JULIA took Mr. Hardie's note and read it:--
“MADAM,--I have received a very juvenile letter from my son, by which I
learn he has formed a sudden attachment to your daughter. He tells me,
however, at the same time, that you await my concurrence before giving
your consent. I appreciate your delicacy; and it is with considerable
regret I now write to inform you this match is out of the question. I
have thought it due to you to communicate this to yourself and
without delay, and feel sure that you will, under the circumstances,
discountenance my son's further visits at your house--I am, Madam, with
sincere respect, your faithful servant,
“RICHARD HARDIE.”
Julia read this letter, and re-read it in silence. It was an anxious
moment to the mother.
“Shall our pride be less than this _parvenu's?_” she faltered. “Tell me
yourself, what ought we to do?”
“What we ought to do is, never to let the name of Hardie be mentioned
again in this house.”
This reply was very comforting to Mrs. Dodd.
“Shall I write to him, or do you feel strong enough?”
“I feel that, if I do, I may affront him. He had no right to pretend
that his father would consent. You write, and then we shall not lose our
dignity though we are insulted.”
“I feel so weary, mamma.” Life seems ended.
“I could have loved him well. And now show me how to tear him out of my
heart; or what will become of me?”
While Mrs. Dodd wrote to Alfred Hardie, Julia sank down and laid her
head on her mother's knees. The note was shown her; she approved it
languidly. A long and sad conversation followed; and, after kissing her
mother and clinging to her, she went to bed chilly and listless, but did
not shed a single tear. Her young heart was benumbed by the unexpected
blow.
Next morning early, Alfred Hardie started gaily to spend the day at
Albion Villa. Not a hundred yards from the gate he met Sarah, with Mrs.
Dodd's letter, enclosing a copy of his father's to her. Mrs. Dodd
here reminded him that his visits had been encouraged only upon a
misapprehension of his father's sentiments; for which misapprehension he
was in some degree to blame: not that she meant to reproach him on that
score, especially at this unhappy moment: no, she rather blamed herself
for listening to the sanguine voice of youth; but the error must now
be repaired. She and Julia would always wish him well, and esteem him,
provided he made no further attempt to compromise a young lady who could
not be his wife. The note concluded thus--
“Individually I think I have some right to count on your honourable
feeling to hold no communication with my daughter, and not in any way to
attract her attention, under the present circumstances.--I am, dear Mr.
Alfred Hardie, with many regrets at the pain I fear I am giving you,
your sincere friend and well-wisher,
“LUCY DODD.”
Alfred on reading this letter literally staggered: but proud and
sensitive, as well as loving, he manned himself to hide his wound from
Sarah, whose black eyes were bent on him in merciless scrutiny. He said
doggedly, though tremulously, “Very well!” then turned quickly on his
heel, and went slowly home. Mrs. Dodd, with well-feigned indifference,
questioned Sarah privately: the girl's account of the abrupt way in
which he had received the missive added to her anxiety. She warned the
servants that no one was at home to Mr. Alfred Hardie.
Two days elapsed, and then she received a letter from him. Poor fellow,
it was the eleventh. He had written and torn up ten.
“DEAR MRS. DODD,--I have gained some victories in my life; but not one
without two defeats to begin with; how then can I expect to obtain such
a prize as dear Julia without a check or two? You need not fear that I
shall intrude after your appeal to me as a gentleman: but I am not going
to give in because my father has written a hasty letter from Yorkshire.
He and I must have many a talk face to face before I consent to be
miserable for life. Dear Mrs. Dodd, at first receipt of your cruel
letter, so kindly worded, I was broken-hearted; but now I am myself
again: difficulties are made for ladies to yield to, and for men to
conquer. Only for pity's sake do not you be my enemy; do not set her
against me for my father's fault. Think, if you can, how my heart bleeds
at closing this letter without one word to her I love better, a thousand
times better, than my life--I am, dear Mrs. Dodd, yours sorrowfully, but
not despairing,
“ALFRED HARDIE.”
Mrs. Dodd kept this letter to herself. She could not read it quite
unmoved, and therefore she felt sure it would disturb her daughter's
heart the more.
