Griffith, with an effort he had not the skill to hide, stammered out, "Mistress Kate, I do wish you joy." Then with sudden and touching earnestness, "Never did good fortune light on one so worthy of it."
Thank you, Griffith, replied Kate, softly. (She had called him 'Mr. Gaunt' in public till now.) "But money and lands do not always bring content. I think I was happier a minute ago than I feel now," said she, quietly.
The blood rushed into Griffith's face at this; for a minute ago might mean when he and she were talking almost like lovers about to wed. He was so overcome by this, he turned on his heel, and retreated hastily to hide his emotion, and regain, if possible, composure to play his part of host in the house that was his no longer.
Kate herself soon after retired, nominally to make her toilet before dinner; but really to escape the public; and think it all over.
The news of her advancement had spread like wildfire: she was waylaid at the very door by the housekeeper, who insisted on showing her her house. "Nay, never mind the house," said Kate: "just show me one room where I can wash my face and do my hair."
Mrs. Hill conducted her to the best bedroom: it was lined with tapestry, and all the colors flown; the curtains were a deadish yellow.
Lud! here's a colored room to show me into, said the blonde Kate: "and a black grate, too. Why not take me out o' doors and bid me wash in the snow?"
Alack, mistress, said the woman, feeling very uneasy, "we had no orders from Mr. Gaunt to light fires up stairs."
Oh, if you wait for gentlemen's orders to make your house fit to live in! You knew there were a dozen ladies coming, yet you were not woman enough to light them fires. Come, take me to your own bedroom.
The woman turned red: "Mine is but a small room, my lady," she stammered.
But there's a fire in it, said Kate, spitefully. "You servants don't wait for gentlemen's orders, to take care of yourselves."
Mrs. Hill said to herself, "I'm to leave; that is flat." However, she led the way down a passage, and opened the door of a pleasant little room in a square turret: a large bay window occupied one whole side of the room, and made it inexpressibly bright and cheerful, though rather hot and stuffy; a clear coal fire burnt in the grate.
Ah! said Kate, "how nice. Please open those little windows every one. I suppose you have sworn never to let wholesome air into a room. Thank you: now go and forget every cross word I have said to you—I am out of sorts, and nervous, and irritable. There, run away, my good soul, and light fires in every room; and don't you let a creature come near me, or you and I shall quarrel downright."
Mrs. Hill beat a hasty retreat. Kate locked the door and threw herself backwards on the bed, with such a weary recklessness and abandon, as if she was throwing herself into the sea, to end all her trouble—and burst out crying.
It was one thing to refuse to marry her old sweetheart; it was another to take his property and reduce him to poverty. But here was she doing both, and going to be persuaded to marry Neville, and swell his wealth with the very possessions she had taken from Griffith; and him wounded into the bargain for love of her. It was really too cruel. It was an accumulation of different cruelties. Her bosom revolted: she was agitated, perplexed, irritated, unhappy, and all in a tumult: and, although she had but one fit of crying,—to the naked eye,—yet a person of her own sex would have seen that at one moment she was crying from agitated nerves, at another from worry, and at the next from pity, and then from grief.
In short she had a good long, hearty, multi-form cry; and it relieved her swelling heart so far, that she felt able to go down now, and hide her feelings, one and all, from friend and foe; to do which was, unfortunately, a part of her nature.
She rose and plunged her face into cold water, and then smoothed her hair.
Now, as she stood at the glass, two familiar voices came in through the open window, and arrested her attention directly. It was her father conversing with Griffith Gaunt. Kate pricked up her quick ears and listened, with her back hair in her hand. She caught the subject of their talk, only now and then she missed a word or two.
Mr. Peyton was speaking rather kindly to Griffith, and telling him he was as sorry for his disappointment as any father could be whose daughter had just come into a fortune. But then he went on and rather spoiled this by asking Griffith bluntly what on earth had ever made him think Mr. Charlton intended to leave him Bolton and Hernshaw.
Griffith replied, with manifest agitation, that Mr. Charlton had repeatedly told him he was to be his heir. "Not," said Griffith, "that he meant to wrong Mistress Kate, neither: poor old man, he always thought she and I should be one."
Ah! well, said Squire Peyton, coolly, "there is an end of all that now."
At this observation Kate glided to the window, and laid her cheek on the sill to listen more closely.
But Griffith made no reply.
Mr. Peyton seemed dissatisfied at his silence, and being a person who, notwithstanding a certain superficial good-nature, saw his own side of a question very big, and his neighbor's very little, he was harder than perhaps he intended to be.
Why, Master Gaunt, said he, "surely you would not follow my daughter now; to feed upon a woman's bread. Come, be a man; and, if you are the girl's friend, don't stand in her light. You know she can wed your betters, and clap Bolton Hall on to Neville's Court. No doubt it is a disappointment to you: but what can't be cured must be endured; pluck up a bit of courage, and turn your heart another way; and then I shall always be a good friend to you, and my doors open to you come when you will."
Griffith made no reply. Kate strained her ears, but could not hear a syllable. A tremor ran through her. She was in distance farther from Griffith than her father was; but superior intelligence provided her with a bridge from her window to her old servant's mind. And now she felt that this great silence was the silence of despair.
But the Squire pressed him for a definite answer; and finally insisted on one. "Come, don't be sulky," said he; "I'm her father: give me an answer, ay or no."
Then Kate heard a violent sigh, and out rushed a torrent of words that each seemed tinged with blood from the unfortunate speaker's heart. "Old man," he almost shrieked, "what did I ever do to you that you torment me so? Sure you were born without bowels. Beggared but an hour agone, and now you must come and tell me I have lost her by losing house and lands! D'ye think I need to be told it? She was too far above me before, and now she is gone quite out of my reach. But why come and fling it in my face? Can't you give a poor undone man one hour to draw his breath in trouble? And, when you know I have got to play the host this bitter day, and smile, and smirk, and make you all merry, with my heart breaking. Oh Christ, look down and pity me, for men are made of stone! Well, then, no; I will not, I cannot, say the word, to give her up. She will discharge me, and then I'll fly the country, and never trouble you more. And to think that one little hour ago she was so kind, and I was so happy: Ah, sir, if you were born of a woman, have a little pity, and don't speak to me of her at all one way or other. What are you afraid of? I am a gentleman and a man, though sore my trouble: I shall not run after the lady of Bolton Hall. Why, sir, I have ordered the servants to set her chair in the middle of the table, where I shall not be able to speak to her, or even see her. Indeed I dare not look at her: for I must be merry. Merry! My arm it worries me, my head it aches, my heart is sick to death. Man! man! show me some little grace, and do not torture me more than flesh and blood can bear."
You are mad, young sir, said the Squire, sternly, "and want locking up on bread and water for a month."
I am almost mad, said Griffith, humbly. "But if you would only let me alone, and not tear my heart out of my body, I could hide my agony from the whole pack of ye, and go through my part like a man. I wish I was lying where I laid my only friend this afternoon."
Oh! I don't want to speak to you, said Peyton, angrily; "and, by the same token, don't you speak to my daughter any more."
Well, sir, if she speaks to me I shall be sure to speak to her, without asking your leave or any man's. But I will not force myself upon the lady of Bolton Hall; don't you think it. Only for God's sake let me alone. I want to be by myself. And, with this, he hurried away, unable to bear it any more.
Peyton gave a hostile and contemptuous snort, and also turned on his heel, and went off in the opposite direction. The effect of this dialogue on the listener was not to melt, but exasperate her. Perhaps she had just cried away her stock of tenderness. At any rate, she rose from her ambush a very basilisk; her eyes, usually so languid, flashed fire, and her forehead was red with indignation. She bit her lip, and clenched her hands, and her little foot beat the ground swiftly.
She was still in this state when a timid tap came to the door, and Mrs. Hill asked her pardon, but dinner was ready, and the ladies and gentlemen all a waiting for her to sit down.
This reminded Kate she was the mistress of the house. She answered civilly she would be down immediately. She then took a last look in the glass; and her own face startled her.
No, she thought; "they shall none of them know nor guess what I feel." And she stood before the glass and deliberately extracted all emotion from her countenance, and by way of preparation screwed on a spiteful smile.
When she had got her face to her mind, she went down stairs.
The gentlemen awaited her with impatience, the ladies with curiosity, to see how she would comport herself in her new situation. She entered, made a formal curtsy, and was conducted to her seat by Mr. Gaunt. He placed her in the middle of the table. "I play the host for this one day," said he, with some dignity; and took the bottom of the table himself.
Mr. Hammersley was to have sat on Kate's left, but the sly Neville persuaded him to change, and so got next to his inamorata: opposite to her sat her father, Major Rickards, and others unknown to fame.
Neville was in high spirits. He had the good taste to try and hide his satisfaction at the fatal blow his rival had received, and he entirely avoided the topic; but Kate saw at once, by his demure complacency, he was delighted at the turn things had taken; and he gained nothing by it: he found her a changed girl. Cold monosyllables were all he could extract from her. He returned to the charge a hundred times with indomitable gallantry, but it was no use. Cold, haughty, sullen!
Her other neighbor fared little better; and in short the lady of the house made a vile impression. She was an iceberg: a beautiful kill-joy: a wet blanket of charming texture.
And presently Nature began to co-operate with her: long before sunset it grew prodigiously dark; and the cause was soon revealed by a fall of snow in flakes as large as a biscuit. A shiver ran through the people; and old Peyton blurted out, "I shall not go home to-night." Then he bawled across the table to his daughter: "You are at home. We will stay and take possession."
Oh, papa! said Kate, reddening with disgust.
But if dulness reigned around the lady of the house, it was not so everywhere: loud bursts of merriment were heard at the bottom of the table. Kate glanced that way in some surprise, and found it was Griffith making the company merry; Griffith of all people.
The laughter broke out at short intervals, and by-and-by became uproarious and constant. At last she looked at Neville inquiringly.
Our worthy host is setting us an example of conviviality, said he. "He is getting drunk."
Oh, I hope not, said Kate. "Has he no friend to tell him not to make a fool of himself?"
You take a great interest in him, said Neville, bitterly.
Of course I do. Pray do you desert your friends when ill luck falls on them?
Nay, Mistress Kate, I hope not.
You only triumph over the misfortunes of your enemies, eh? said the stinging beauty.
Not even that. And, as for Mr. Gaunt, I am not his enemy.
Oh no, of course not. You are his best friend. Witness his arm at this moment.
I am his rival; but not his enemy: I'll give you a proof. Then he lowered his voice, and said in her ear: "You are grieved at his losing Bolton; and, as you are very generous, and noble-minded, you are all the more grieved because his loss is your gain." (Kate blushed at this shrewd hit.) Neville went on: "You don't like him well enough to marry him; and, since you cannot make him happy, it hurts your good heart to make him poor."
It is you for reading a lady's Heart, said Kate, ironically.
George proceeded steadily. "I'll show you an easy way out of this dilemma."
Thank you, said Kate, rather insolently.
Give Mr. Gaunt Bolton and Hernshaw, and give me—your hand.
Kate turned and looked at him with surprise: she saw by his eye it was no jest. For all that, she effected to take it as one. "That would be long and short division," said she: but her voice faltered in saying it.
