Маргарет Олифант
A Country Gentleman and his Family
"Only one thing can become of her," said Lizzie. "She'll fall lower and lower. Oh, you don't think a poor creature can fall any lower, I know," for Chatty had looked at her with wonder, shaking her head; "but lower and lower in her dreadful way. One day there," said Lizzie philosophically, but sadly, pointing to the high wall of the Elms, "with her fine dresses and her horses and carriages: and the next in dirt and misery. And then she'll die, perhaps in the hospital. Oh, she'll not be long in anybody's way. They die soon, and then they are done with, and everybody is glad of it – " the girl cried, with a burst of sudden tears.
Chatty stopped suddenly upon the road. They were opposite to the gate from which so often the woman they were discussing had driven forth in her short-lived finery; a stillness as of death had fallen on the uninhabited house, and all was tranquil on the country road, stretching on one side across the tranquil fields, on the other towards the clustering houses of the village and the low spire which pointed to heaven. "Lizzie," she said, "if it is never put right, – and perhaps it will never be put right, for who can tell? – if you will come with me who know so much about it, we will go and be missionaries to these poor girls. I will tell them my story, and how I am married but have no husband, and how three lives are all ruined, – all ruined for ever. And we will tell them that love is not like that; that it is faithful and true: and that women should never be like that – that women should be – oh, I do not believe it, I do not believe it! Of her own free will no woman could ever be like that!" Chatty cried, like Desdemona, suddenly clenching her soft hands in a passion of indignation and pity. "We will go and tell them, Lizzie!"
"Oh, Miss Chatty! They know it all, every word," Lizzie cried.
CHAPTER XLIX
Two little girls are as unlike as anything can be to one little boy. This gave Warrender a sort of angry satisfaction in the ridiculous incident which had happened in his life. For it is a ridiculous incident. When a man is hardened to it, when he has had several children and is habituated to the paternal honours, it may be amusing and interesting and all the rest. But scarcely a year after his marriage, when he was not quite four-and-twenty, to be the father of twins! He felt sometimes as if it was the result of a conspiracy to make him ridiculous. The neighbouring potentates, when he met them, laughed as they congratulated him. "If you are going to continue like this, you will be a patriarch before you know where you are," one of them said. It was a joke to the entire country round about. Twins! He felt scarcely any of the stirrings of tenderness in his heart which are supposed to move a young father, when he looked at the two little yawning, gaping morsels of humanity. If there had been but one, perhaps! – but two! He was the laughing-stock of the neighbourhood, he felt. The sight of his wife, pale and smiling, touched his heart indeed. But even this sight was not without its pangs. For alas! she knew all about this position which was so novel to him. She understood the babies and their wants, as it was natural a mother who was already experienced in motherhood should. And finally she was so far carried away by the privileges and the expansion of the moment as to ask him – him! the last authority to be consulted on such a subject – whether Geoff was delighted to hear of his little sisters. Geoff's little sisters! The thought of that boy having anything to do with them, any relationship to claim with his children clouded Warrender's face. He turned it away, and Lady Markland, in the sweet enthusiasm of the moment, fortunately did not perceive that change. She thought in her tender folly that this would make everything right; that Geoff, as the brother of his little girls, would be something nearer to Theo, claiming a more favourable consideration. She preserved this hope for some time, notwithstanding a great many signs to the contrary. Even Theo's dark face, when he found Geoff one day in his mother's room, looking with great interest at the children, did not alarm the mother, who was determined not to part with her illusion. "Do you think it right to have a boy of Geoff's age here in your room?" he said. "Oh, Theo, my own boy! – what harm can it do?" she had said, so foolishly, forgetting that Geoff's crime in the eyes of his young stepfather was exactly this, that he was her own boy.
Thus the circumstance which every one concerned hoped was to make the most favourable change in the position did only intensify its difficulties. Geoff naturally was more thrown into the society of his stepfather during his mother's seclusion, and Geoff was very full of the new event and new relationships, and was no wiser than his mother so far as this was concerned. When they lunched together the boy was so far forgetful of former experiences as to ply Theo with questions, as he had not done since the days when the young man was his tutor, and everything was on so different a footing. Geoff's excitement made him forget all the prudence he had acquired. His "I say, Warrender," over and over repeated drove Theo to heights of exasperation indescribable. Everything about Geoff was offensive to his stepfather: his ugly little face, the nervous grimaces which he still made, the familiarity of his address, but above all the questions which it was impossible to silence. Lady Markland averted them more or less when she was present, and Geoff had learnt prudence to some extent, but in his excitement he remembered these precautions no more.