Alfred had now a soft but dangerous antagonist in Mrs. Dodd. All the
mother was in arms to secure her daughter's happiness, _coute qu'il
coute!_ and the surest course seemed to be to detach her affections
from Alfred. What hope of a peaceful heart without this? and what real
happiness without peace? But, too wise and calm to interfere blindly,
she watched her daughter day and night, to find whether Love or Pride
was the stronger, and this is what she observed--
Julia never mentioned Alfred. She sought occupation eagerly: came
oftener than usual for money, saying, it was for “Luxury.” She visited
the poor more constantly, taking one of the maids with her, at Mrs.
Dodd's request. She studied Logic with Edward. She went to bed rather
early, fatigued, it would appear, by her activity: and she gave the
clue to her own conduct one day: “Mamma,” said she, “nobody is downright
unhappy who is good.”
Mrs. Dodd noticed also a certain wildness and almost violence, with
which she threw herself into her occupations, and a worn look about the
eyes that told of a hidden conflict. On the whole Mrs. Dodd was hopeful;
for she had never imagined the cure would be speedy or easy. To see
her child on the right road was much. Only the great healer Time could
“medicine her to that sweet peace which once she owned;” and even Time
cannot give her back her childhood, thought the mother, with a sigh.
One day came an invitation to an evening party at a house where they
always wound up with dancing. Mrs. Dodd was for declining as usual for
since that night Julia had shunned parties. “Give me the sorrows of the
poor and afflicted,” was her cry; “the gaiety of the hollow world jars
me more than I can bear.” But now she caught with a sort of eagerness at
this invitation. “Accept. They shall not say I am wearing the willow.”
“My brave girl,” said Mrs. Dodd joyfully, “I would not press it; but you
are right; we owe it to ourselves to outface scandal. Still, let there
be no precipitation; we must not undertake beyond our strength.”
“Try me to-night,” said Julia; “you don't know what I can do. I dare say
_he_ is not pining for _me._”
She was the life and soul of the party, and, indeed, so feverishly
brilliant, that Mrs. Dodd said softly to her, “Gently, love; moderate
your spirits, or they will deceive our friends as little as they do me.”
Meantime it cost Alfred Hardie a severe struggle to keep altogether
aloof from Julia. In fact, it was a state of daily self-denial, to which
he would never have committed himself, but that he was quite sure he
could gradually win his father over. At his age we are apt to count
without our antagonist.
Mr. Richard Hardie was “a long-headed man.” He knew the consequence of
giving one's reasons: eternal discussion ending in war. He had taken
care not to give any to Mrs. Dodd, and he was as guarded and reserved
with Alfred. The young man begged to know the why and the wherefore, and
being repulsed, employed all his art to elicit them by surprise, or get
at them by inference: but all in vain. Hardie senior was impenetrable;
and inquiry, petulance, tenderness, logic, were all shattered on him as
the waves break on Ailsa Craig.
Thus began dissension, decently conducted at first, between a father
indulgent hitherto and an affectionate son.
In this unfortunate collision of two strong and kindred natures,
every advantage was at present on the father's side: age, experience,
authority, resolution, hidden and powerful motives, to which my reader
even has no clue as yet; a purpose immutable and concealed. Add to these
a colder nature and a far colder affection; for Alfred loved his father
dearly.
At last, one day, the impetuous one lost his self-command, and said he
was a son, not a slave, and had little respect for Authority when afraid
or ashamed to appeal to Reason. Hardie senior turned on him with a
gravity and dignity no man could wear more naturally. “Alfred, have I
been an unkind father to you all these years?”
“Oh no, father, no; I have said nothing that can be so construed. And
that is the mystery to me; you are acting quite out of character.”
“Have I been one of those interfering, pragmatical fathers who cannot
let their children enjoy themselves their own way?”
“No, sir; you have never interfered, except to pay for anything I
wanted.”
“Then make the one return in your power, young man: have a little faith
in such a father, and believe that he does not interfere now but for
your good, and under a stern necessity; and that when he does interfere
for once, and say, 'This thing shall not be,' it shall not be--by
Heaven!”
Alfred was overpowered by the weight and solemnity of this. Sorrow,
vexation, and despondency all rushed into his heart together, and
unmanned him for a moment; he buried his face in his hands, and
something very like a sob burst from his young heart. At this Hardie
senior took up the newspaper with imperturbable coldness, and wore a
slight curl of the lip. All this was hardly genuine, for he was not
altogether unmoved; but he was a man of rare self-command, and chose to
impress on Alfred that he was no more to be broken or melted than a mere
rock.