So it would, replied George, coolly; "for Bolton and Hernshaw both are not worth one finger of that hand I ask of you. But the value of things lies in the mind that weighs 'em. Mr. Gaunt, you see, values Bolton and Hernshaw very highly; why, he is in despair at losing them. Look at him; he is getting rid of his reason before your very eyes, to drown his disappointment."
Oh, that is it, is it? And, strange to say, she looked rather relieved.
That is it, believe me: it is a way we men have. But, as I was saying, I don't care one straw for Bolton and Hernshaw. It is you I love; not your land nor your house, but your sweet self: so give me that, and let the lawyers make over this famous house and lands to Mr. Gaunt. His antagonist I have been in the field, and his rival I am and must be, but not his enemy, you see, and not his ill-wisher.
Kate was softened a little. "This is all mighty romantic," said she, "and very like a prolix chevalier, as you are; but you know very well he would fling land and house in your face if you offered them him on these terms."
Ay, in my face if I offered them; but not in yours if you.
I am sure he would, all the same.
Try him.
What is the use?
Try him.
Kate showed symptoms of uneasiness. "Well, I will," said she, stoutly. "No, that I will not. You begin by bribing me; and then you would set me to bribe him."
It is the only way to make two honest men happy.
If I thought that?
You know it. Try him.
And suppose he says nay?
Then we shall be no worse than we are.
And suppose he says ay?
Then he will wed Bolton Hall and Hernshaw; and the pearl of England will wed me.
I have a great mind to take you at your word, said Kate; "but no; it is really too indelicate."
George Neville fixed his eyes on her. "Are you not deceiving yourself?" said he. "Do you not like Mr. Gaunt better than you think? I begin to fear you dare not put him to this test: you fear his love would not stand it?"
Kate colored high, and tossed her head proudly.
How shrewd you gentlemen are, she said. "Much you know of a lady's heart. Now the truth is I don't know what might happen were I to do what you bid me. Nay, I'm wiser than you would have me, and I'll pity Mr. Gaunt at a safe distance, if you please, sir."
Neville bowed gravely: he felt sure this was a plausible evasion; and that she really was afraid to apply his test to his rival's love.
So now for the first time he became silent and reserved by her side. The change was noticed by Father Francis, and he fixed a grave remonstrating glance on Kate. She received it, understood it, affected not to notice it, and acted upon it.
Drive a donkey too hard; it kicks.
Drive a man too hard; it hits.
Drive a woman too hard; it cajoles.
Now amongst them they had driven Kate Peyton too hard; so she secretly formed a bold resolution; and, this done, her whole manner changed for the better. She turned to Neville, and flattered and fascinated him. The most feline of her sex could scarcely equal her calinerie on this occasion. But she did not confine her fascination to him. She broke out, pro bono publico, like the sun in April, with quips and cranks and dimpled smiles, and made everybody near her quite forget her late hauteur and coldness, and bask in this sunny sweet hostess. When the charm was at its height, the Siren cast a seeming merry glance at Griffith, and said to a lady opposite, "Methinks some of the gentlemen will be glad to be rid of us," and so carried the ladies off to the drawing-room.
There, her first act was to dismiss her smiles without ceremony, and her second was to sit down and write four lines to the gentleman at the head of the dining-table.
And he was as drunk as a fiddler.
Griffith's friends laughed heartily with him while he was getting drunk, and, when he had got drunk, they laughed still louder, only at him.
They "knocked him down" for a song; and he sang a rather Anacreontic one very melodiously, and so loud that certain of the servants, listening outside, derived great delectation from it; and Neville applauded ironically.
Soon after, they "knocked him down" for a story; and, as it requires more brains to tell a story than, to sing a song, the poor butt made an ass of himself: he maundered and wandered, and stopped, and went on, and lost one thread and took up and another, and got into a perfect maze. And, while he was thus entangled, a servant came in and brought him a note, and put it in his hand. The unhappy narrator received it with a sapient nod, but was too polite or else too stupid to open it; so closed his fingers on it and wont maundering on till his story trickled into the sand of the desert, and somehow ceased; for it could not be said to end, being a thing without head or tail.
He sat down amidst derisive cheers. About five minutes afterwards, in some intermittent flash of reason, he found he had got hold of something. He opened his hand, and lo, a note! On this he chuckled unreasonably, and distributed sage, cunning, winks around, as if he by special ingenuity had caught a nightingale, or the like; then with sudden hauteur and gravity proceeded to examine his prize.
But he knew the handwriting at once, and it gave him a galvanic shock that half sobered him for the moment.
He opened the note and spelled it with great difficulty; it was beautifully written in long, clear letters; but then those letters kept dancing so.
"I much desire to speak to you before 'tis too late; but can think of no way save one; I lie in the turreted room: come under my window at nine of the clock; and prithee come sober, if you respect yourself, or KATE.
"Griffith put the note in his pocket, and tried to think. But he could not think to much purpose. Then this made him suspect he was drunk. Then he tried to be sober; but he found he could not. He sat in a sort of stupid agony, with Love and Drink battling for his brain. It was piteous to see the poor fool's struggles to regain the reason he had so madly parted with. He could not do it; and, when he found that, he took up a finger-glass and gravely poured the contents upon his head.
At this there was a burst of laughter.
This irritated Mr. Gaunt, and, with that rapid change of sentiments which marks the sober savage and, the drunken European, he offered to fight a gentleman he had been hitherto holding up to the company as his best friend. But his best friend (a very distant acquaintance) was by this time as tipsy as himself, and offered a piteous disclaimer, mingled with tears; and these maudlin drops so affected Griffith that he flung his one available arm round his best friend's head, and wept in turn; and down went both their lachrymose, empty noddles on the table. Griffith's remained there; but his best friend extricated himself, and, shaking his skull, said, dolefully, "He is very drunk." This notable discovery, coming from such a quarter, caused considerable merriment.
Let him alone, said an old toper; and Griffith remained a good hour with his head on the table. Meantime the other gentlemen soon put it out of their power to ridicule him on the score of intoxication.
Griffith, keeping quiet, got a little better, and suddenly started up with a notion he was to go to Kate this very moment. He muttered an excuse, and staggered to a glass door that led to the lawn; he opened this door, and rushed out into the open air. He thought it would set him all right: but, instead of that, it made him so much worse that presently his legs came to a misunderstanding, and he measured his length on the ground, and could not get up again, but kept slipping down.
Upon this he groaned and lay quiet.
Now there was a foot of snow on the ground, and it melted about Griffith's hot temples and flashed face, and mightily refreshed and revived him.
He sat up and kissed Kate's letter, and Love began to get the upper hand of Liquor a little.
Finally he got up, and half strutted, half staggered to the turret, and stood under Kate's window.
The turret was covered with luxuriant ivy, and that ivy with snow. So the glass of the window was set in a massive frame of winter; but a bright fire burned inside the room, and this set the panes all aflame. It was cheery and glorious to see the window glow like a sheet of transparent fire in its deep frame of snow; but Griffith could not appreciate all that. He stood there a sorrowful man. The wine he had taken to drown his despair had lost its stimulating effect, and had given him a heavy head, but left him his sick heart.
He stood and puzzled his drowsy faculties why Kate had sent for him. Was it to bid him good-bye for ever; or to lessen his misery by telling him she would not marry another? He soon gave up cudgeling his enfeebled brains; Kate was a superior being to him, and often said things, and did things, that surprised him. She had sent for him, and that was enough; he should see her, and speak to her once more, at all events. He stood, alternately nodding and looking up at her glowing room, and longing for its owner to appear. But, as Bacchus had inspired him to mistake eight o'clock for nine, and as she was not a votary of Bacchus, she did not appear; and he stood there till he began to shiver.
The shadow of a female passed along the wall, and Griffith gave a great start. Then he heard the fire poked. Soon after he saw the shadow again; but it had a large servant's cap on; so his heart had beaten high for Mary or Susan. He hung his head disappointed; and, holding on by the ivy, fell a nodding again.
By-and-by one of the little casements was opened softly. He looked up, and there was the right face peering out.
Oh, what a picture she was in the moonlight and the firelight! They both fought for that fair head, and each got a share of it: the full moon's silvery beams shone on her rose-like cheeks and lilyfield them a shade, and lit her great grey eyes and made them gleam astoundingly; but the ruby firelight rushed at her from behind, and flowed over her golden hair, and reddened and glorified it till it seemed more than mortal. And all this in a very picture-frame of snow.
Imagine, then, how sweet and glorious she glowed on him who loved her, and who looked at her perhaps for the last time.
The sight did wonders to clear his head; he stood open-mouthed, with his heart beating. She looked him all over a moment. "Ah!" said she. Then, quietly, "I am so glad you are come." Then, kindly and regretfully, "How pale you look! you are unhappy."
This greeting, so gentle and land, overpowered Griffith. His heart was too full to speak.
Kate waited a moment; and then, as he did not reply to her, she began to plead to him. "I hope you are not angry with me" she said. "I did not want him to leave me your estates. I would not rob you of them for the world, if I had my way."
Angry with you! said Griffith. "I'm not such a villain. Mr. Charlton did the right thing, and—" He could say no more.
I do not think so, said Kate. "But don't you fret: all shall be settled to your satisfaction. I cannot quite love you, but I have a sincere affection for you; and so I ought. Cheer up, dear Griffith; don't you be down-hearted about what has happened to-day."
Griffith smiled. "I don't feel unhappy," he said; "I did feel as if my heart was broken. But then you seemed parted from me. Now we are together I feel as happy as ever. Mistress, don't you ever shut that window and leave me in the dark again. Let me stand and look at your sweet face all night, and I shall be the happiest man in Cumberland."
Ay, said Kate, blushing at his ardor; "happy for a single night; but when I go away you will be in the dumps again, and perhaps get tipsy; as if that could mend matters. Nay, I must set your happiness on stronger legs than that. Do you know I have got permission to undo this cruel will, and let you have Bolton Hall and Hernshaw again?"
Griffith looked pleased, but rather puzzled.
Kate went on, but not so glibly now. "However," said she, a little nervously, "there is one condition to it that will cost us both some pain. If you consent to accept those two estates from me, who don't value them one straw, why then—"
She hesitated.
Well, what? he gasped.
Why, then, my poor Griffith, we shall be bound in honor,—you and I,—not to meet for some months: perhaps for a whole year: in one word—do not hate me—not till you can bear to see me—another—man's—wife.
The murder being out, she hid her face in her hands directly, and in that attitude awaited his reply.
Griffith stood petrified a moment; and I don't think his intellects were even yet quite clear enough to take it all in at once. But at last he did comprehend it, and, when he did, he just uttered a loud cry of agony, and then turned his back on her without a word.
Man does not speak by words alone. A mute glance of reproach has ere now pierced the heart a tirade would have left untouched; and even an inarticulate cry may utter volumes.
Such an eloquent cry was that with which Griffith Gaunt turned his back upon the angelical face he adored, and the soft persuasive tongue. There was agony, there was shame, there was wrath, all in that one ejaculation.
