother went out to the door with
him and watched him to the last.
Coming back, she threw her arms round her daughter, kissed her again
and again, and, with showers of the glad tears long repressed, cried,
'Oh, my Nuttie, my child, what joy! How shall I be thankful enough!
Your father, your dear father! Now it is all right.' Little sentences
of ecstasy such as these, interspersed with caresses, all in the
incoherence of overpowering delight, full of an absolute faith that the
lost husband had loved her and been pining for her all these years, but
that he had been unable to trace her, and was as happy as she was in
the reunion.
The girl was somewhat bewildered, but she was carried along by this
flood of exceeding joy and gladness. The Marmion and Theseus images
had been dispelled by the reality, and, with Mr. Dutton's sharp reproof
fresh upon her, she felt herself to have been doing a great injustice
to her father; believed all that her mother did, and found herself the
object of a romantic recognition--if not the beggar girl become a
princess, at any rate, the little school-teacher a county lady! And
she had never seen her mother so wildly, overpoweringly happy with joy.
That made her, too, feel that something grand and glorious had happened.
'What are we going to do?' she asked, as the vehemence of Mrs.
Egremont's emotion began to work itself off.
'Home! He takes us to his home! _His_ home!' repeated her mother, in
a trance of joy, as the yearnings of her widowed heart now were
fulfilled.
'Oh, but Aunt Ursel!'
'Poor Aunt Ursel! Oh, Nuttie, Nuttie, I had almost forgotten! How
could I?' and there was a shower of tears of compunction. 'But he said
he owed everything to her! She will come with us! Or if she doesn't
live with us, we will make her live close by in a dear little cottage.
Where is she? When did she go? I never saw her go.'
The sound of the front door was heard, for the visitor had been watched
away and Miss Headworth was returning to her own house to be there
received with another fervent gush of happiness, much more trying to
her, poor thing, than to Nuttie.
There was evensong imminent, and the most needful act at the moment was
to compose the harmonium-player sufficiently for her to take her part.
Miss Headworth was really glad of the necessity, since it put off the
discussion, and made a reason for silencing Nuttie until all should be
more recovered from the first agitation. Alice Egremont herself was
glad to carry her gratitude and thankfulness to the Throne of Grace,
and in her voluntary, and all her psalms, there was an exulting strain
that no one had thought the instrument capable of producing, and that
went to the heart of more than one of her hearers. No one who knew her
could doubt that hers was simply innocent exultation in the recovery of
him whom she so entirely loved and confided in. But there could not
but be terrible doubts whether he were worthy of that trust, and what
the new page in her life would be.
Miss Headworth had said they would not talk till after church, but
there was no deferring the matter then. She was prepared, however,
when her niece came up to her in a tender deprecating manner, saying,
'Aunt Ursel, dear Aunt Ursel, it does seem very ungrateful, but--'
'He is going to take you away? Yes, I saw that. And it ought to be,
my dear. You know where?'
'Yes; to London first, to be fitted out, and then to his own home. To
Bridgefield Egremont. I shall have to see Mr. Egremont,' and her voice
sank with shame. 'But Mark will be good to me, and why should I care
when I have him.'
'It is quite right. I am glad it should be so,' firmly said the old
lady.
'And yet to leave you so suddenly.'
'That can't be helped.'
'And it will only be for a little while,' she added, 'till you can make
arrangements to come to us. My dear husband says he owes you
everything. So you must be with us, or close to us.'
'My dear, it's very dear and good of you to think of it, but I must be
independent.' She put it in those words, unwilling again to speak
unguardedly before Nuttie.
'Oh, dear auntie, indeed you must! Think what you are to us, and what
you have done for us. We can't go away to be happy and prosperous and
leave you behind. Can we, Nuttie? Come and help me to get her to
promise. Do--do dearest auntie,' and she began the coaxing and
caressing natural to her, but Nuttie did not join in it, and Miss
Headworth shook her head and said gravely--
'Don't, Alice. It is of no use. I tell you once for all that my mind
is made up.'
Alice, knowing by long experience that, when her aunt spoke in that
tone, persuasion was useless, desisted, but looked at her in
consternation, with eyes swimming in tears. Nuttie understood her a
little better, and felt the prickings of distrust again.
