Mrs. Oliphant

“ And to think of a fellow like that, and hundreds more, sacrificed to these black demons! Good heavens! and we sitting here at home idling away our lives!”
“Ah, my Bertie!” cried I, out of my heart, “and no one left behind him to bear his name—nobody to mourn for him except ourselves—nobody belonging to him! If there is one thing a man has a right to in life and death, it is surely a woman’s tears.”
I did not think what I was saying. The words were scarcely out of my lips when an overpowering burst of tears broke through all the painful reserve and forced calmness of Alice. ”

“ Ah, me! there was some hope for us in Alice’s philosophical moods; but when she played to her little nieces and nephews in that shockingly happy, careless, and easy manner, I was in despair.
“It’s very sad when people won’t see what’s most for their advantage,” said Miss Polly, with a ghost of humor in her pale old face. “I daresay, Clare, my dear, Bertie’s just as happy. I heard from Lady Greenfield the other day—one of her letters, you know—that the dear boy was getting on very well, but breaking his heart to get home that he might go to the Crimea to the war.” ”

“ And, Clare,” said my husband, stopping sorrowfully to look at me, “grieved as we are, think, at the most, it might have been worse still—it might have been your own son.”
I turned my head away for the moment, with something of an added pang. My boy Bertie!—he was not my son—he did not even look so very, very much younger than I, now-a-days, as he had been used to do; yet he was my boy, kindred in blood and close in heart. Little Derwent stood by, listening up to this moment in silence. Now he spoke.
“Mamma, are you sorry?” cried the child; “our Bertie would not die for nothing, if he did die. ”

“ Crofton,” cried Maurice, restored to himself by the question, “what would not I give to be able to accept as mine that calm, religious life?—what would not I relinquish for a faith as entire and simple as my friend Owen’s? But that is my misfortune. I suppose my mind is not so wholesomely constituted as other people’s. I cannot believe so and so, just because I am told to believe it—I cannot shape my creed according to the received pattern. If I could, I should be but too happy; but que voulez-vous? a man cannot act against his convictions—against his nature.” ”

“ To think that Alice Harley connected herself instinctively with the idea of Bertie’s house which was ready for him, was a pleasant thought to me; but I only answered, “There is no telling, Bertie. She might have been married two or three times had she pleased.”
“I am very glad of it,” said Bertie; “to see every pretty girl whom one used to know converted into the mother of ever so many children, makes a fellow feel old before his time. I am not so frightfully old, after all; but I fear nobody will have anything to say to a worn-out poor soldier like me.” ”

“ This interruption Derwent made with the most perfect sincerity and earnestness, unconsciously guessing at the only reasons which could make a person so accomplished as Maurice Harley hate anybody. Everybody laughed except the individual questioned, who shot a glance of wrath at my boy, and eyed Mr. Reredos with a sort of contemptuous inquiry. Could any one, even a child, imagine the new rector to be cleverer than the ineffable Maurice? He sank down again in the chair from which Derwie had dragged him, laughing with a very bad grace. ”

“ Ah! more than for England, for humanity, nature, our very race and blood. If Bertie had died to deliver the helpless from yonder torturing demons, could we grudge his life for that cause? So I tried to stifle down my fond hopes for my chosen heir—to put Alice Harley and Estcourt aside out of my mind, that nothing might come between me and our dearest young hero. ”

“ Alice colored slightly; very slightly—it was against her principles to blush—and made no answer, except a slight shake of her head.
“Such a sweet baby,” said Miss Reredos, “I think one might bear anything for such a darling! Oh, don’t you think so, Miss Harley? I think it’s so unnatural for a lady not to love children. I think if dear Clement had but a family I should be so happy.” ”

“ Clara was crying abundantly for her old playfellow. Alice, as I did not observe at the time, but remembered afterwards, was not{156} to be seen that day, and never came to whisper a word of consolation to me, nor even to bid me good-bye. I put my veil aside for a moment to kiss Clara. “Oh, Mrs. Crofton! it will turn out to be somebody else!” cried Clara, with her unreasoning impulse of consolation. I wrung the little hand she put into mine and hurried away. Ah! God help us! if it was not Bertie it must be somebody else—if we were exempted, other hearts must break. Oh, heavy life! ”