It frightened Kate. She called him back. "Don't leave me so," she said. "I know I have affronted you; but I meant all for the best. Do not let us part in anger."
At this Griffith returned in violent agitation. "It is your fault for making me speak," he cried "I was going away without a word, as a man should, that is insulted by a woman. You heartless girl! What! you bid me sell you to that man for two dirty farms! Oh, well you know Bolton and Hernshaw were but the steps by which I hoped to climb to you: and now you tell me to part with you, and take those miserable acres instead of my darling. Ah! mistress, you have never loved: or you would hate yourself and despise yourself for what you have done. Love! if you had known what that word means, you couldn't look in my face and stab me to the heart like this. God forgive you! And sure I hope he will; for after all, it is not your fault that you were born without a heart. WHY, KATE, YOU ARE CRYING."
"Crying!" said Kate. "I could cry my eyes out to think what I have done; but it is not my fault: they egged me on. I knew you would fling those two miserable things in my face if I did, and I said so; but they would be wiser than me, and insist on my putting you to the proof."
They? Who is they?
No matter. Whoever it was they will gain nothing by it, and you will lose nothing. Ah, Griffith, I am so ashamed of myself—and so proud of you.
They? repeated Griffith, suspiciously. "Who is this they?"
What does that matter, so long as it was not Me? Are you going to be jealous again? Let us talk of you and me, and never mind who them is. You have rejected my proposal with just scorn; so now let me hear yours; for we must agree on something this very night. Tell me, now, what can I say or do to make you happy?
Griffith was sore puzzled. "Alas! sweet Kate," said he, "I don't know what you can do for me now, except stay single for my sake."
I should like nothing better, replied Kate, warmly; "but unfortunately they won't let me do that. Father Francis will be at me to-morrow, and insist on my marrying Mr. Neville."
But you will refuse.
I would, if I could but find a good excuse.
Excuse? why, say you don't love him.
Oh, they won't allow that for a reason.
Then I am undone, sighed Griffith.
No, no, you are not; if I could be brought to pretend I love somebody else. And really, if I don't quite love you, I like you too well to let you be unhappy. Besides, I cannot bear to rob you of these unlucky farms: I think there is nothing I would not do rather than that. I think—I would rather—do—something very silly indeed. But I suppose you don't want me to do that now? Why don't you answer me? Why don't you say something? Are you drunk, sir, as they pretend? or are you asleep? Oh, I can't speak any plainer: this is intolerable. Mr. Gaunt, I'm going to shut the window.
Griffith got alarmed, and it sharpened his wits. "Kate, Kate!" he cried, "what do you mean? am I in a dream? would you marry poor me after all?"
How on earth can I tell, till I am asked? inquired Kate, with an air of childlike innocence, and inspecting the stars attentively.
Kate, will you marry me? said Griffith, all in a flutter.
Of course I will—if you will let me, replied Kate, coolly, but rather tenderly, too.
Griffith burst into raptures; Kate listened to them with a complacent smile; then delivered herself after this fashion:—"You have very little to thank me for, dear Griffith. I don't exactly downright love you; but I could not rob you of those unlucky farms, and you refuse to take them back, any way but this; so what can I do? And then, for all I don't love you, I find I am always unhappy if you are unhappy, and happy when you are happy; so it comes pretty much to the same thing. I declare I am sick of giving you pain, and a little sick of crying in consequence. There, I have cried more in the last fortnight than in all my life before, and you know nothing spoils one's beauty like crying: and then you are so good, and kind, and true, and brave; and everybody is so unjust, and so unkind to you; papa and all. You were quite in the right about the duel, dear; he is an impudent puppy; and I threw dust in your eyes, and made you own you were in the wrong; and it was a great shame of me; but it was because I liked you best. I could take liberties with you, dear. And you are wounded for me; and now I have disinherited you; oh, I can't bear it, and I won't. My heart yearns for you; bleeds for you. I would rather die than you should be unhappy; I would rather follow you in rags round the world than marry a prince and make you wretched. Yes, dear, I am yours. Make me your wife; and then some day I daresay I shall love you as I ought."
She had never showed her heart to him like this before; and now it overpowered him. So, being also a little under vinous influence, he stammered out something, and then fairly blubbered with joy. Then what does Kate do, but cry for company.
Presently, to her surprise, he was half way up the turret, coming to her.
Oh, take care! take care! she cried. "You'll break your neck."
Nay, cried he, "I must come at you, if I die for it."
The turret was ornamented from top to bottom with short ledges consisting of half bricks. This ledge, shallow as it was, gave a slight foothold, insufficient in itself, but he grasped the strong branches of the ivy with a powerful hand; and so between the two contrived to get up and hang himself out close to her.
Sweet mistress, said he, "put out your hand to me; for I can't take it against your will this time; I have got but one arm."
But this she declined. "No, no," said she; "you do nothing but torment and terrify me,—there." And so, gave it him; and he mumbled it.
This last feat won her quite. She thought no other man could have got to her there, with two arms, and Griffith had done it with one. She said to herself, "How he loves me! more than his own neck." And then she thought. "I shall be wife to a strong man; that is one comfort."
In this softened mood she asked him demurely, would he take a friend's advice.
"If that friend is you, ay.' Then,"" said she, ""I'll do a downright brazen thing, now my hand is in. I declare I'll tell you how to secure me. You make me plight my troth with you this minute, and exchange rings with you, whether I like or not; engage my honor in this foolish business, and, if you do that, I really do think you will have me in spite of them all. But there—la!—am I worth all this trouble?""
"Griffith did not share this chilling doubt. He poured forth his gratitude, and then told her he had got his mother's ring on his finger; "I meant to ask you to wear it," said he.
And why didn't you?
Because you became an heiress all of a sudden.
Well, what signifies which of us has the dross, so that there is enough for both?
That is true, said Griffith, approving his own sentiment, but not recognizing his own words. "Here's my mother's ring, on my little finger, sweet mistress. But I must ask you to draw it off, for I have but one hand."
Kate made a wry face. "Well, that is my fault," said she, "or I would not take it from you so."
She drew off his ring, and put it on her finger. Then she gave him her largest ring, and had to put it on his little finger for him.
You are making a very forward girl of me, said she, pouting exquisitely.
He kissed her hand while she was doing it.
Don't you be so silly, said she; "and, you horrid creature, how you smell of wine! The bullet, please."
The bullet! exclaimed Griffith. "What bullet?"
The bullet. The one you were wounded with for my sake. I am told you put it in your pocket; and I see something bulge in your waistcoat; that bullet belongs to me now.
I think you are a witch, said he. "I do carry it about next my heart. Take it out of my waistcoat, if you will be so good."
She blushed, and declined, and with the refusal on her very lips, fished it out with her taper fingers. She eyed it with a sort of tender horror. The sight of it made her feel faint a moment. She told him so: and that she would keep it to her dying day. Presently her delicate finger found something was written on it; she did not ask him what it was, but withdrew, and examined it by her candle. Griffith had engraved it with these words:
I LOVE KATE.
He looked through the window, and saw her examine it by the candle. As she read the inscription, her face, glorified by the light, assumed a celestial tenderness he had never seen it wear before.
She came back and leaned eloquently out as if she would fly to him.
Ah, Griffith! Griffith! she murmured; and, somehow or other, their lips met in spite of all the difficulties, and grew together in a long and tender embrace.
It was the first time she had ever given him more than her hand to kiss; and the rapture repaid him for all.
But, as soon as she had made this great advance, virginal instinct suggested a proportionate retreat.
You must go to bed, she said, austerely; "you will catch your death of cold out here."
He remonstrated: she insisted. He held out: she smiled sweetly in his face, and shut the window in it pretty sharply, and disappeared. He went disconsolately down his ivy ladder. As soon as he was at the bottom, she opened the window again, and asked him, demurely, if he would do something to oblige her.
He replied like a lover; he was ready to be cut in pieces, drawn asunder with wild horses, and so on.
Oh, I know you would do anything stupid for me, said she; "but will you do something clever for a poor girl that is in a fright at what she is going to do for you?"
Give your orders, mistress, said Griffith; "and don't talk of me obliging you. I feel quite ashamed to hear you talk so: to-night especially."
Well, then, said Kate, "first and foremost, I want you to throw yourself on Father Francis's neck."
I'll throw myself on Father Francis's neck, said Griffith, stoutly. "Is that all?"
No; nor half. Once upon his neck you must say something. There—I had better settle the very words, or perhaps you will make a mess of it. Say after me now: Oh, Father Francis, 'tis to you I owe her.
Oh, Father Francis, 'tis to you I owe her.
You and I are friends for life.
You and I are friends for life.
And mind, there is always a bed in our home for you, and a plate at our table, and a right welcome, come when you will.
Griffith repeated this last correctly; but, when requested to say the whole, broke down. Kate had to repeat the oration a dozen times; and he said it after her, like a Sunday-school scholar, till he had it pat.
The task achieved, he inquired of her what Father Francis was to say in reply.
At this question Kate showed considerable alarm.
Gracious Heavens! she cried; "you must not stop talking to him; he will turn you inside out, and I shall be undone. Nay, you must gabble those words out, and then run away as hard as you can gallop."
But is it true? asked Griffith: "is he so much my friend?"
Hum! said Kate; "it is quite true; and he is not at all your friend. There, don't you puzzle yourself, and pester me; but do as you are bid, or we are both undone."
Quelled by a menace so mysterious, Griffith promised blind obedience; and Kate thanked him and bade him good-night; and ordered him peremptorily to bed.
He went.
She beckoned him back.
He came.
She leaned out, and inquired, in a soft delicious whisper, as follows: "Are you happy, dearest?"
Ay, Kate, the happiest of the happy.
Then so am I, she murmured.
And now she slowly closed the window, and gradually retired from the eyes of her enraptured lover.
But while Griffith was thus sweetly employed, his neglected guests were dispersing, not without satirical comments on their truant host. Two or three, however, remained, and slept in the house, upon special invitation. And that invitation came from Squire Peyton. He chose to conclude that Griffith, disappointed by the will, had vacated the premises in disgust, and had left him in charge of them: accordingly he assumed the master with alacrity, and ordered beds for Neville, and Father Francis, and Major Rickards, and another. The weather was inclement, and the roads heavy; so the gentlemen thus distinguished accepted Mr. Peyton's offer cordially.
There were a great many things sung and said at the festive board in the course of the evening; but very few of them would amuse or interest the reader, as they did the hearers. One thing, however, must not be passed by, as it had its consequences: Major Rickards drank bumpers apiece to the King, the Prince, Church and State, the Army, the Navy, and Kate Peyton. By the time he got to her, two-thirds of his discretion had oozed away in loyalty, esprit du corps, and port wine; so he sang the young lady's praises in vinous terms, and of course immortalized the very exploit she most desired to consign to oblivion: Arma viraginemque canebat. He sang the duel: and in a style which I could not, consistently with the interests of literature, reproduce on a larger scale. Hasten we to the concluding versicles of his song.
So then, sir, we placed our men for the third time, and you may take my word for it, one or both of these heroes would have bit the dust at that discharge; but, by Jove, sir, just as they were going to pull trigger, in galloped your adorable daughter, and swooned off her foaming horse in the middle of us. Disarmed us, sir, in a moment, melted our valor, bewitched our senses; and the great God of War had to retreat before little Cupid, and the charms of beauty in distress.