It is always precarious to act a part; and this cynicism was rather
able than wise: Alfred looked up and watched him keenly as he read the
monetary article with tranquil interest; and then, for the first time in
his life, it flashed into the young man's mind that his father was not
a father. “I never knew him till now,” thought he. “This man is [Greek
text].” *
*Without bowels of affection.
Thus a gesture, so to speak, sowed the first seed of downright disunion
in Richard Hardie's house--disunion, a fast-growing plant, when men set
it in the soil of the passions.
Alfred, unlike Julia, had no panacea. Had any lips, except perhaps hers,
told him that “to be good is to be happy here below,” he would have
replied: _“Negatur;_ contradicted by daily experience.” It never
occurred to him, therefore, to go out of himself, and sympathise with
the sordid sorrows of the poor, and their bottomless egotism in
contact with the well-to-do. He brooded on his own love, and his own
unhappiness, and his own father's cruelty. His nights were sleepless and
his days leaden. He tried hard to read for his first class, but for once
even ambition failed: it ended in flinging books away in despair.
He wandered about dreaming and moping for some change, and bitterly
regretting his excessive delicacy, which had tied his own hands and
brought him to a stand-still. He lost his colour and what little flesh
he had to lose; for such young spirits as this are never plump. In a
word, being now strait-jacketed into feminine inactivity, while void of
feminine patience, his ardent heart was pining and fretting itself out.
He was in this condition, when one day Peterson, his Oxonian friend,
burst in on him open-mouthed with delight, and, as usual with bright
spirits of this calibre, did not even notice his friend's sadness.
“Cupid had clapped him on the shoulder,” as Shakespeare hath it; and it
was a deal nicer than the bum-bailiff rheumatism.
“Oh, such a divine creature! Met her twice; you know her by sight; her
name is Dodd. But I don't care; it shall be Peterson; the rose by any
other name, &c.” Then followed a rapturous description of the lady's
person, well worth omitting. “And such a jolly girl! brightens them all
up wherever she goes; and such a dancer; did the cachouka with a little
Spanish bloke Bosanquet has got hold of, and made his black bolus eyes
twinkle like midnight cigars: danced it with castanets, and smiles, and
such a what d'ye call 'em, my boy, you know; such a 'go.'”
“You mean such an 'abandon,'” groaned Alfred, turning sick at heart.
“That's the word. Twice the spirit of Duvernay, and ten times the
beauty. But just you hear her sing, that is all; Italian, French,
German, English even.”
“Plaintive songs?”
“Oh, whatever they ask for. Make you laugh or make you cry to order;
never says no. Just smiles and sits down to the music-box. Only she
won't sing two running: they have to stick a duffer in between. I shall
meet her again next week; will you come? Any friend of mine is welcome.
Wish me joy, old fellow; I'm a gone coon.”
This news put Alfred in a phrensy of indignation and fear. Julia dancing
the cachouka! Julia a jolly girl! Julia singing songs pathetic or merry,
whichever were asked for! The heartless one! He called to mind all he
had read in the classics, and elsewhere, about the fickleness of woman.
But this impression did not last long; he recalled Julia's character,
and all the signs of a love tender and true she had given him. He read
her by himself, and, lover-like, laid all the blame on another. It was
all her cold-blooded mother. “Fool that I have been. I see it all now.
She appeals to my delicacy to keep away; then she goes to Julia and
says, 'See, he deserts you at a word from his father. Be proud, be gay!
He never loved you; marry another.' The shallow plotter forgets that
whoever she does marry I'll kill. How many unsuspicious girls have
these double-faced mothers deluded so? They do it in half the novels,
especially in those written by women; and why? because these know the
perfidy and mendacity of their sex better than we do; they see them
nearer, and with their souls undrest. War, Mrs. Dodd! war to the death!
From this moment I am alone in the world with her. I have no friend but
Alfred Hardie: and my bitterest enemies are my cold-blooded father and
her cold-blooded mother.”
The above sentences, of course, were never uttered. But they represent
his thoughts accurately, though in a condensed form, and are, as it
were, a miniature of this young heart boiling over.