"I say, Warrender! shall you take mamma away? Nurse says she must go for a change. I think Markland is always the nicest place going, don't you?"
"No, I prefer the Warren, as you know."
"Oh!" Geoff could scarcely keep out of his voice the wondering contempt with which he received this suggestion: but here his natural insight prevailed, and a sort of sympathetic genius which the little fellow possessed. "To be sure, I like the Warren very much indeed," he said. "I suppose what makes me like Markland best is being born here."
"And I was born there," Theo said.
"Yes, I know. I wonder which the babies will like best. They are born here, like me; I hope they will like Markland. It will be fun seeing them run about, both the same size, and so like. They say twins are always so like. Shall we have to tie a red ribbon round one and a blue ribbon round the other, as people do?"
To this question the father of the babies vouchsafed no reply.
"Nurse says they are not a bit like me," Geoff continued, in a tone of regret.
"Like you! Why should they be like you?" said Warrender, with a flush of indignation.
"But why not, Warrender? Brothers and sisters are alike often. You and Chatty are a little alike. When I am at Oxford, if they come to see me, I shall like fellows to say, 'Oh, I saw your sisters, Markland.'"
"Your sisters!" Theo could scarcely contain his disgust, all the more that he saw the old butler keeping an eye upon him with a sort of severity. The servants in the house, Theo thought, all took part with Geoff, and looked to him as their future master. He continued hastily: "I can only hope they will prefer the Warren, as I do, for that will be their home."
"Oh!" cried Geoff again, opening round eyes. "But if it isn't our home, how can it be theirs? They don't want a home all to themselves."
"I think they do," said Theo shortly.
The boy gave him a furtive glance, and thought it wise to change the subject. "Mrs. Warrender is there now. Oh, I say! she will be granny to the babies. I should like to call her granny too. Will she let me, do you think, Warrender? She is always so kind to me."
"I should advise you not to try."
"Why, Warrender? Would she be angry? She is always very kind. I went to see her once, as soon as she came home, and she was awfully kind, and understood what I wanted." Geoff paused here, suddenly catching himself up, and remembering with a forlorn sense that he had gone a long way beyond that in his little life, the experiences which were sufficiently painful, of that day.
"It requires a very wise person to do that," said Warrender, with an angry smile.
"Yes, to understand you quite right even when you don't say anything. I say, Warrender, if mamma has to go away for a change, when shall we go?"
"We!" said Warrender significantly. "Are you also in want of a change?"
The boy looked up at him suddenly, with a hasty flush. The tears came to his brave little eyes. He was over-powered by the sudden suggestion, and could not find a word to say.
"Markland is the best change for you, after Eton," said Theo. "You don't want to travel with a nursery, I suppose."
Geoff felt something rise in his throat. Why, it was his own nursery, he wanted to say. It was his own family. Where should he go but where they went? But the words were stopped on his lips, and his magnanimous little heart swelled high. Oh, if he could but fly to his mother! – but to her he had learnt never now to fly.
"Wherever we may go," said Warrender coldly, "I think you had much better spend your holidays here;" and he got up from the table, leaving Geoff in a tumult of feelings which words can scarcely describe. He had suffered a great deal during the past year, and had said little. A sort of preternatural consciousness that he must keep his own secret, that he must betray nothing to his mother, had come upon him. He sat now silent, his little face twitching and working, a sudden new, unlooked-for horror stealing over him, that he was to be separated from his mother; that he was to be left behind while they went away. It did not seem possible, and yet, with all the rapidity of a child's imagination, Geoff's mind flashed over what might happen, – he to be left alone here, while they went away. He saw his mother go smiling into the carriage, thinking of the babies, in their little white hoods, little dolls – oh no, dear little helpless creatures, to whom the boy's heart went out; his little babies as well as his mother's. But of course she would think of them. She must think of them. And Geoff would be left behind, with no one, nobody to speak to, the great rooms all empty, only the servants about. He remembered what it had been when his mother was married; but then he had the hope that she would come back to him, that all would be well: and now he knew that never, never, as of old, could he have her back. Geoff did not budge from the table for some time after, but sat with his elbows on it and his head in his hands, in the attitude which he had so often been scolded for, with nobody to scold him or take any notice. He thought to himself that he might put his elbows on the table as much as he liked, and nobody would care. But this thought only made the position more terrible. It was only the return of the servants to clear the table, and the old butler's question, "What's the matter, Master Geoff?" that roused him. The butler's tone was far too sympathetic. He was an old servant, and the only one in the house who did not call poor little Geoff My lord. But the boy was not going to accept sympathy. He sprang up from the table with a "Nothing's the matter. I'm going out for a ride," and hurried towards the stables, which were now his resource more and more.