Little idiot! observed the tender parent; and was much distempered.
He said no more about it to Major Rickards; but, when they all retired for the night, he undertook to show Father Francis his room, and sat in it with him a good half-hour talking about Kate.
Here's a pretty scandal! said he: "I must marry the silly girl out of hand, before this gets wind; and you must help me."
In a word, the result of the conference was, that Kate should be publicly engaged to Neville to-morrow and married to him as soon as her month's mourning should be over.
The conduct of the affair was confided to Father Francis, as having unbounded influence with her.
Next morning Mr. Peyton was up betimes in his character of Host, and ordered the servants about, and was in high spirits; only they gave place to amazement when Griffith Gaunt came down, and played the Host; and was in high spirits.
Neville too watched his rival, and was puzzled at his radiancy.
So breakfast passed in general mystification. Kate, who could have thrown a light, did not come down to breakfast. She was on her defense.
She made her first appearance out of doors.
Very early in the morning, Mr. Peyton, in his quality of master, had ordered the gardener to cut and sweep the snow off the gravel walk that went round the lawn. And on this path Miss Peyton was seen walking briskly to and fro in the frosty, but sunny air.
Griffith saw her first, and ran out to bid her good-morning.
Her reception of him was a farce: she made him a stately curtsy for the benefit of the three faces glued against the panes; but her words were incongruous. "You wretch," said she, "don't come here: hide about, dearest, till you see me with Father Francis. I'll raise my hand so, when you are to cuddle him; and fib. There, make me a low bow, and retire."
He obeyed, and the whole thing looked mighty formal and ceremonious from the breakfast-room.
With your good leave, gentlemen, said Father Francis, drily, "I will be the next to pay my respects to her." With this he opened the window and stepped out.
Kate saw him, and felt very nervous: she met him with apparent delight.
He bestowed his morning benediction on her and then they walked silently side by side on the gravel; and from the dining-room window it looked like anything but what it was—a fencing match.
Father Francis was the first to break silence. He congratulated her on her good fortune, and on the advantage it might prove to the true Church.
Kate waited quietly till he had quite done, and then said, "What, I may go into a convent now that I can bribe the door open?"
The scratch was feline, feminine, sudden, and sharp. But alas, Father Francis only smiled at it: though not what we call spiritually-minded, he was a man of a Christian temper. "Not with my good will, my daughter," said he; "I am of the same mind still, and more than ever. You must marry forthwith, and rear children in the true faith."
What a hurry you are in.
Your own conduct has made it necessary.
Why, what have I done now?
No harm; it was a good and humane action, to prevent bloodshed; but the world is not always worthy of good actions. People are beginning to make free with your name, for your interfering in the duel.
Kate fired up. "Why can't people mind their own business?"
I do not exactly know, said the priest, coolly; "nor is it worth inquiring: we must take human nature as it is, and do for the best. You must marry him, and stop their tongues."
Kate pretended to reflect. "I believe you are right," said she, at last; "and indeed I must do as you would have me; for, to tell the truth—in an unguarded moment—I pitied him so—that I half promised I would."
Indeed! said Father Francis. "This is the first I have heard of it."
Kate replied that was no wonder; for it was only last night she had so committed herself.
Last night! said Father Francis; "how can that he? He was never out of my sight till we went to bed."
Oh, there I beg to differ, said the lady. "While you were all tippling in the dining-room, he was better employed; making love by moonlight. And, oh what a terrible thing opportunity is; and the moon another. There! what with the moonlight—and my pitying him so—and all he has suffered for me—and my being rich now, and having something to give him—we two are engaged. See, else: this was his mother's ring; and he has mine."
Mr. Neville?
Mr. Neville? No. My old servant, to be sure. What, do you think I would go and marry for wealth, when I have enough and to spare of my own? Oh! what an opinion you must have of me.
Father Francis was staggered by this adroit thrust. However, after a considerable silence, he recovered himself, and inquired, gravely, why she had given him no hint of all this the other night, when he had diverted her from a convent and advised her to marry Neville.
That you never did, I'll be sworn, said Kate.
Father Francis reflected. "Not in so many words, perhaps; but I said enough to show you."
Oh! said Kate, "such a matter was too serious for hints and innuendoes: if you wanted me to jilt my old servant and wed an acquaintance of yesterday, why not say so plainly? I dare say I should have obeyed you, and been unhappy for life; but now my honor is solemnly engaged; my faith is plighted; and were even you to urge me to break faith, and behave dishonorably, I should resist. I would never take poison, and die."
Father Francis looked at her steadily, and she colored to the brow.
You are a very apt young lady, said he; "you have outwitted your director. That may be my fault as much as yours; so I advise you to provide yourself with another director, whom you will be unable, or unwilling, to outwit."
Kate's high spirit fell before this: she turned her eyes, full of tears, on him.
Oh, do not desert me, now that I shall need you more than ever to guide me in my new duties. Forgive me; I did not know my own heart—quite. I'll go into a convent now, if I must; but I can't marry any man but poor Griffith. Ah, father, he is more generous than any of us. Would you believe it? when he thought Bolton and Hernshaw were coming to him, he said if I married him I should have the money to build a convent with. He knows how fond I am of a convent.
He was jesting: his religion would not allow it.
His religion! cried Kate. Then, lifting her eyes to Heaven, and looking just like an angel, "Love is his religion!" said she, warmly.
Then his religion is Heathenism, said the priest, grimly.
Nay, there is too much charity in it for that, retorted Kate, keenly.
Then she looked down like a cunning, guilty thing, and murmured, "One of the things I esteem him for is he always speaks well of you. To be sure just now the poor soul thinks you are his best friend with me. But that is my fault: I as good as told him so: and it is true, after a fashion; for you kept me out of the convent that was his only real rival. Why, here he comes. Oh, father, now don't you go and tell him you side with Mr. Neville."
At this crisis Griffith, who, to tell the truth, had received a signal from Kate, rushed at Father Francis, and fell upon his neck, and said with great rapidity, "Oh, Father Francis, 'tis to you I owe her—you and I are friends for life. So long as we have a house there is a bed in it for you, and whilst we have a table to sit down to, there's a plate at it for you, and a welcome come when you will."
Having gabbled these words he winked at Kate, and fled swiftly.
Father Francis was taken aback a little by this sudden burst of affection.
First he stared—then he knitted his brows—then he pondered.
Kate stole a look at him, and her eyes sought the ground.
That is the gentleman you arranged matters with last night? said he, drily.
Yes, replied Kate, faintly.
Was this scene part of the business?
Oh father!
Why I ask, he did it so unnatural. Mr. Gaunt is a worthy, hospitable gentleman; he and I are very good friends; and really I never doubted that I should be welcome in his house—until this moment.
And can you doubt it now?
Almost: his manner just now was so hollow, so forced: not a word of all that came from his heart, you know.
Then his heart is changed very lately.
The priest shook his head. "Anything more like a puppet, and a parrot to boot, I never saw. 'Twas done so timely too; he ran in upon our discourse. Let me see your hand, mistress. Why, where is the string with which you pulled yonder machine in so pat upon the word?"
Spare me! muttered Kate, faintly.
Then do you drop deceit and the silly cunning of your sex, and speak to me from your heart, or not at all. (Diapason.)
At this Kate began to whimper. "Father," she said, "show me some mercy." Then, suddenly clasping her hands: "HAVE PITY ON HIM, AND ON ME."
This time Nature herself seemed to speak, and the eloquent cry went clean through the priest's heart. "Ah!" said he; and his own voice trembled a little: "now you are as strong as your cunning was weak. Come; I see how it is with you; and I am human, and have been young, and a lover into the bargain, before I was a priest. There, dry thy eyes, child, and go to thy room: he thou couldst not trust shall bear the brunt for thee; this once."
Then Kate bowed her fair head and kissed the horrid paw of him that had administered so severe but salutary a pat. She hurried away upstairs, right joyful at the unexpected turn things had taken.
Father Francis, thus converted to her side, lost no time: he walked into the dining-room and told Neville he had bad news for him. "Summon all your courage, my young friend," he said, with feeling; "and remember that this world is full of disappointments."
Neville said nothing; but rose and stood rather pale, waiting like a man for the blow. Its nature he more than half guessed: he had been at the window.
It fell.
She is engaged to Gaunt, since last night: and she loves him.
The double-faced jade! cried Peyton, with an oath. "The heartless coquette!" groaned Neville.
Father Francis made excuses for her:—"Nay, nay, she is not the first of her sex that did not know her own mind all at once. Besides, we men are blind in matters of love: perhaps a woman would have read her from the first. After all she was not bound to give us the eyes to read a female heart."
He next reminded Neville that Gaunt had been her servant for years. "You knew that," said he, "yet you came between them—at your peril. Put yourself in his place: say you had succeeded would not his wrong be greater than yours is now? Come, be brave; be generous; he is wounded, he is disinherited; only his love is left him: 'tis the poor man's lamb; and would you take it?"
Oh, I have not a word to say against the man, said George, with a mighty effort.
And what use quarreling with a woman? suggested the practical priest.
None whatever, said George, sullenly. After a moment's silence he rang the bell feverishly. "Order my horse round directly," said he: then he sat down, and buried his face in his hands, and did not, and could not, listen to the voice of consolation.
Now the house was full of spies in petticoats, amateur spies, that ran and told the mistress everything of their own accord, to curry favor.
And this no doubt was the cause that, just as the groom walked the piebald out of the stable towards the hall door, a maid came to Father Francis with a little note: he opened it, and found these words written faintly, in a fine Italian hand:—
I scarce knew my own heart till I saw him wounded and poor, and myself rich at his expense. Entreat Mr. Neville to forgive me.
He handed the note to Neville without a word.
Neville read it, and his lip trembled; but he said nothing, and presently went out into the hall, and put on his hat, for he saw his nag at the door.
Father Francis followed him, and said, sorrowfully, "What, not one word in reply to so humble a request?"
Well, here's my reply, said George, grinding his teeth. "She knows French, though she pretends not.
"'Le bruit est pour le fat, la plainte est pour le sot, L'honnête homme trompé s'éloigne et ne dit mot.'
"And with this he galloped furiously away.
He buried himself at Neville's Cross for several days, and would neither see nor speak to a soul. His heart was sick, his pride lacerated. He even shed some scalding tears in secret; though to look at him that seemed impossible.
So passed a bitter week: and in the course of it he bethought him of the tears he had made a true Italian lady shed; and never pitied her a grain till now.
He was going abroad: on his desk lay a little crumpled paper. It was Kate's entreaty for forgiveness. He had ground it in his hand, and ridden away with it.
Now he was going away, he resolved to answer her.
He wrote a letter full of bitter reproaches; read it over; and tore it up.
He wrote a satirical and cutting letter: read it; and tore it up.
He wrote her a mawkish letter; read it; and tore it up.
The priest's words, scorned at first, had sunk into him a little.
He walked about the room, and tried to see it all like a bystander.