“ But love, which makes labor sweet and life pleasant, does not answer for daily bread—never does, let the romancers say what they will; no—not even to women. The heart within me was dissatisfied even with Derwent—I could not content myself with that life we lived—that calm, happy, tranquil life, which knew no burdens, and if it overflowed in courtesies and charities, which cost us nothing, was thought a model existence by our hard-working neighbors. ”

“ Harley, and the sympathy, sincere though it was, which she would give me. That miserable morsel of hope, which I did not believe in, yet trusted to, in spite of myself, raised to a fever my grief and distress. The deepest calamity, which is certain, and not to be doubted, is so far better than suspense, that it has not the burning agitation of anxiety to augment its pangs. I went into Clara’s room with the noiseless step of a ghost, impelled by I cannot tell what impulse of swiftness and silence. ”

“ A man’s business is not to speak, but to work.”
“That is very true, certainly,” said I: “but tell me, will you—if it is not wrong to ask—what has made this great change in your ideas, all at once?”
“Ah, Mrs. Crofton, don’t you know?” cried Johnnie, blushing, a soft overpowering youthful blush, which would have done no discredit to Clara herself; and the poor, foolish boy looked at me with an appealing triumphant look, as if he at once entreated me to say, and defied me to deny that she was altogether an angel, and he the very happiest of boys or men. ”

“ Johnnie’s hero was a hero who did feats of strength and skill unimaginable—tamed horses, knocked down bullies, fought, rode, rowed, and cricketed, after the most approved fashion of the modern youth, heroical and muscular—and in his leisure hours made love!—such love!—full{120} of ecstasies and despairs, quite inconceivable to any imagination above twenty—but all enforced and explained with such perfect ingenuousness and good faith that one could have hugged the boy all the time for the exquisite and delightful folly, in which there did not mix an evil thought. ”

“ Alice paused a moment, then she cast rather a defiant glance at me, and answered, proudly: “If any one has been forming foolish plans about me, Mrs. Crofton, the responsibility is not mine—I know I am not to blame.”
“That may be very true,” said I, “but I am not speaking of responsibility. Don’t you think, dear, that this is important enough to be taken into consideration without any impatience of personal feeling? Deciding one’s life by the ordeal of marriage is a human necessity it appears. ”

“ Derwent found no satisfaction in London; but remained there in order to get the first news that came. Heavily those blank hours of uncertainty went over us. Lady Greenfield came to Hilfont, and she and I grew friends, as we mingled our tears—friends for the first time. All my other neighbors distressed me with inquiries or condolences. Some wondered I went to church on the next Sunday, and was not in mourning. Nobody would let me alone in my anxiety and grief. I had a visit almost every day from Clara Sedgwick, who came in crying, as if that would console me, and hung upon my neck. ”

“ Could anybody suppose Maurice Harley concerned about another man’s shortcomings, only because the culprit was a man, and one of his own sex? If it had not been so entirely true and sincere, it would have been absurd—this championship of Alice; only women ever dream of such an esprit de corps—but she maintained it with such absolute good faith and solemn gravity, that while one laughed one loved her the better. ”

“ I heard nothing more from poor Bertie Nugent, in India; he meant to come home, but he had not yet obtained his leave of absence, and it remained quite uncertain when we should see him. Everything was very quiet at home. Our fighting was over—our national pride and confidence in our own arms and soldiers, revived by actual experience; everything looking prosperous within the country, and nothing dangerous without.
It was at this time that the dreadful news of the Indian mutiny came upon the country like the shock of an earthquake. News more frightful never startled a peaceful people. ”

“ He was not the man to worry any woman into marrying him, or to lay insidious siege to her friends. Ancient kindness, a lingering recollection of her youthful sweetness and beauty, which had come softly back to{204} Bertie after his early love-troubles, and which had been kept alive by the fascination of a secret delicious wonder, whether, perhaps, he might have anything to do with the fact of her remaining unmarried, had combined to direct Bertie’s thoughts towards Alice, and to connect her image with all the plans and intentions of his return home. ”