From that moment he lay in wait for her, and hovered about the house day
and night, determined to appeal to her personally, and undeceive
her, and baffle her mother's treachery. But at this game he was soon
detected: Mrs. Dodd lived on the watch now. Julia, dressed to go out,
went to the window one afternoon to look at the weather; but retreated
somewhat hastily and sat down on the sofa.
“You flutter, darling,” said Mrs. Dodd. “Ah! he is there.”
“Yes.”
“You had better take off your things.”
“Oh, yes. I tremble at the thoughts of meeting him. Mamma, he is
changed, sadly changed. Poor, poor Alfred!” She went to her own room and
prayed for him. She informed the Omniscient that, though much greater
and better in other respects than she was, he had not Patience. She
prayed, with tears, that he might have Christian patience granted Him
from on high.
“Heart of stone! she shuns me,” said Alfred, outside. He had seen her in
her bonnet.
Mrs. Dodd waited several days to see whether this annoyance would not
die of itself: waiting was her plan in most things. Finding he was not
to be tired out, she sent Sarah out to him with a note carefully sealed.
“Mr. Alfred Hardie,--Is it generous to confine my daughter to the
house?--Yours regretfully,
“LUCY DODD.”
A line came back instantly in pencil.
“Mrs. Dodd,--Is all the generosity and all the good faith to be on one
side?--Yours in despair,
“ALFRED HARDIE.”
Mrs. Dodd coloured faintly: the reproach pricked her, but did not move
her. She sat quietly down that moment, and wrote to a friend in London,
to look out for a furnished villa in a healthy part of the suburbs, with
immediate possession. “Circumstances,” said she, “making it desirable we
should leave Barkington immediately, and for some months.”
The Bosanquets gave a large party; Mrs. and Miss Dodd were there. The
latter was playing a part in a charade to the admiration of all present,
when in came Mr. Peterson, introducing his friend, Alfred Hardie.
Julia caught the name, and turned a look of alarm on her mother, but
went on acting.
Presently she caught sight of him at some distance. He looked very pale,
and his glittering eye was fixed on her with a sort of stern wonder.
Such a glance from fiery eyes, that had always dwelt tenderly on her
till then, struck her like a weapon. She stopped short, and turned red
and pale by turns. “There, that is nonsense enough,” said she bitterly,
and went and sat by Mrs. Dodd. The gentlemen thronged round her with
compliments, and begged her to sing. She excused herself. Presently
she heard an excited voice, towards which she dared not look; it was
inquiring whether any lady could sing Aileen Aroon. With every desire
to gratify the young millionaire, nobody knew Aileen Aroon, nor had ever
heard of it.
“Oh, impossible!” cried Alfred. “Why, it is in praise of Constancy, a
virtue ladies shine in: at least, they take credit for it.”
“Mamma,” whispered Julia terrified, “get me away, or there will be a
scene. He is reckless.”
“Be calm, love,” said Mrs. Dodd, “there shall be none.” She rose and
glided up to Alfred Hardie, looked coldly in his face; then said with
external politeness and veiled contempt, “I will attempt the song, sir,
since you desire it.” She waved her hand, and he followed her sulkily to
the piano. She sung Aileen Aroon, not with her daughter's eloquence, but
with a purity and mellowness that charmed the room: they had never heard
the genius sing it.
As spirits are said to overcome the man at whose behest they rise, so
this sweet air, and the gush of reminiscence it awakened, overpowered
him who had evoked them; Alfred put his Hand unconsciously to his
swelling heart, cast one look of anguish at Julia, and hurried away half
choked. Nobody but Julia noticed.
A fellow in a rough great-coat and tattered white hat opened the fly
door for Mrs. Dodd. As Julia followed her, he kissed her skirt unseen by
Mrs. Dodd, but her quick ears caught a heart-breaking sigh. She looked
and recognised Alfred in that disguise; the penitent fit had succeeded
to the angry one. Had Julia observed? To ascertain this without speaking
of him, Mrs. Dodd waited till they had got some little distance, then
quietly put out her hand and rested it for a moment on her daughter's;
the girl was trembling violently “Little wretch!” came to Mrs. Dodd's
lips, but she did not utter it. They were near home before she spoke
at all, and then she only said very kindly, “My love, you will not be
subjected again to these trials:” a remark intended quietly to cover the
last occurrence as well as Alfred's open persecution.