He examined her writing closely: the pen had scarcely marked the paper. They were the timidest strokes. The writer seemed to kneel to him. He summoned all his manhood, his fortitude, his generosity, and, above all, his high-breeding; and produced the following letter; and this one he sent:
"MISTRESS KATE,—I leave England to-day for your sake; and shall never return unless the day shall come when I can look on you but as a friend. The love that ends in hate, that is too sorry a thing to come betwixt you and me. If you have used me ill, your punishment is this; you have given me the right to say to you—I forgive you.
"GEORGE NEVILLE.
And he went straight to Italy.
Kate laid his note upon her knee, and sighed deeply; and said, "Poor fellow! How noble of him! What can such men as this see in any woman to go and fall in love with her?"
Griffith found her with a tear in her eye. He took her out walking, and laid all his radiant plans of wedded life before her. She came back flushed, and beaming with complacency and beauty.
Old Peyton was brought to consent to the marriage. Only he attached one condition, that Bolton and Hernshaw should be settled on Kate for her separate use.
To this Griffith assented readily; but Kate refused plump. "What, give him myself, and then grudge him my estates!" said she, with a look of lofty and beautiful scorn at her male advisers.
But Father Francis, having regard to the temporal interests of his Church, exerted his strength and pertinacity, and tired her out; so those estates were put into trustees' hands, and tied up as tight as wax.
This done, Griffith Gaunt and Kate Peyton were married, and made the finest pair that wedded in the county that year.
As the bells burst into a merry peal, and they walked out of church man and wife, their path across the churchyard was strewed thick with flowers, emblematic no doubt of the path of life, that lay before so handsome a couple.
They spent the honeymoon in London, and tasted earthly felicity.
Yet did not quarrel after it; but subsided into the quiet complacency of wedded life.
该作者其它作品
《The Cloister and the Hearth回廊与壁炉》
Mr. and Mrs. Gaunt lived happily together—as times went.
A fine girl and boy were born to them; and need I say how their hearts expanded and exulted; and seemed to grow twice as large.
The little boy was taken from them at three years old: and how can I convey to any but a parent the anguish of that first bereavement?
Well they suffered it together, and that poignant grief was one tie more between them.
For many years they did not furnish any exciting or even interesting matter to this narrator. And all the better for them: without these happy periods of dulness our lives would be hell, and our hearts eternally bubbling and boiling in a huge pot made hot with thorns.
In the absence of striking incidents, it may be well to notice the progress of character, and note the tiny seeds of events to come.
Neither the intellectual nor the moral character of any person stands stock-still: a man improves, or he declines. Mrs. Gaunt had a great taste for reading; Mr. Gaunt had not: what was the consequence? at the end of seven years the lady's understanding had made great strides; the gentleman's had, apparently, retrograded.
Now we all need a little excitement, and we all seek it, and get it by hook or by crook. The girl, who satisfies that natural craving with what the canting dunces of the day call a "sensational" novel, and the girl, who does it by waltzing till daybreak, are sisters; only one obtains the result intellectually, and the other obtains it like a young animal, and a pain in her empty head next day.
Mrs. Gaunt could enjoy company, but was never dull with a good book. Mr. Gaunt was a pleasant companion, but dull out of company. So, rather than not have it, he would go to the parlor of the "Red Lion," and chat and sing with the yeomen and rollicking young squires that resorted thither: and this was matter of grief and astonishment to Mrs. Gaunt.
It was balanced by good qualities she knew how to appreciate. Morals were much looser then than now; and more than one wife of her acquaintance had a rival in the village, or even among her own domestics; but Griffith had no loose inclinations of that kind, and never gave her a moment's uneasiness. He was constancy and fidelity in person.
Sobriety had not yet been invented. But Griffith was not so intemperate as most squires; he could always mount the stairs to tea, and generally without staggering.
He was uxorious, and it used to come out after his wine. This Mrs. Gaunt permitted at first, but by-and-by says she, expanding her delicate nostrils, "You may be as affectionate as you please dear, and you may smell of wine, if you will; but please not to smell of wine and be affectionate at the same moment. I value your affection too highly to let you disgust me with it."
And the model husband yielded to this severe restriction, and, as it never occurred to him to give up his wine, he forebode to be affectionate in his cups.
One great fear Mrs. Gaunt had entertained before marriage, ceased to haunt her. Now and then her quick eye saw Griffith writhe at the great influence her director had with her; but he never spoke out to offend her, and she, like a good wife, saw, smiled, and adroitly, tenderly soothed: and this was nothing compared to what she had feared.
Griffith saw his wife admired by other men, yet never chid nor chafed. The merit of this belonged in a high degree to herself. The fact is, that Kate Peyton, even before marriage, was not a coquette at heart, though her conduct might easily bear that construction: and she was now an experienced matron, and knew how to be as charming as ever, yet check or parry all approaches of gallantry on the part of her admirers. Then Griffith observed how delicate and prudent his lovely wife was, without ostentatious prudery; and his heart was at peace.
He was the happier of the two, for he looked up to his wife, as well as loved her, whereas she was troubled at times with a sense of superiority to her husband. She was amiable enough, and wise enough, to try and shut her eyes to it; and often succeeded; but not always.
Upon the whole, they were a contented couple; though the lady's dreamy eyes seemed still to be exploring earth and sky in search of something they had not yet found, even in wedded life.
They lived at Hernshaw. A letter had been found among Mr. Charlton't papers explaining his will. He counted on their marrying, and begged them to live at the castle. He had left it on his wife's death; it reminded him too keenly of happier days; but, as he drew near his end, and must leave all earthly things, he remembered the old house with tenderness, and put out his dying hand to save it from falling into decay.
Unfortunately considerable repairs were needed, and, as Kate's property was tied up so tight, Griffith's two thousand pounds went in repairing the house, lawn, park railings, and walled gardens; went, every penny, and left the bridge over the lake still in a battered, rotten, and, in a word, picturesque condition.
This lake was, by the older inhabitants, sometimes called the "mere," and sometimes the "fish-pools;" it resembled an hour-glass in shape, only curved like a crescent.
In medieval times it had no doubt been a main defense of the place. It was very deep in parts, especially at the waist or narrow that was spanned by the decayed bridge. There were hundreds of carp and tench in it older than any be in Cumberland, and also enormous pike and eels; and fish from one to five pounds' weight by the million. The water literally teemed from end to end; and this was a great comfort to so good a Catholic as Mrs. Gaunt. When she was seized with a desire to fast, and that was pretty often, the gardener just, went down to the lake and flung a casting-net in some favorite hole, and drew out half a bushel the first cast; or planted a flue-net round a patch of weeds, then belabored the weeds with a long pole, and a score of fine fish were sure to run out into the meshes.
The "mere" was clear as plate glass, and came to the edge of the shaven lawn, and reflected flowers, turf, and overhanging shrubs, deliciously.
Yet an ill name brooded over its seductive waters. For two persons had been drowned in it during the last hundred years: and the last one was the parson of the parish, returning from the Squire's dinner in the normal condition of a guest, at that epoch. But what most affected the popular mind, was, not the jovial soul hurried into eternity, but the material circumstance that the greedy pike had cleared the flesh off his bones in a single night; so that little more than a skeleton, with here and there a black rag hanging to it, had been recovered next morning.
This ghastly detail being stoutly maintained and constantly repeated by two ancient eye-witnesses, whose one melodramatic incident and treasure it was, the rustic mind saw no beauty whatever in those pellucid waters, where flowers did glass themselves.
As for the women of the village, they looked on this sheet of water as a trap for their poor bodies, and those of their children, and spoke of it as a singular hardship in their lot, that Hernshaw mere had not been filled up threescore years agone.
The castle itself was no castle, nor had it been for centuries: it was just a house with battlements; but attached to the stable was an old square tower that really had formed part of the medieval castle.
However, that unsubstantial shadow, a name, is often more durable than the thing; especially in rural parts: but, indeed, what is there in a name for Time's teeth to catch hold of?
Though no castle, it was a delightful abode. The drawing-room and dining-room had both spacious bay windows, opening on to the lawn that sloped very gradually down to the clear lake, and there was mirrored. On this sweet lawn the inmates and guests walked for sun and mellow air, and often played bowls at eventide.
On the other side was the drive up to the house door, and a sweep, or small oval plot, of turf, surrounded by gravel; and a gate at the corner of this sweep opened into a grove of the grandest old spruce firs in the island.
This grove, dismal in winter, and awful at night, was deliciously cool and sombre in the dog days. The trees were spires, and their great stems stood serried like infantry in column, and flung a mighty canopy of sombre plumes over head. A strange, antique, and classic grove—nulli penetrabilis astro.
This retreat was enclosed on three sides by a wall, and on the east side came nearly to the house; a few laurel bushes separated the two. At night it was shunned religiously, on account of the ghosts. Even by daylight it was little frequented, except by one person: and she took to it amazingly. That person was Mrs. Gaunt. There seems to be, even in educated women, a singular, instinctive love of twilight; and here was twilight at high noon. The place, too, suited her dreamy meditative nature. Hither, then, she often retired for peace and religious contemplation, and moved slowly in and out among the tall stems, or sat still, with her thoughtful brow leaned on her white hand: till the cool, umbrageous retreat got to be called among the servants, "The Dame's Haunt."
This, I think, is all needs to be told about the mere place, where the Gaunts lived comfortably many years; and little dreamed of the strange events in store for them; little knew the passions that slumbered in their own bosoms, and, like other volcanoes, bided their time.
One day, at dinner, Father Francis let them know that he was ordered to another part of the county, and should no longer be able to enjoy their hospitality. "I am sorry for it," said Griffith, heartily; and Mrs. Gaunt echoed him out of politeness; but, when husband and wife came to talk it over in private, she let out all of a sudden, and for the first time, that the spiritual coldness of her governor had been a great misfortune to her all these years. "His mind," said she, "is set on earthly things. Instead of helping the angels to raise my thoughts to heaven, and heavenly things, he drags me down to earth. Oh, that man's soul was born without wings."
Griffith ventured to suggest that Francis was, nevertheless, an honest man, and no mischief-maker.
Mrs. Gaunt soon disposed of this. "Oh, there are plenty of honest men in the world," said she; "but in one's spiritual director, one needs something more than that, and I have pined for it like a thirsty soul in the desert all these years. Poor good man, I love him dearly; but, thank heaven, he is going."
The next time Francis came, Mrs. Gaunt took an opportunity to inquire, but in the most delicate way, who was to be his successor.
Well, said he, "I fear you will have no one for the present: I mean no one very fit to direct you in practical matters; but in all that tends directly to the welfare of the soul you will have one young in years but old in good works, and very much my superior in piety."
I think you do yourself injustice, father, said Mrs. Gaunt, sweetly. She was always polite; and, to be always polite, you must be sometimes insincere.