This knowledge rankled in Geoff's heart through all the time of his mother's convalescence. He was very brave, very magnanimous, without knowing that he was either. That he would not vex his mother was the determination of his soul. She was very sweet, sweeter than ever, but pale, and her hands so thin that you could see the light through them. Though he anticipated with a dull anguish the time when she should go away, when Warrender would take her away, leaving him behind, Geoff resolved that he would say nothing about it, that he would not make her unhappy. He would bear it; one could bear anything when one tried, even spending the holidays by one's self. But his heart sank at the thought. Supposing she were to stay a month away, – that was four weeks; it was thirty days, – and he alone, all alone in Markland. And when she came back it would be time for him to go to school. Sometimes he felt as if he must cry out when he thought of this; but he would not say a word, he would not complain; he would bear it rather than vex mamma. When she came downstairs she was so pale. She began to walk about a little, but only with Warrender's arm. She drove out, but the babies had to be with her in the carriage; there was no room for Geoff. He twisted his poor little face out of shape altogether in the effort to get rid of the scalding tears, but he would not betray the state of his mind; nothing, he vowed to himself, should make him worry mamma.
One day he rode over to the Warren, pondering upon what Theo had said, that the Warren must be liked best by the babies, because it was their home. Would it ever really be their home? Would Warrender be so hard as that, to take away mamma and the babies for good, and leave a fellow all alone in Markland, because it was Geoff's and not his own? Geoff's little gray face was as serious as that of a man of eighty, and almost as full of wrinkles. He thought and thought what he could do to please Warrender. Though his heart rose against this interloper, this destroyer of his home, Geoff was wise, and knew that to keep his mother he must please her husband. What could he do? Not like him, – that was impossible. Riding along, now slowly, now quickly, rather at the pony's will than at his own, Geoff, with loose reins in his hands and a slouch in his shoulders which was the despair of Black, pondered the subject till his little mind was all in confusion. What could he do to please Warrender? He would be good to the babies, by nature, and because he liked the two funny little things, but that would not please Warrender. He would do almost anything Warrender chose to tell him, but that wouldn't please him. What was there, then, that would? He did not know what he could do. He rode very carelessly, almost as much at the mercy of the pony as on the occasion when Theo picked him from under the wheels of the high phaeton; but either the pony was more wise, or Geoff stronger, for there was no question now of being thrown. When he came in sight of the little gate of the Warren, he saw some one standing there, at sight of whom he quickened his pace. He knew the general aspect of the man's figure though he could not see his face, and this welcome new excitement made the heart jump up again in Geoff's breast. He hurried along in a sudden cloud of dust, and threw himself off the pony like a little acrobat. "Mr. Cavendish!" cried Geoff, "have you come back?" with a glow of pleasure which drove all his troubles away.
It was Dick, very brown, very thin, a little wild in his aspect and dress. "Hallo, Geoff!" he replied. "Yes, I have come back. Didn't they expect me to come back?"
"Oh, I don't know. I think they wondered."
"That's how it is in this world," said the other; "nobody trusts you: as soon as you are out of sight – oh, I don't say you're out of mind – but nobody trusts you. They think that perhaps, after all, you were a villain all the time."
To this, naturally, Geoff had no reply to make, but he said, "Are you going in that way, Mr. Cavendish?" Upon which Dick burst into a loud laugh, which Geoff knew meant anything but laughing.
"What do you think, Geoff?" he said. "My wife's inside, and they've locked me out here. That's a joke, isn't it?"
"I don't think it's any joke. And Chatty wants you so. Come round to the other door."
"Are you sure of that?" said Dick. "Here's that fellow been here, – that Thynne fellow, – and tells me – " Then he paused and looked at the boy, with another laugh. "You're a queer confidant for a poor vagabond, little Geoff."
"Is it because I'm little?" cried Geoff. "But though I am little there are a heap of things I know. I know they are all against you except Chatty. Come along and see Chatty. I want to go to her this moment and tell her – "
"I thought," said Cavendish, "I'd wait for her here. I don't want to make a mummy of that fellow, my brother-in-law, don't you know, the first moment. Tell Chatty – tell my wife, Geoff – that I am waiting for her here."