“ I had turned my head incautiously, and Johnnie and Alice had both heard me.
“Amusing themselves!” cried Johnnie, hissing the words into my ears in a whisper. “Amusing! do you suppose that it is anything but her angel-sweetness, Mrs. Crofton, that makes her so forbearing with Maurice—my brother? I adore her for it,” cried (but in a whisper) the deluded boy.
“Amusing themselves!” cried Alice, raising her head, “and you can say so, Mrs. Crofton? Oh, I am ashamed, to think a woman should forget herself so strangely ”

“ I don’t mean Bertie, who is doing something in this world, but, for example, such a fellow as me!”
“Take care, Maurice! I see hoofs and a tail upon that humility of yours,” said I. “You, who are so wise, do you not know that women and their tears are no more superlative than men and their doings? Did you think I meant the tender, heroical, sentimental tears of romance, for the sake of which the sublime knight might be content to die? ”

“ Alice was thrusting ordinary life away from her—thrusting aside love, and independence, and “an eligible establishment,” trying to persuade herself that there were other pursuits more dignified than the common life of woman—for—a caprice, Clara said. Johnnie, poor Johnnie, was happy in the merest folly of self-deception that ever innocent{141} boy practised. Alas! and that was but the threshold of hard, sober existence, and who could tell what bitter things were yet in store for them? How hard is life! Perhaps Bertie Nugent at that moment lay stark upon some Eastern field of battle ”

“ Little rosy faces clustered close about Clara Sedgwick, about Alice and myself, and old Miss Polly, holding up rose-lips full of kisses. Mr. Crofton shook hands with Derwie, and turned him off with an affectionate grasp upon his shoulders, declaring, with a fondness beyond caresses, that he was too old to be kissed. ”

“ You don’t think, Clara, how much the gray tints of our household that is to be—mamma old, Johnnie, poor fellow, so often in trouble, and myself a stout housekeeper, will add to the picturesqueness of the landscape—much more than if our house were as gay as your own. ”

“ Harley. “Ah dear! to think how one toils and denies one’s self for one’s family, and how little account they make of one’s wishes when all is done! I think mine have quite set themselves—all but Clara, dear girl, who is so perfectly satisfactory in every way—to thwart and cross me, Alice—you know how unreasonable she is—I can do nothing with her. ”

“ One feels it impossible that one’s friends can feel for one fully; yet one is disappointed, notwithstanding, when one perceives how entirely occupied they are with the closer current of their own affairs. Mrs. Harley had no sooner expressed her feeble affliction over “the sad calamity,” than she forsook that subject for a more interesting one; and it was a little grievous to be called upon to adjudicate in favor of Alice’s lover, just after I had looked with respect and sympathy on Alice’s tears. ”

“ With sentiments so distinct and prononcés, Alice had not lived all these years without feeling some yearning for an independent sway and place of her own, as one may well suppose—which tempted her into further speculations about women’s work, and what one could do to make a place for one’s self, who had positively determined not to be indebted for one’s position to one’s husband. Such was the peculiar atmosphere out of which Alice Harley revealed herself to the common world. ”

“ Do you mean to be a College Don all your life, Maurice? I fear that must be rather an unsatisfactory kind of existence; and one must take care, if that is the case, not to ask any young ladies again to meet you—some one might happen to be too captivating for your peace of mind—a Miss Reredos might outweigh a fellowship;—such things have been even with men of minds as original as your own. ”

“ Sedgwick, bridling with offended virtue, “I don’t think I am very hard upon a little innocent flirting—sometimes, you know, there’s no harm in it—and young people will amuse themselves; but really, Mrs. Crofton, that Miss Reredos is quite ridiculous. I do wonder for my part how men can be so taken in!—and our Maurice who is so clever!—and she is not even pretty—if she had been pretty one could have understood.”
“My dear Clara,” said I, “perhaps it is not very complimentary to your brother, but I do think the most sensible thing Maurice could do would be to fall in love. ”

“ I don’t say Alice should not be interested in him; but only it’s all her romance,{135} you know. She’s not in love with him—if she were in love with him, I couldn’t say a word—it’s only sympathy, and friendship, and sisterhood, and all that; and because he’s in trouble she’ll forget all about herself, and send this good man, who is very fond of her, away.”
“These young ladies, you see, Clara,” said I, “they are not at all to be depended on; they never will attend to what we experienced people say.” ”