No, my daughter, said Father Francis, quietly, "thank God, I know my own defects, and they teach me a little humility. I discharge my religious duties punctually, and find them wholesome and composing; but I lack that holy unction, that spiritual imagination, by which more favoured Christians have fitted themselves to converse with angels. I have too much body, I suppose, and too little soul. I own to you that I cannot look, forward to the hour of death as a happy release from the burden of the flesh. Life is pleasant to me; immortality tempts me not; the pure in heart delight me; but in the sentimental part of religion I feel myself dry and barren. I fear God, and desire to do His will; but I cannot love Him as the saints have done; my spirit is too dull, too gross. I have often been unable to keep pace with you in your pious and lofty aspirations: and this softens my regret at quitting you; for you will be in better hands, my daughter."
Mrs. Gaunt was touched by her old friend's humility, and gave him both hands, with the tears in her eyes. But she said nothing; the subject was delicate; and really she could not honestly contradict him.
A day or two afterwards he brought his successor to the house; a man so remarkable that Mrs. Gaunt almost started at first sight of him. Born of an Italian mother, his skin was dark, and his eyes coal black; yet his ample but symmetrical forehead was singularly white and delicate. Very tall and spare, and both face and figure were of that exalted kind which make ordinary beauty seem dross. In short, he was one of those ethereal priests the Roman Catholic Church produces every now and then by way of incredible contrast to the thickset peasants in black that form her staple. This Brother Leonard looked and moved like a being who had come down from some higher sphere to pay the world a very little visit, and be very kind and patient with it all the time.
He was presented to Mrs. Gaunt, and bowed calmly, coldly, and with a certain mixture of humility and superiority, and gave her but one tranquil glance, then turned his eyes inward as before.
Mrs. Gaunt, on the contrary, was almost fluttered at being presented so suddenly to one who seemed to her Religion embodied. She blushed, and looked timidly at him, and was anxious not to make an unfavourable impression.
She found it, however, very difficult to make any impression at all. Leonard had no small talk, and met her advances in that line with courteous monosyllables; and when she, upon this, turned and chatted with Father Francis, he did not wait for an opening to strike in, but sought a shelter from her commonplaces in his own thoughts.
Then Mrs. Gaunt yielded to her genuine impulse, and began to talk about the prospects of the Church, and what might be done to reconvert the British Isles to the true faith. Her cheek flushed, and her eye shone with the theme; and Francis smiled paternally: but the young priest drew back; Mrs. Gaunt saw in a moment that he disapproved of a woman meddling with so high a matter uninvited. If he had said so she had spirit enough to have resisted; but the cold, lofty look of polite but grave disapproval, dashed her courage and reduced her to silence.
She soon recovered so far as to be piqued. She gave her whole attention to Francis, and, on parting with her guests, she curtsied coldly to Leonard, and said to Francis, "Ah, my dear friend, I foresee I shall miss you terribly."
I am afraid this pretty speech was intended as a side cut at Leonard.
But on the impassive ice the lightnings play.
Her new confessor retired, and left her with a sense of inferiority, which would have been pleasing to her woman's nature, if Leonard himself had appeared less conscious of it, and had shown ever so little approval of herself; but, impressed upon her too sharply, it piqued and mortified her.
However, like a gallant champion, she awaited another encounter. She so rarely failed to please, she could not accept defeat.
Father Francis departed.
Mrs. Gaunt soon found that she really missed him. She had got into a habit of running to her confessor twice a week, and to her director nearly every day that he did not come of his own accord to her.
Her good sense showed her at once she must not take up Brother Leonard's time in this way. She went a long while, for her, without confession: at last she sent a line to Leonard asking him when it would be convenient to him to confess her. Leonard wrote back to say that he received penitents in the chapel for two hours after matins every Monday, Tuesday, and Saturday.
This implied first come, first served; and was rather galling to Mrs. Gaunt.
However, she rode one morning, with her groom behind her, and had to wait until an old woman in a red cloak and black bonnet was first disposed of. She confessed a heap. And presently the soft but chill tones of Brother Leonard broke in with these freezing words: "My daughter, excuse me; but confession is one thing, gossip about ourselves is another."
This distinction was fine, but fatal. The next minute the fair penitent was in her carriage, her eyes filled with tears of mortification.
The man is a spiritual machine, said she; and her pride was mortified to the core.
In these happy days she used to open her heart to her husband; and she went so far as to say some bitter little feminine things of her new confessor, before him.
He took no notice at first; but at last he said one day, "Well, I am of your mind; he is very poor company compared with that jovial old blade, Francis. But why so many words, Kate? You don't use to bite twice at a cherry: if the milksop is not to your taste, give him the sack and be hanged to him." And with this homely advice Squire Gaunt dismissed the matter and went to the stable to give his mare a ball.
So you see Mrs. Gaunt was discontented with Francis for not being an enthusiast, and nettled with Leonard for being one.
The very next Sunday morning she went and heard Leonard preach. His first sermon was an era in her life. After twenty years of pulpit prosers, there suddenly rose before her a sacred orator; an orator born; blest with that divine and thrilling eloquence that no heart can really resist. He prepared his great theme with art at first; but, once warm, it carried him away and his hearers went with him like so many straws on the flood. And in the exercise of this great gift the whole man seemed transfigured; abroad, he was a languid, rather slouching priest, who crept about, a picture of delicate humility, but with a shade of meanness; for, religious prejudice apart, it is ignoble to sweep the wall in passing as he did, and eye the ground; but, once in the pulpit, his figure rose and swelled majestically, and seemed to fly over them all like a guardian angel's; his sallow cheek burned, his great Italian eye shot black lightning at the impenitent, and melted ineffably when he soothed the sorrowful.
Observe that great, mean, brown bird in the Zoological Gardens, which sits so tame on its perch, and droops and slouches like a drowsy duck. That is the great and soaring eagle. Who would believe it, to look at him? Yet all he wants is to be put in his right place instead of his wrong. He is not himself in man's cages, belonging to God's sky. Even so Leonard was abroad in the world, but at home in the pulpit: and so he somewhat crept and slouched about the parish; but soared like an eagle in his native air.
Mrs. Gaunt sat thrilled, enraptured, melted. She hung upon his words; and, when they ceased, she still sat motionless, spell-bound; loath to believe that accents so divine could really come to an end.
Even, whilst all the rest were dispersing, she sat quite still, and closed her eyes. For her soul was too high-strung now to endure the chit-chat she knew would attack her on the road home—chit-chat that had been welcome enough, coming home from other preachers.
And by this means she came hot and undiluted to her husband; she laid her white hand on his shoulder, and said, "Oh, Griffith, I have heard the voice of God."
Griffith looked alarmed, and rather shocked than elated.
Mrs. Gaunt observed that, and tacked on, "Speaking by the lips of his servant." But she fired again the next moment, and said, "The grave hath given us back St. Paul in the Church's need; and I have heard him this day."
Good heavens! where?
At St. Mary's Chapel.
Then Griffith looked very incredulous. Then she gushed out with, "What, because it is a small chapel, you think a great saint cannot be in it. Why, our Saviour was born in a stable, if you go to that."
Well, but my dear, consider, said Griffith; "who ever heard of comparing a living man to St. Paul, for preaching? Why, he was an apostle, for one thing; and there are no apostles nowadays. He made Felix tremble on his throne, and almost persuaded Whatsename, another heathen gentleman, to be a Christian."
That is true, said the lady, thoughtfully; "but he sent one man that we know of to sleep. Catch Brother Leonard sending any man to sleep! And then nobody will ever say of him that he was long preaching."
Why, I do say it, replied Griffith. "By the same token, I have been waiting dinner for you this half-hour, along of his preaching."
Ah, that's because you did not hear him, retorted Mrs. Gaunt: "if you had, it would have seemed too short, and you would have forgotten all about your dinner for once."
Griffith made no reply, He even looked vexed at her enthusiastic admiration. She saw, and said no more. But after dinner she retired to the grove, and thought of the sermon and the preacher: thought of them all the more that she was discouraged from enlarging on them. And it would have been kinder, and also wiser, of Griffith, if he had encouraged her to let out her heart to him on this subject, although it did not happen to interest him. A husband should not chill an enthusiastic wife, and, above all, should never separate himself from her favourite topic, when she loves him well enough to try and share it with him.
Mrs. Gaunt, however, though her feelings were quick, was not cursed with a sickly or irritable sensibility; nor, on the other hand, was she one of those lovely little bores who cannot keep their tongues off their favourite theme. She quietly let the subject drop for a whole week; but the next Sunday morning she asked her husband if he would do her a little favour.
I'm more likely to say ay than nay, was the cheerful reply.
It is just to go to chapel with me; and then you can judge for yourself.
Griffith looked rather sheepish at this proposal; and said he could not very well do that.
Why not, dearest, just for once?
Well, you see, parties run so high in this parish; and everything one does is noted. Why, if I was to go to chapel, they'd say directly, 'Look at Griffith Gaunt: he is so tied to his wife's apron he is going to give up the faith of his ancestors.'
The faith of your ancestors! That is a good jest. The faith of your grandfather at the outside: the faith of your ancestors was the faith of mine and me.
Well, don't let us differ about a word, said Griffith; "you know what I mean. Did ever I ask you to go to church with me? and, if I were to ask you, would you go?"
Mrs. Gaunt coloured; but would not give in. "That is not the same thing," said she. "I do profess religion: you do not. You scarce think of God on week days; and, indeed, never mention his name except in the way of swearing; and on Sunday you go to church—for what? to doze before dinner, you know you do. Come now, with you 'tis no question of religion, but just of nap or no nap: for Brother Leonard won't let you sleep, I warn you fairly."
Griffith shook his head. "You are too hard on me, wife. I know I am not so good as you are, and never shall be; but that is not the fault of the Protestant faith, which hath reared so many holy men: and some of 'em our ancestors burnt alive, and will burn in hell themselves for the deed. But, look you, sweetheart, if I'm not a saint I'm a gentleman, and, say I wear my faith loose, I won't drag it in the dirt none the more for that. So you must excuse me."
Mrs. Gaunt was staggered; and, if Griffith had said no more, I think she would have withdrawn her request, and so the matter ended. But persons unversed in argument can seldom let well alone; and this simple squire must needs go on to say, "Besides, Kate, it would come to the parson's ears, and he is a friend of mine, you know. Why, I shall be sure to meet him to-morrow."
Ay, retorted the lady, "by the cover-side. Well, when you do, tell him you refused your wife your company for fear of offending the religious views of a fox-hunting parson."
Nay, Kate, said Griffith, "this is not to ask thy man to go with thee: 'tis to say go he must, willy nilly." With that he rose and rang the bell. "Order the chariot," said he, "I am to go with our dame."
Mrs. Gaunt's face beamed with gratified pride and affection.
The chariot came round, and Griffith handed his dame in. He then gave an involuntary sigh, and followed her with a hang-dog look.
She heard the sigh, and saw the look, and laid her hand quickly on his shoulder, and said, gently but coldly, "Stay you at home, my dear. We shall meet at dinner."
As you will, said he, cheerfully: and they went their several ways. He congratulated himself on her clemency, and his own escape. She went along, sorrowful at having to drink so great a bliss alone; and thought it unkind and stupid of Griffith not to yield with a good grace if he could yield at all; and, indeed, women seem cleverer than men in this, that, when they resign their wills, they do it graciously and not by halves. Perhaps they are more accustomed to knock under; and you know practice makes perfect.