'But, aunt, dear aunt, how can we leave you? What will you do with all
the boarders,' went on Mrs. Egremont.
'I shall see my way, my dear. Do not think about that. It is a great
thing to see you and this child receive justice.'
'And only think, after all the hard things that have been said of him,
that we should meet first at church! He would not wait and send
letters and messages by Mark. You see he came down himself the first
moment. I always knew he would. Only I am so sorry for him, that he
should have lost all those sweet years when Nuttie was a tiny child.
She must do all she can to make up to him.'
'Oh dear!' broke out Nuttie. 'It is so strange! It will be all so
strange!'
'It will be a very new life,' said her aunt, rather didactically; 'but
you must do your best to be a good daughter, and to fill your new
position, and I have no doubt you will enjoy it.'
'If I could but take all with me!' said Nuttie. 'Oh dear! whatever
will you do, Aunt Ursel? Oh mother, the choir! Who will play the
harmonium? and who will lead the girls? and whatever will Mr. Spyers
do? and who will take my class? Mother, couldn't we stay a little
longer to set things going here?'
'It is nice of you to have thought of it, my dear,' said Mrs. Egremont,
'but your father would not like to stay on here.'
'But mightn't I stay, just a few days, mother, to wish everybody
good-bye? Mr. Dutton, and Miss Mary, and Gerard, and all the girls?'
There was some consolation in this plan, and the three women rested on
it that night, Mrs. Egremont recovering composure enough to write three
or four needful notes, explaining her sudden departure. The aunt could
not talk of a future she so much dreaded for her nieces, losing in it
the thought of her own loneliness; Alice kept back her own loving,
tender, undoubting joy with a curious sense that it was hard and
ungrateful towards the aunt; but it was impossible to think of that,
and Nuttie was in many moods.
Eager anticipation of the new unseen world beyond, exultation in
finding herself somebody, sympathy with her mother's happiness, all had
their share, but they made her all the wilder, because they were far
from unmixed. The instinctive dislike of Mr. Egremont's countenance,
and doubt of his plausible story, which had vanished before his
presence, and her mother's faith, returned upon her from time to time,
caught perhaps from her aunt's tone and looks. Then her aunt had been
like a mother to her--her own mother much more like a sister, and the
quitting her was a wrench not compensated for as in Mrs. Egremont's
case by a more absorbing affection. Moreover, Nuttie felt sure that
poor Gerard Godfrey would break his heart. As the mother and daughter
for the last time lay down together in the room that had been theirs
through the seventeen years of the girl's life, Alice fell asleep with
a look of exquisite peace and content on her face, feeling her long
term of trial crowned by unlooked-for joy, while Ursula, though
respecting her slumbers too much to move, lay with wide-open eyes, now
speculating on the strange future, now grieving over those she
left--Aunt Ursel, Gerard, Mary, and all such; the schemes from which
she was snatched, and then again consoling herself with the hope that,
since she was going to be rich, she could at once give all that was
wanted--the white altar cloth, the brass pitcher--nay, perhaps finish
the church and build the school! For had not some one said something
about her position? Oh yes, she had not thought of it before, but,
since she was the elder brother's daughter, she must be the heiress!
There was no doubt a grand beautiful story before her; she would
withstand all sorts of fascinations, wicked baronets and earls
innumerable, and come back and take Gerard by the hand, and say, 'Pride
was quelled and love was free.' Not that Gerard had ever uttered a
word tending in that direction since he had been seven years old, but
that would make it all the prettier; they would both be silently
constant, till the time came, perhaps when she was of age. Mother
would like it, though _that_ father would certainly be horrid. And how
nice it would be to give Gerard everything, and they would go all over
the Continent, and see pictures, and buy them, and see all the
cathedrals and all the mountains. But perhaps, since Mark Egremont had
really been so generous in hunting up the cousin who was displacing
him, she was bound in duty to marry him; perhaps he reckoned on her
doing so. She would be generous in her turn, give up all the wealth to
him, and return to do and be everything to Micklethwayte. How they
would admire and bless her. And oh! she was going to London
to-morrow--London, which she so much wished to see--Westminster Abbey,
British Museum, All Saints, National Gallery, no end of new dresses.