They had promised to go out the very next day; but Mrs. Dodd went alone,
and made excuses for Miss Dodd. On her return she found Julia sitting
up for her, and a letter come from her friend describing a pleasant
cottage, now vacant, near Maida Vale. Mrs. Dodd handed the open letter
to Julia; she read it without comment.
“We will go up to-morrow and take it for three months. Then the Oxford
vacation will terminate.”
“Yes, mamma.”
I am now about to relate a circumstance by no means without parallels,
but almost impossible to account for; and, as nothing is more common and
contemptible than inadequate solutions, I will offer none at all: but
so it was, that Mrs. Dodd awoke in the middle of that very night in a
mysterious state of mental tremor; trouble, veiled in obscurity, seemed
to sit heavy on her bosom. So strong, though vague, was this new and
mysterious oppression, that she started up in bed and cried aloud,
“David!--Julia!--Oh, what is the matter?” The sound of her own voice
dispelled the cloud in part, but not entirely. She lay awhile, and then
finding herself quite averse to sleep, rose and went to her window,
and eyed the weather anxiously. It was a fine night; soft fleecy clouds
drifted slowly across a silver moon. The sailor's wife was reassured on
her husband's behalf. Her next desire was to look at Julia sleeping; she
had no particular object: it was the instinctive impulse of an anxious
mother whom something had terrified. She put on her slippers and
dressing-gown, and, lighting a candle at her night-lamp, opened her door
softly and stepped into the little corridor. But she had not taken two
steps when she was arrested by a mysterious sound.
It came from Julia's room.
What was it?
Mrs. Dodd glided softly nearer and nearer, all her senses on the
stretch.
The sound came again. It was a muffled sob.
The stifled sound, just audible in the dead stillness of the night, went
through and through her who stood there listening aghast. Her bowels
yearned over her child, and she hurried to the door, but recollected
herself, and knocked, very gently. “Don't be alarmed, love; it is only
me. May I come in?” She did not wait for the answer, but turned the
handle and entered. She found Julia sitting up in bed, looking wildly at
her, with cheeks flushed and wet. She sat on the bed and clasped her to
her breast in silence: but more than one warm tear ran down upon Julia's
bare neck; the girl felt them drop, and her own gushed in a shower.
“Oh, what have I done?” she sobbed. “Am I to make you wretched too?”
Mrs. Dodd did not immediately reply. She was there to console, and her
admirable good sense told her that to do that she must be calmer than
her patient; so even while she kissed and wept over Julia, she managed
gradually to recover her composure. “Tell me, my child,” said she, “why
do you act a part with me? Why brave it out under my eye, and spend the
night secretly in tears? Are you still afraid to trust me?”
“Oh no, no; but I thought I was so strong, so proud: I undertook
miracles. I soon found my pride was a molehill and my love a mountain. I
could not hold out by day if I did not ease my breaking heart at night.
How unfortunate! I kept my head under the bed-clothes, too; but you have
such ears. I thought I would stifle my grief, or else perhaps you would
be as wretched as I am: forgive me! pray forgive me!”
“On one condition,” said Mrs. Dodd, struggling with the emotion these
simple words caused her.
“Anything to be forgiven,” cried Julia, impetuously. “I'll go to London.
I'll go to Botany Bay. I deserve to be hanged.”
“Then, from this hour, no half-confidences between us. Dear me, you
carry in your own bosom a much harsher judge, a much less indulgent
friend, than I am. Come! trust me with your heart. Do you love him very
much? Does your happiness depend on him?”
At this point-blank question Julia put her head over Mrs. Dodd's
shoulder, not to be seen; and, clasping her tight, murmured scarce above
a whisper, “I don't know how much I love him. When he came in at that
party I felt his slave--his unfaithful adoring slave; if he had ordered
me to sing Aileen Aroon, I should have obeyed; if he had commanded me to
take his hand and leave the room, I think I should have obeyed. His face
is always before me as plain as life; it used to come to me bright and
loving; now it is pale, and stern, and sad. I was not so wretched till I
saw he was pining for me, and thinks me inconstant--oh, mamma, so pale!
so shrunk I so reckless! He was sorry for misbehaving that night: he
changed clothes with a beggar to kiss my dress, poor thing! poor thing!
Who ever loved as he does me! I am dying for him; I am dying.”