But every smaller feeling was swept away by the preacher, and Mrs. Gaunt came home full of pious and lofty thoughts.
She found her husband seated at the dinner-table, with one turnip before him; and even that was not comestible; for it was his grandfather's watch, with a face about the size of a new-born child's. "Forty-five minutes past one, Kate," said he, ruefully.
Well, why not bid them serve the dinner? said she, with an air of consummate indifference.
What, dine alone o' Sunday? Why, you know I couldn't eat a morsel without you, set opposite.
Mrs. Gaunt smiled affectionately. "Well, then, my dear, we had better order dinner an hour later next Sunday."
But that will upset the servants, and spoil their Sunday.
And am I to be their slave? said Mrs. Gaunt, getting a little warm. "Dinner! dinner! What! shall I starve my soul, by hurrying away from the oracles of God to a sirloin? Oh, these gross appetites! how they deaden the immortal half, and wall out Heaven's music! For my part, I wish there was no such thing as eating and drinking; 'tis like falling from Heaven down into the mud, to come back from such divine discourse and be greeted with 'dinner! dinner! dinner!'"
The next Sunday, after waiting half an hour for her, Griffith began, his dinner without her.
And this time, on her arrival, instead of remonstrating with her, he excused himself. "Nothing," said he, "upsets a man's temper like waiting for his dinner."
Well, but you have not waited.
Yes, I did, a good half-hour. Till I could wait no longer.
Well, dear, if I were you I would not have waited at all, or else waited till your wife came home.
Ah, dame, that is all very well for you to say. You could live on hearing of sermons and smelling to rosebuds. You don't know what 'tis to be a hungry man.
The next Sunday he sat sadly down, and finished his dinner without her. And she came home and sat down to half-empty dishes; and ate much less than she used when she had him to keep her company in it.
Griffith, looking on disconsolate, told her she was more like a bird pecking, than a Christian eating of a Sunday.
No matter, child, said she; "so long as my soul is filled with the bread of Heaven."
Leonard's eloquence suffered no diminution, either in quantity or quality, and, after a while, Gaunt gave up his rule of never dining abroad on the Sunday. If his wife was not punctual, his stomach was: and he had not the same temptation to dine at home he used to have.
And, indeed, by degrees, instead of quietly enjoying his wife's company on that sweet day, he got to see less of her than on the week days.
该作者其它作品
《The Cloister and the Hearth回廊与壁炉》
Your mechanical preacher flings his words out happy-go-lucky; but the pulpit orator, like every other orator, feels his people's pulse as he speaks, and vibrates with them, and they with him.
So Leonard soon discovered he had a great listener in Mrs. Gaunt: she was always there whenever he preached, and her rapt attention never flagged. Her grey eyes never left his face, and, being up-turned, the full orbs came out in all their grandeur, and seemed an angel's come down from Heaven to hear him: for, indeed, to a very dark man, as Leonard was, the gentle radiance of a true Saxon beauty seems always more or less angelic.
By degrees this face became a help to the orator. In preaching he looked sometimes to it for sympathy, and lo, it was sure to be melting with sympathy. Was he led on to higher or deeper thoughts than most of his congregation could understand, he looked to this face to understand him; and lo, it had quite understood him, and was beaming with intelligence.
From a help and an encouragement it became a comfort and a delight to him.
On leaving the pulpit and cooling, he remembered its owner was no angel, but a woman of the world, and had put to him frivolous questions.
The illusion, however, was so beautiful that Leonard, being an imaginative man, was unwilling to dispel it by coming into familiar contact with Mrs. Gaunt. So he used to make his assistant visit her, and receive her when she came to confess, which was very rarely; for she was discouraged by her first reception.
Brother Leonard lived in a sort of dwarf monastery, consisting of two cottages, an oratory, and a sepulchre. The two latter were old, but the cottages had been built expressly for him and another seminary priest who had been invited from France. Inside, these cottages were little more than cells; only the bigger had a kitchen, which was a glorious place compared with the parlour: for it was illuminated with bright pewter plates, copper vessels, brass candlesticks, and a nice clean woman, with a plain gown kilted over a quilted silk petticoat; Betty Scarf, an old servant of Mrs. Gaunt's, who had married, and was now the widow Gough.
She stood at the gate one day as Mrs. Gaunt drove by; and curtsied, all beaming.
Mrs. Gaunt stopped the carriage, and made some kind and patronizing inquires about her: and it ended in Betty asking her to come in and see her place. Mrs. Gaunt looked a little shy at that, and did not move. "Nay, they are both abroad till supper time," said Betty, reading her in a moment by the light of sex. Then Mrs. Gaunt smiled, and got out of her carriage. Betty took her in and showed her everything in doors and out. Mrs. Gaunt looked mighty demure and dignified, but scanned everything closely, only without seeming too curious.
The cold gloom of the parlour struck her. She shuddered, and said, "This would give me the vapours. But, doubtless, angels come and brighten it for him."
Not always, said Betty. "I do see him with his head in his hand by the hour, and hear him sigh ever so loud as I pass the door. Why, one day he was fain to have me and my spinning wheel aside him. Says he, 'Let me hear thy busy wheel, and see thee ply it.' 'And welcome,' says I. So I sat in his room, and span, and he sat a gloating of me as if he had never seen a woman spin hemp afore (he is a very simple man): and presently says he—but what signifies what he said?"
Nay, Betty; if you please. I am much interested in him. He preaches so divinely.
Ay, said Betty, "that's his gift. But a poor trencher-man; and I declare I'm ashamed to eat all the vittels that are eaten here, and me but a woman."
But what did he say to you that time? asked Mrs. Gaunt, a little impatiently.
Betty cudgelled her memory. "Well says he, 'My daughter,' (the poor soul always calls me his daughter, and me old enough to be his mother mostly;) says he, 'how comes it that you are never wearied, nor cast down, and yet you but serve a sinner like yourself; but I do often droop in my Master's service, and he is the lord of Heaven and Earth?' Says I, 'I'll tell ye, sir: because ye don't eat enough o' vittels.'"
What an answer!
Why 'tis the truth, dame. And says I, 'If I was to be always fasting, like as you be, d'ye think I should have the heart to work from morn till night?' Now, wasn't I right?
I don't know till I hear what answer he made, said Mrs. Gaunt, with mean caution.
Oh, he shook his head, and said he ate mortal food enow (poor simple body!), but drank too little of grace divine. That was his word.
Mrs. Gaunt was a good deal struck and affected by this revelation, and astonished at the slighting tone Betty took in speaking of so remarkable a man. The saying that "No man is a hero to his valet" was not yet current, or perhaps she would have been less surprised at that.
Alas! poor man, said she, "and is it so? To hear him, I thought his soul was borne up night and day by angels' pinions—"
The widow interrupted her. "Ay, you hear him preach, and it is like God's trumpet mostly, and so much I say for him in all companies. But I see him directly after; he totters into this very room, and sits him down pale and panting, and one time like to swoon, and another all for crying, and then he is ever so dull and sad for the whole afternoon."
And nobody knows this but you? You have got my old petticoat still, I see. I must look you up another.
You are very good, dame, I am sure. 'Twill not come amiss; I've only this for Sundays and all. No, my lady, not a soul but me and you; I'm not one as tells tales out of doors: but I don't mind you, dame; you are my old mistress, and a discreet woman. 'Twill go no further than your ear.
Mrs. Gaunt told her she might rely on that. The widow then inquired after Mrs. Gaunt's little girl, and admired her dress, and described her own ailments, and poured out a continuous stream of topics bearing no affinity to each other except that they were all of them not worth mentioning. And all the while she thus discoursed, Mrs. Gaunt's thoughtful eyes looked straight over the chatterbox's white cap, and explored vacancy: and by-and-by she broke the current of twaddle with the air of a camelopard marching across a running gutter.
Betsy Gough, said she, "I am thinking."
Mrs. Gough was struck dumb by an announcement so singular.
I have heard, and I have read, that great and pious and learned men are often to seek in little simple things, such as plain bodies have at their fingers' ends. So now, if you and I could only teach him something for all he has taught us. And, to be sure, we ought to be kind to him if we can; for oh, Betty, my woman, 'tis a poor vanity to go and despise the great, and the learned, and the sainted, because forsooth we find them out in some one little weakness, we that are all made up of weaknesses and defects. So, now, I sit me down in this very chair: so. And sit you there. Now let us, you and me, look at his room quietly, all over, and see what is wanting.
First and foremost methinks this window should be filled with geraniums; and jessamine; and so forth. With all his learning perhaps he has to be taught, the colour of flowers and golden green leaves, with the sun shining through, how it soothes the eye and relieves the spirits; yet every woman born knows that. Then do but see this bare table! a purple cloth on that, I say.
Which he will fling it out of the window, I say.
Nay: for I'll embroider a cross in the middle with gold braid. Then a rose-coloured blind would not be amiss; and there must be a good mirror facing the window; but indeed, if I had my way, I'd paint these horrid walls the first thing.
How you run on, dame! Bless your heart, you'd turn his den into a palace: he won't suffer that; he is all for self-mortification, poor simple soul.
Oh, not all at once, I did not mean, said Mrs. Gaunt; "but by little and little, you know. We must begin with the flowers: God made them; and so to be sure he will not spurn them."
Betty began to enter into the plot. "Ay, ay," said she: "the flowers first; and so creep on. But nought will avail to make a man of him so long as he eats but of eggs and garden-stuff, like the beasts of the field, 'that to-day are, and to-morrow are cast into the oven.'"
Mrs. Gaunt smiled at this ambitious attempt of the widow to apply Scripture. Then she said, rather timidly, "Could you make his eggs into omelets? and so pound in a little meat with your small herbs; I dare say he would be none the wiser, and he so bent on high and heavenly things."
You may take your oath of that.
Well, then. And I shall send you some stock from the castle, and you can cook his vegetables in good strong gravy, unbeknown.
The widow Gough chuckled aloud.
But stay, said Mrs. Gaunt; "for us to play the woman so, and delude a saint for his mere bodily weal—will it not be a sin, and a sacrilege to boot?"
Let that flea stick in the wall, said Betty, contemptuously. "Find you the meat, and I'll find the deceit: for he is as poor as a rat into the bargain. Nay, nay, God Almighty will never have the heart to burn us two for such a trifle. Why, 'tis no more than cheating a froward child taking's physic."
Mrs. Gaunt got into her carriage and went home, thinking all the way. What she had heard filled her with feelings strangely but sweetly composed of veneration and pity. In that Leonard was a great orator and a high-minded priest, she revered him; in that he was solitary and sad, she pitied him; in that he wanted common sense, she felt like a mother, and must take him under her wing. All true women love to protect; perhaps it is a part of the great maternal element; but to protect a man, and yet look up to him, this is delicious.
Leonard, in truth, was one of those high-strung men who pay for their periods of religious rapture by hours of melancholy. This oscillation of the spirits in extraordinary men appears to be more or less a law of nature; and this the widow Gough was not aware of.