Geoff did not wait for another word, but clambered on to his pony again and was off like the wind, round by the village to the other gate. Meantime Dick stood and leaned upon the wooden paling. His face was sharp and thin with illness, with eagerness and suspense, his complexion browned and paled out of its healthful English tints. But this was not because he was weak any longer, or in diminished health. He was worn by incessant travelling, by anxiety and the fluctuation of hope and fear; but the great tension had strung his nerves and strengthened his vitality, though it had worn off every superfluous particle of flesh. A keen anxiety mingled with indignation was in his eyes as he looked across the gate which the clergyman had fastened against him, – indignation, yet also a smile. From the moment when Geoff's little voice had broken upon his angry reverie, Dick had begun to recover himself. "Chatty wants you so." It was only a child that spoke. But a child does not flatter or deceive, and this was true. What Eustace Thynne thought, what anybody thought, was of little consequence. Chatty! The simple name brought a softening glow to Dick's eye. Would she come and open to him? Would she reverse the judgment of the family by her own act, or would it be he who must emancipate Chatty? He waited with something of his old gaiety rising in his mind. The position was ludicrous. They had shut him out, but it could not be for long.
Geoff galloped his pony to the gate, and up the little avenue, which was still very shady and green, though so much of the wood had been cut. He threw himself off and flung the reins to the gardener's boy, who stood gazing open-mouthed at the little lord's headlong race. The doors were not open, as usual, but Geoff knew that the drawing-room windows were seldom fastened in the summer weather. He darted along round the corner of the house, and fell against one of the windows, pushing it open. In the drawing-room there seemed a number of people assembled, whom he saw vaguely without paying any attention. Mr. and Mrs. Thynne, Warrender, in a group, talking with their heads together, Mrs. Warrender standing between them and the tranquil figure of Chatty, who sat at work at the other end of the room, taking no part in the consultation of the others, paying no heed to them. Chatty showed an almost ostentation of disregard, of separation from the others, in her isolated place and the work with which she was busy. She looked up when Geoff came stumbling through the window, with a little alarm, but she did not look as if she expected any one, as if she had heard who was so near at hand. The boy was covered with dust and hot with haste, his forehead bathed in perspiration. He called out to her almost before he was in the room: "Chatty! Mr. Cavendish is outside at the gate. They will not let him come in. He sent me to tell you."
Chatty rose to her feet, and the group in the end of the room scattered and crowded to the window. Theo seized his stepson by the collar, half choking the boy. "You confounded imp!" he cried, "what business is that of yours?"
"Geoff, where, where?" Chatty rushed to the child and caught his hand. He struggled in Theo's grasp, in a desperate, nervous anguish, fearing he could not tell what, – that he would be strangled, that Chatty would be put in some sort of prison. The strangling was in progress now; he called out in haste, that he might get it out before his breath was gone —
"Oh, run, Chatty! The little gate in the road – the wooden gate." She seemed to flash past his eyes, – his eyes which were turning in his head, with the pressure and the shaking of Warrender's arm. Then the child felt himself suddenly pitched forward and fell, stunned for the moment, and thinking, before consciousness failed him, that all was over, and that he was killed indeed – yet scarcely sorry, for Chatty had his message and he had fulfilled his commission before he died.
Chatty flew along the shady paths, a line of whiteness fluttering through sunshine and shadow. She called out her lover's name as she approached the gate. She had neither fear nor doubt in her mind. She did not know what news he was going to bring her, what conclusion was to be put to the story. She called to him as soon as he was within hearing, asking no questions, taking no precautions. "Dick, Dick!" Behind her, but at some distance, Minnie too fluttered along, inspired by virtuous indignation, which is only less swift than love and happiness. The gentlemen remained behind, even Eustace perceiving that the matter had now passed beyond their hands. This is one of the points in which men have the advantage over women. They have a practical sense of the point at which opposition becomes impossible. And Warrender had the additional knowledge that he had done that in his fury which at his leisure it would be difficult to account for. Mrs. Warrender, who had not been informed of the crisis, nor known upon what matter her children were consulting, was too much horrified by what had happened to Geoff to think even of Chatty. She raised the boy up and put him on a sofa, and bathed his forehead, her own heart aching and bleeding, while Warrender stood dumbly by, looking at his handiwork, his passion still hot in him, and a half frenzy of dislike and repugnance in his mind.