“There! there!” said Mrs. Dodd soothingly. “You have said enough. This
must be love. I am on your Alfred's side from this hour.”
Julia opened her eyes, and was a good deal agitated as well as
surprised. “Pray do not raise my hopes,” she gasped. “We are parted
for ever. His father refuses. Even you seemed averse; or have I been
dreaming?”
“Me, dearest? How can I be averse to anything lawful on which I find
your heart is really set, and your happiness at stake? Of course I have
stopped the actual intercourse, under existing circumstances; but these
circumstances are not unalterable: your only obstacle is Mr. Richard
Hardie.”
“But what an obstacle!” sighed Julia. “His father! a man of iron! so
everybody says; for I have made inquiries--oh!” And she was abashed.
She resumed hastily, “And that letter, so cold, so cruel! I feel it
was written by one not open to gentle influences. He does not think
me worthy of his son so accomplished, so distinguished at the very
university where our poor Edward--has--you know----”
“Little simpleton!” said Mrs. Dodd, and kissed her tenderly; “your iron
man is the commonest clay, sordid, pliable; and your stern heroic Brutus
is a shopkeeper: he is open to the gentle influences which sway the
kindred souls of the men you and I buy our shoes, our tea, our gloves,
our fish-kettles of: and these influences I think I command, and am
prepared to use them to the utmost.”
Julia lay silent, and wondering what she could mean.
But Mrs. Dodd hesitated now: it pained and revolted her to show her
enthusiastic girl the world as it is. She said as much, and added--“I
seem to be going to aid all these people to take the bloom from my own
child's innocence. Heaven help me!”
“Oh, never mind that,” cried Julia in her ardent way; “give me Truth
before Error, however pleasing.”
Mrs. Dodd replied only by a sigh: grand general sentiments like that
never penetrated her mind: they glided off like water from a duck's
back. “We will begin with this mercantile Brutus, then,” said she, with
such a curl of the lip. Brutus had rejected her daughter.
“Mr. Richard Hardie was born and bred in a bank; one where no wild thyme
blows, my poor enthusiast, nor cowslips nor the nodding violet grows;
but gold and silver chink, and Things are discounted, and men grow rich,
slowly but surely, by lawful use of other people's money. Breathed
upon by these 'gentle influences,' he was, from his youth, a remarkable
man--measured by Trade's standard. At five-and-twenty divine what he
did! He saved the bank. You have read of bubbles: the Mississippi Bubble
and the South Sea Bubble. Well, in the year 1825, it was not one bubble
but a thousand; mines by the score, and in distant lands; companies
by the hundred; loans to every nation or tribe; down to Guatemala,
Patagonia, and Greece; two hundred new ships were laid on the stocks in
one year, for your dear papa told me; in short, a fever of speculation,
and the whole nation raging with it: my dear, Princes, Dukes, Duchesses,
Bishops, Poets, Lawyers, Physicians, were seen struggling with their own
footmen for a place in the Exchange: and, at last, good, steady, old Mr.
Hardie, Alfred's grandfather, was drawn into the vortex. Now, to excuse
him and appreciate the precocious Richard, you must try and realise that
these bubbles, when they rise, are as alluring and reasonable as they
are ridiculous and incredible when one looks back on them; even soap
bubbles, you know, have rainbow hues till they burst: and, indeed, the
blind avarice of men does but resemble the blind vanity of women: look
at our grandmothers' hoops, and our mothers' short waists and monstrous
heads! Yet in their day what woman did not glory in these insanities?
Well then, Mr. Richard Hardie, at twenty-five, was the one to foresee
the end of all these bubbles; he came down from London and brought
his people to their senses by sober reason and 'sound commercial
principles'--that means, I believe, 'get other people's money, but
do not risk your own.' His superiority was so clear, that his father
resigned the helm to him, and, thanks to his ability, the bank weathered
the storm, while all the other ones in the town broke or suspended their
trade. Now, you know, youth is naturally ardent and speculative; but
Richard Hardie's was colder and wiser than other people's old age: and
that is one trait. Some years later, in the height of his prosperity--I
reveal this only for your comfort, and on your sacred promise as a
person of delicacy, never to repeat it to a soul--Richard Hardie was a
suitor for my hand.”
“Mamma!”