The very next Sunday, while he was preaching, she and Mrs. Gaunt's gardener were filling his bow window with flowerpots, the flowers in full bloom and leaf. The said window was large, and had a broad sill outside, and, inside, one of the old fashioned high window-seats that follow the shape of the window. Mrs. Gaunt, who did nothing by halves, sent up a cartload of flowerpots, and Betty and the gardener arranged at least eighty of them, small and great, inside and outside the window.
When Leonard returned from preaching, Betty was at the door to watch. He came past the window with his hands on his breast, and his eyes on the ground, and never saw the flowers in his own window. Betty was disgusted. However, she followed him stealthily as he went to his room, and she heard a profound "Ah!" burst from him.
She bustled in and found him standing in a rapture, with the blood mantling in his pale cheeks, and his dark eyes glowing.
Now blessed be the heart that hath conceived this thing, and the hand that hath done it, said he. "My poor room it is a bower of roses, all beauty and fragrance." And he sat down inhaling them, and looking at them; and a dreamy, tender complacency crept over his heart, and softened his noble features exquisitely.
Widow Gough, red with gratified pride, stood watching him, and admiring him; but, indeed, she often admired him, though she had got into a way of decrying him.
But at last she lost patience at his want of curiosity; that being a defect she was free from herself. "Ye don't ask me who sent them," said she, reproachfully.
Nay, nay, said he; "prithee do not tell me: let me divine."
Divine then, said Betty, roughly. "Which I suppose you means 'guess.'"
Nay, but let me be quiet awhile, said he, imploringly; "let me sit down and fancy that I am a holy man, and some angel hath turned my cave into a Paradise."
No more an angel than I am, said the practical widow. "But, now I think on't, y'are not to know who 'twas. Them as sent them they bade me hold my tongue."
This was not true; but Betty, being herself given to unwise revelations and superfluous secresy, chose suddenly to assume that this business was to be clandestine.
The priest turned his eye inwards and meditated. "I see who it is," said he, with an air of absolute conviction. "It must be the lady who comes always when I preach, and her face like none other; it beams with divine intelligence. I will make her all the return we poor priests can make to our benefactors. I will pray for her soul here among the flowers God has made, and she has given his servant to glorify his dwelling. My daughter, you may retire."
This last with surprising, gentle dignity: so Betty went off rather abashed, and avenged herself by adulterating the holy man's innutritions food with Mrs. Gaunt's good gravy; while he prayed fervently for her eternal weal among the flowers she had given him.
Now Mrs. Gaunt, after eight years of married life, was too sensible and dignified a woman to make a romantic mystery out of nothing. She concealed the gravy, because there secresy was necessary; but she never dreamed of hiding that she had sent her spiritual adviser a load of flowers. She did not tell her neighbors, for she was not ostentatious; but she told her husband; who grunted, but did not object.
But Betty's nonsense lent an air of romance and mystery that was well adapted to captivate the imagination of a young, ardent, and solitary spirit like Leonard.
He would have called on the lady he suspected, and thanked her for her kindness. But this he feared would be unwelcome, since she chose to be his unknown benefactress. It would be ill taste in him to tell her he had found her out: it might offend her sensibility, and then she would draw in.
He kept his gratitude therefore to himself, and did not cool it by utterance. He often sat among the flowers, in a sweet reverie, enjoying their color and fragrance: and sometimes he would shut his eyes, and call up the angelical face with great celestial up-turned orbs, and fancy it among her own flowers, and the queen of them all.
These day-dreams did not at that time interfere with his religious duties. They only took the place of those occasional hours, when, partly by the reaction consequent on great religious fervour, partly through exhaustion of the body weakened by fasts, partly by the natural delicacy of his fibre, and the tenderness of his disposition, his soul used to be sad.
By-and-by these languid hours, sad no longer, became sweet and dear to him. He had something so interesting to think of, to dream about. He had a Madonna that cared for him in secret.
She was human; but good, beautiful, and wise. She came to his sermons, and understood every word.
And she knows me better than I know myself, said he: "since I had these flowers from her hand, I am another man."
One day he came into his room and found two watering pots there. One was large and had a rose to it, the other small and with a plain spout.
Ah! said he; and colored with delight. He called Betty, and asked her who had brought them.
How should I know? said she, roughly. "I dare say they dropped from Heaven. See, there is a cross painted on 'em in gold letters."
And so there is! said Leonard, and crossed himself.
That means nobody is to use them but you, I trow, said Betty, rather crossly.
The priest's cheek coloured high. "I will use them this instant," said he. "I will revive my drooping children, as they have revived me." And he caught up a watering pot with ardour.
What, with the sun hot upon 'em? screamed Betty. "Well, saving your presence, you are a simple man."
Why, good Betty, 'tis the sun that makes them faint, objected the priest, timidly, and with the utmost humility of manner, though Betty's tone would have irritated a smaller mind.
Well, well, said she, softening; "but ye see it never rains with a hot sun, and the flowers they know that, and look to be watered after Nature, or else they take it amiss. You, and all your sort, sir, you think to be stronger than nature; you do fast and pray all day, and won't look a woman in the face like other men; and now you wants to water the very flowers at noon."
Betty, said Leonard, smiling, "I yield to thy superior wisdom, and I will water them at morn and eve. In truth we have all much to learn: let us try and teach one another as kindly as we can."
I wish you'd teach me to be as humble as you be, blurted out Betty, with something very like a sob: "and more respectful to my betters," added she, angrily.
Watering the flowers she had given him became a solace and a delight to the solitary priest: he always watered them with his own hands and felt quite paternal over them.
One evening Mrs. Gaunt rode by with Griffith and saw him watering them. His tall figure, graceful, though inclined to stoop, bent over them with feminine delicacy, and the simple act, which would have been nothing in vulgar hands, seemed to Mrs. Gaunt so earnest, tender, and delicate in him, that her eyes filled, and she murmured, "Poor Brother Leonard."
Why, what's wrong with him now? asked Griffith, a little peevishly.
That was him watering his flowers.
Oh, is that all? said Griffith, carelessly.
Leonard said to himself, "I go too little abroad among my people." He made a little round, and it ended in Hernshaw Castle.
Mrs. Gaunt was out.
He looked disappointed; so the servant suggested that perhaps she was in the Dame's Haunt: he pointed to the grove.
Leonard followed his direction, and soon found himself, for the first time, in that sombre, solemn retreat.
It was a hot summer day, and the grove was delicious. It was also a place well suited to the imaginative and religious mind of the Italian.
He walked slowly to and fro, in religious meditation. Indeed he had nearly thought out his next sermon, when his meditative eye happened to fall on a terrestrial object that startled and thrilled him. Yet it was only a lady's glove. It lay at the foot of a rude wooden seat beneath a gigantic pine.
He stooped and picked it up. He opened the little fingers, and called up in fancy the white and tapering hand that glove could lit. He laid the glove softly on his own palm, and eyed it with dreamy tenderness. "So this is the hand that hath solaced my loneliness," said he: "a hand fair as that angelical face, and sweet as the kind heart that doeth good by stealth."
Then, forgetting for a moment, as lofty spirits will, the difference between meum and tuum, he put the little glove in his bosom, and paced thoughtfully home through the woods, that were separated from the grove only by one meadow: and so he missed the owner of the glove; for she had returned home while he was meditating in her favourite haunt.
Leonard, amongst his other accomplishments, could draw and paint with no mean skill. In one of those hours that used to be of melancholy, but now were hours of dreamy complacency, he took out his pencils and endeavoured to sketch the inspired face that he had learned to preach to, and now to dwell on with gratitude.
Clearly as he saw it before him, he could not reproduce it to his own satisfaction.
After many failures he got very near the mark: yet still something was wanting.
Then, as a last resource, he actually took his sketch to church with him, and in preaching made certain pauses, and, with a very few touches, perfected the likeness; then, on his return home, threw himself on his knees and prayed forgiveness of God with many sighs and tears, and hid the sacrilegious drawing out of his own sight.
Two days after, he was at work colouring it; and the hours flew by like minutes, as he laid the mellow, melting tints on with infinite care and delicacy. Labor ipse voluptas.
Mrs. Gaunt heard Leonard had called on her in person. She was pleased at that, and it encouraged her to carry out her whole design.
Accordingly, one afternoon when she knew Leonard would be at vespers, she sent on a loaded pony-cart, and followed it on horseback.
Then it was all hurry scurry with Betty and her, to get their dark deeds done before their victim's return.
These good creatures set the mirror opposite the flowery window, and so made the room a very bower. They fixed a magnificent crucifix of ivory and gold over the mantelpiece, and they took away his hassock of rashes and substituted a prie-dieu of rich crimson velvet. All that remained was to put their blue cover, with its golden cross, on the table. To do this, however, they had to remove the priest's papers and things: they were covered with a baize cloth. Mrs. Gaunt felt them under it.
But perhaps he will be angry if we move his papers, said she.
Not he, said Betty. "He has no secrets from God or man."
Well, I won't take it on me, said Mrs. Gaunt, merrily. "I leave that to you." And she turned her back and settled the mirror, officiously, leaving all the other responsibilities to Betty.
The sturdy widow laughed at her scruples, and whipped off the clot without ceremony. But soon her laugh stopped mighty short, and she uttered an exclamation.
What is the matter? said Mrs. Gaunt, turning her head sharply round.
A wench's glove, as I'm a living sinner, groaned Betty.
A poor little glove lay on the table; and both women eyed it like basilisks a moment. Then Betty pounced on it and examined it with the fierce keenness of her sex in such conjunctures, searching for a name or a clue.
Owing to this rapidity, Mrs. Gaunt, who stood at some distance, had not time to observe the button on the glove, or she would have recognized her own property.
He have had a hussy with him unbeknown, said Betty, "and she have left her glove. 'Tis easy to get in by the window and out again. Only let me catch her. I'll tear her eyes out, and give him my mind. I'll have no young hussies creeping in an' out where I be."
Thus spoke the simple woman, venting her coarse domestic jealousy.
The gentlewoman said nothing, but a strange feeling traversed her heart for the first time in her life.
It was a little chill, it was a little ache, it was a little sense of sickness; none of these violent, yet all distinct. And all about what? After this curious, novel spasm at the heart, she began to be ashamed of herself for having had such a feeling.
Betty held her out the glove: and then she recognized it, and turned as red as fire.
You know whose 'tis? said Betty, keenly.
Mrs. Gaunt was on her guard in a moment. "Why, Betty," said she, "for shame! 'tis some penitent hath left her glove after confession. Would you belie a good man for that? Oh, lie!"
Humph! said Betty, doubtfully. "Then why keep it under cover? Now you can read, dame; let us see if there isn't a letter or so writ by the hand as owns this very glove."
Mrs. Gaunt declined, with cold dignity, to pry into Brother Leonard's manuscripts.
Her eye, however, darted sidelong at them, and told another tale; and, if she had been there alone, perhaps the daughter of Eve would have predominated.
Betty, inflamed by the glove, rummaged the papers in search of female handwriting. She could tell that from a man's, though she could not read either.
But there is a handwriting that the most ignorant can read at sight; and so Betty's researches were not in vain: hidden under several sheets of paper, she found a picture. She gave but one glance at it, and screamed out—"There, didn't I tell you? Here she is! the brazen, red-haired—Lawk a daisy! why, 'tis yourself."