Half-waking, half-dreaming, she spent the night which seemed long
enough, and the light hours of the summer morning seemed still longer,
before she could call it a reasonable time for getting up. Her
splashings awoke her mother, who lay smiling for a few moments,
realising and giving thanks for her great joy, then bestirred herself
with the recollection of all that had to be done on this busy morning
before any summons from her husband could arrive.
Combining packing and dressing, like the essentially unmethodical
little woman she was, Mrs. Egremont still had all her beautiful silky
brown hair about her shoulders when the bell of St. Ambrose's was heard
giving its thin tinkling summons to matins at half-past seven. She was
disappointed; she meant to have gone for this last time, but there was
no help for it, and Nuttie set off by herself.
Gerard Godfrey was at his own door. He was not one of the regular
attendants at the short service, being of that modern species that
holds itself superior to 'Cranmer's prayers,' but on this morning he
hastened up to her with outstretched hand.
'And you are going away!' he said.
'I hope to get leave to stay a few days after mother,' she said.
'To prolong the torment?' he said.
'To wish everybody good-bye. It is a great piece of my life that is
come to an end, and I can't bear to break it off so short.'
'And if you feel so, who are going to wealth and pleasure, what must it
be to those who are left behind?'
'Oh!' said Nuttie, 'some one will be raised up. That's what they
always say.'
'I shall go into a brotherhood,' observed Gerard desperately.
'Oh, don't,' began Nuttie, much gratified, but at that moment Miss
Nugent came out at her door, and Mr. Spyers, who was some way in
advance, looked round and waited for them to come up. He held out his
hands to her and said, 'Well, Nuttie, my child, you are going to begin
a new life.'
'Oh dear! I wish I could have both!' cried Nuttie, not very relevantly
as far as the words went.
'Scheiden und weiden thut weh!' quoted Mary.
'If his place was only Monks Horton. What will Aunt Ursel do?'
'I think perhaps she may be induced to join us,' said Mary. 'We mean
to do our best to persuade her.'
'And there's the choir! And my class, and the harmonium,' went on
Nuttie, while Gerard walked on disconsolately.
'Micklethwayte has existed without you, Nuttie,' said Mr. Spyers,
taking her on with him alone. 'Perhaps it will be able to do so again.
My dear, you had better look on. There will be plenty for you to learn
and to do where you are going, and you will be sure to find much to
enjoy, and also something to bear. I should like to remind you that
the best means of going on well in this new world will be to keep self
down and to have the strong desire that only love can give to be
submissive, and to do what is right both to God and your father and
mother. May I give you a text to take with you? "Children, obey your
parents in the Lord, for this is right."'
They were at the door and there was no time for an answer, but Nuttie,
as she took her place, was partly touched and partly fretted at the
admonition.
The question as to her remaining a day or two after her mother was soon
disposed of. Mrs. Egremont sent a pretty little note to make the
request, but the elegant valet who appeared at ten o'clock brought a
verbal message that his master wished Mrs. and Miss Egremont to be
ready by two o'clock to join him in calling on Lady Kirkaldy at Monks
Horton, and that if their luggage was ready by four o'clock, he
(Gregorio) would take charge of it, as they were all to go up to town
by the 4.40 train.
'Did he have my note?' faltered Alice, stimulated by the imploring
glances of aunt and daughter, but anticipating the answer.
'Yes, madame, but he wishes that Miss Egremont should accompany you
immediately.'
'Of course,' was Alice's comment, 'now that he has found his child, he
cannot bear to part with her.'
And all through the farewells that almost rent the gentle Alice's heart
in two, she was haunted by the terror that she or her daughter should
have red eyes to vex her husband. As to Mr. Dutton, he had only come
in with Gerard in a great hurry just after breakfast, said there was
much to do to-day at the office, as they were going to take stock, and
they should neither of them have time to come home to luncheon. He
shook the hands of mother and daughter heartily, promised to 'look
after' Miss Headworth, and bore off in his train young Gerard, looking
the picture of woe, and muttering 'I believe he has got it up on
purpose;' while mother and daughter thought it very odd, and rather
unkind.