“Do not ejaculate, sweetest. It discomposes me. 'Nothing is
extraordinary,' as that good creature Dr. Sampson says. He must have
thought it would _answer,_ in one way or another, to have a gentlewoman
at the head of his table; and I was not penniless, _bien entendu._
Failing in this, he found a plain little Thing, with a gloomy temper,
and no accomplishments nor graces; but her father could settle twenty
thousand pounds. He married her directly: and that is a trait. He sold
his father's and grandfather's house and place of business, in spite of
all their associations, and obtained a lease of his present place from
my uncle Fountain: it seemed a more money-making situation. A trait.
He gives me no reason for rejecting my daughter. Why? because he is not
proud of his reasons: this walking Avarice has intelligence: a trait.
Now put all this together, and who more transparent than the profound
Mr. Hardie? He has declined our alliance because he takes for granted
we are poor. When I undeceive him on that head he will reopen
_negotiations_ in a letter--No. 2 of the correspondence; copied by one
of his clerks--it will be calm, plausible, flattering: in short, it will
be done like a gentleman: though he is nothing of the kind. And this
brings me to what I ought to have begun with: your dear father and
I have always lived within our income for our children's sake; he is
bringing home the bulk of our savings this very voyage, and it amounts
to fourteen thousand pounds.”
“Oh, what an enormous sum!”
“No, dearest, it is not a fortune in itself. But it is a considerable
sum to possess, independent of one's settlement and one's income. It is
loose cash, to speak _a la_ Hardie; that means I can do what I choose
with it and of course I choose--to make you happy. How I shall work
on what you call Iron and I venture to call Clay must be guided by
circumstances. I think of depositing three or four thousand pounds every
month with Mr. Hardie; he is our banker, you know. He will most likely
open his eyes, and make some move before the whole sum is in his hands.
If he does not, I shall perhaps call at his bank, and draw a cheque for
fourteen thousand pounds. The wealthiest provincial banker does not keep
such a sum floating in his shop-tills. His commercial honour, the one
semi-chivalrous sentiment in his soul, would be in peril. He would
yield, and with grace: none the less readily that his house and his
bank, which have been long heavily mortgaged to our trustees, were made
virtually theirs by agreement yesterday (I set this on foot with twelve
hours of Mr. Iron's impertinent letter), and he will say to himself,
'She can--post me, I think these people call it--this afternoon for not
cashing her cheque, and she can turn me and my bank into the street
to-morrow:' and then, of course, he shall see by my manner the velvet
paw is offered as well as the claw. He is pretty sure to ask himself
which will suit the _ledger_ best--this cat's friendship and her
fourteen thousand pounds, or--an insulted mother's enmity?” And Mrs.
Placid's teeth made a little click just audible in the silent night.
“Oh, mamma! my heart is sick. Am I to be bought and sold like this?”
Mrs. Dodd sighed, but said calmly, “You must pay the penalty for loving
a _parvenu's_ son. Come, Julia, no peevishness, no more romance, no more
vacillation. You have tried Pride and failed pitiably: now I insist on
your trying Love! Child, it is the bane of our sex to carry nothing
out: from that weakness I will preserve you. And, by-the-bye, we are not
going to marry Mr. Richard Hardie, but Mr. Alfred. Now, Mr. Alfred, with
all his faults and defects--”
“Mamma! what faults? what defects?”
“--Is a gentleman; thanks to Oxford, and Harrow, and nature. My darling,
pray to Heaven night and day for your dear father's safe return; for on
him, and him alone, your happiness depends: as mine does.”
“Mamma!” cried Julia, embracing her, “what do poor girls do who have
lost their mother?”
“Look abroad and see,” was the grave reply.
Mrs. Dodd then begged her to go to sleep, like a good child, for her
health's sake; all would be well; and with this was about to return to
her own room; but a white hand and arm darted out of the bed and caught
her. “What! Hope has come to me by night in the form of an angel, and
shall I let her go back to her own room? Never! never! never! never!
never!” And she patted the bed expressively, and with the prettiest
impatience.
“Well, let Hope take off her earrings first,” suggested Mrs. Dodd.
“No, no, come here directly, earrings and all.”
“No, thank you; or I shall have _them_ wounding you next.”
Mrs. Hope quietly removed her earrings, and the tender pair passed the
rest of the night in one another's arms. The young girl's tears were
dried; and hope revived, and life bloomed again: only, henceforth her
longing eyes looked out to sea for her father, homeward bound.
Next day, as they were seated together in the drawing-room, Julia came
from the window with a rush, and kneeled at Mrs. Dodd's knees, with
bright imploring face upturned.
“He is there; and--I am to speak to him? Is that it?”
“Dear, dear, dear mamma!” was the somewhat oblique reply.
“Well, then, bring me my things.”
She was ten minutes putting them on: Julia tried to expedite her and
retarded her. She had her pace, and could not go beyond it.
Now by this time Alfred Hardie was thoroughly miserable. Unable to move
his father, shunned by Julia, sickened by what he had heard, and indeed
seen, of her gaiety and indifference to their separation, stung by
jealousy and fretted by impatience, he was drinking nearly all the
bitters of that sweet passion, Love. But as you are aware, he ascribed
Julia's inconstancy, lightness, and cruelty all to Mrs. Dodd. He hated
her cordially, and dreaded her into the bargain; he played the sentinel
about her door all the more because she had asked him not to do it
“Always do what your enemy particularly objects to,” said he, applying
to his own case the wisdom of a Greek philosopher, one of his teachers.
So, when the gate suddenly opened, and instead of Julia, this very Mrs.
Dodd walked towards him, his feelings were anything but enviable. He
wished himself away, heartily, but was too proud to retreat. He stood
his ground. She came up to him; a charming smile broke out over her
features. “Ah! Mr. Hardie,” said she, “if you have nothing better to do,
will you give me a minute?” He assented with surprise and an ill grace.
“May I take your arm?”
He offered it with a worse.
She laid her hand lightly on it, and it shuddered at her touch. He felt
like walking with a velvet tigress.
By some instinct she divined his sentiment, and found her task more
difficult than she had thought; she took some steps in silence. At last,
as he was no dissembler, he burst out passionately, “Why are you my
enemy?”
“I am not your enemy,” said she quietly.
“Not openly, but all the more dangerous. You keep us apart, you bid her
be gay and forget me; you are a cruel, hard-hearted lady.”
“No, I am not, sir,” said Mrs. Dodd simply.
“Oh! I believe you are good and kind to all the rest of the world; but
you know you have a heart of iron for me.”
“I am my daughter's friend, but not your enemy; it is you who are too
inexperienced to know how delicate, how difficult, my duties are. It is
only since last night I see my way clear; and, look, I come at once to
you with friendly intentions. Suppose I were as impetuous as you are? I
should, perhaps, be calling you ungrateful.”
He retorted bitterly. “Give me something to be grateful for, and you
shall see whether that baseness is in my nature.”
“I have a great mind to put you to the proof,” said she archly. “Let
us walk down this lane; then you can be as unjust to me _as you think
proper,_ without attracting public attention.”
In the lane she told him quietly she knew the nature of his father's
objections to the alliance he had so much at heart, and they were
objections which her husband, on his return, would remove. On this he
changed his tone a little, and implored her piteously not to deceive
him.
“I will not,” said she, “upon my honour. If you are as constant as my
daughter is in her esteem for you--notwithstanding her threadbare
gaiety worn over loyal regret, and to check a parcel of idle ladies'
tongues--you have nothing to fear from me, and everything to expect.
Come, _Alfred_--may I take that liberty with you?--let us understand one
another. We only want that to be friends.”
This was hard to resist and at his age. His lip trembled, he hesitated,
but at last gave her his hand. She walked two hours with him, and laid
herself out to enlighten, soothe, and comfort his sore heart His hopes
and happiness revived under her magic, as Julia's had. In the midst of
it all, the wise woman quietly made terms. He was not to come to the
house but on her invitation, unless indeed he had news of the _Agra_ to
communicate; but he might write once a week to her, and enclose a few
lines to Julia. On this concession he proceeded to mumble her white
wrist, and call her his best, dearest, loveliest friend; his mother.
“Oh, remember,” said he, with a relic of distrust, “you are the only
mother I can ever hope to have.”
That touched her. Hitherto, he had been to her but a thing her daughter
loved.
Her eyes filled. “My poor, warm-hearted, motherless boy,” she said,
“pray for my husband's safe return. For on that your happiness depends,
and hers, and mine.”
So now two more bright eyes looked longingly seaward for the _Agra_
homeward bound.