Mrs. Oliphant

“ When Mr Crediton came to himself—which he did all at once with some very big words in his mouth, and his hand clenched in the air, and his face blazing with fury—he stopped short all at once, and cast an alarmed look at his daughter. Good heavens! he, a respectable man, to utter such exclamations, and in Kate’s presence! He came to himself all in a moment, and metaphorically fell prostrate before her with confusion and shame.
“Well,” he said, half fiercely, half humbly, “it is not much wonder if a man should forget himself. ”

“ He sauntered up to them, watching their looks and movements, and stood by and criticised their play. “Miss Crediton, you have it all in your own hands,” he said. “He has not the heart to hit your ball. You have nothing to do but go in and win. My good fellow, I never saw such bad play!”
“As if one cared for winning!” said Kate, dragging her mallet along the grass. “What do we all play croquet for, I wonder?” And she gave vent to her feelings in a delicate yawn, and sank into the chair which John had brought out for her. ”

“ Don’t take any notice of me; the old must give up, whatever happens—I know that—and the young must have their day.”
“Yes; the young must have their day,” said John, severely; and then his heart smote him, and he came and knelt down by his mother’s side. “But why should you be in such despair?” he said. “Mother, I am not going away from you. Though I should not be curate of Fanshawe Regis, may not we all be very happy together?—as happy in a different way? Mother, dear, I thought you were the one to stand by me, whoever should be against me.” ”

“ The more one thinks the less one knows what to do.”
“And oh, my dear, don’t jest about such subjects!” said Mrs Mitford. “Don’t you recollect what we are told about him that puts his hand to the plough and looks back?”
“And is turned into a pillar of salt?” said Kate, demurely. “Mr John, that would never do. I should not like to see you turned into a pillar of salt. Let us think of something else. How sweet it is out here in the dark! The air is just raving about those roses. If you could not see them, you would still know they were there. I like an old-fashioned garden. ”

“ But all the same he was wretched, feeling himself torn asunder from his life—feeling that he had lost all independent standing, and had alienated the hearts which loved him most in the world. All this followed upon the privilege of saving Miss Crediton’s life, and her month’s residence at Fanshawe Regis. Was it Kate’s fault? Nobody said so in words, not even Mrs Mitford; and Kate went to meet her father with such a sense of splendid virtue and disinterestedness as never before had swelled her bosom. She was full of the energy and exhilaration which attends the doing of a good action. ”

“ It was then that poor John felt as if some explosion must take place, as he sat and restrained himself, and tried to look like a man interested in his dinner. Nobody else took any notice of his agitation, and probably even his mother did not perceive it; but Jervis the butler did, as he stood by his side, and helped Mr John to potatoes. He could not dissimulate the shaking of his hand.
“My dear, I should never blame you,” said Mrs Mitford, with a little tremor in her voice; “he is always so very rash. Of course you changed, John?” ”

“ Mr Crediton being himself only a banker, had not much indulged in this universal condescension; and Kate was very glad to bethink herself of the Huntleys at this special moment. They were better than Dulchester, and the phaeton with the unsteady hood. There were two sons and two daughters. The girls were plain, and no way remarkable; neither was Willie, the second son; but Fred was very clever—so clever that nobody knew what was to be done with him. He had taken a first-class at Oxford, and done everything else a young man can do that is gratifying and honourable. ”

“ There were some days of tranquil peaceful country life, spent in doing nothing particular—in little walks taken under the mother’s eye—in an expedition to St Biddulph’s, the whole little party together, in which, though Dr Mitford took the office of cicerone for Kate’s benefit, there was more of John than of his father. This kind of intercourse which threw them continually together, yet never left them alone to undergo the temptation of saying too much, promoted the intimacy of the two young people in the most wonderful way. ”

“ Half of the trees were lime-trees, and threw such silken dainty greennesses and softened tones of shadow upon that pretty apparition; and perhaps the bees in John’s ears were only those which made the entire atmosphere harmonious, with that mingling of scent and sound which is the very crown of summer and June. There is no telling how pleased he was to see that white figure. There are moments, though perhaps few sons would confess it, in which a man’s mother is more shield to him than she even is to a girl. ”

“ Dr Mitford said, shaking his head, “and he wants a man’s hand. My dear, you must be content to wait your good father here.”
The Doctor was the only one who appeared unmoved. He had put on all his usual decorous solemnity along with his fresh stiff white tie, and highly-polished creaking boots. But even he made no allusion to the changed state of affairs. Sometimes Kate felt as if she must laugh, sometimes as if she must cry, sometimes disposed to be angry, sometimes wounded. She was glad to escape from the table to the garden, where John found her—glad, poor fellow, to escape too. ”

“ A Roman camp on the one side, and the old women in the village on the other, proposed as amusement for this bright-eyed fairy creature, to whom every joy and rapture that the world possessed must come natural! Did not music seem to come up about her out of the very earth as she walked, and everything to dance before her, and the flowers to give out sweeter odours, and the very sun to shine more warmly? ”

“ I don’t think so; but one has such an idea of a clergyman,” said Kate, “that he should be so superior to all that. I can’t understand him thinking of—a girl, or any such nonsense. I feel as if he ought to be above such things.”
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“But, my dear, after all, a clergyman is but a man,” said Mrs Mitford, suddenly driven to confusion, and not knowing what plea to employ.
“Should he be just a man?” asked Kate, with profound gravity. “Shouldn’t they be examples to all of us? I think they should be kept apart from other people, and even look different. ”

“ Oh, Dr Mitford, you have been hasty with him!” cried John’s mother. “I told you if you would but take time enough, and go into things with him, and explain——”
“I don’t think explaining would have done much good,” said Mr Crediton. “It rarely does, when a young fellow has got such an idea into his head. The only thing is, that when a boy changes once he may change twice—when he is older, and this fever-fit, perhaps, may be over——”
“Oh, can you sit and hear this?” cried Kate, springing to her feet. “Oh, papa, how can you be so wicked and so rude? ”

“ I think I do. I believe men must be taught to serve God. I believe that He comforts them in their distress. You are too true, too straightforward, too innocent to know. I believe and I don’t believe. But the thing is, how can I teach, how can I pronounce with authority, not being sure?—that is what stops me.”
Kate stopped too, being perplexed. “I don’t like the thought of your being a clergyman,” she said, with what would have been, could he have seen it, a pleading look up into his face.
And then a long sigh came from John’s breast. ”

“ Must he give up the only purely disinterested labour which man can perform for man—the art of winning souls, of ameliorating the earth, of cleansing its hidden corners, and brightening its melancholy face? No, he could not give it up; and yet, on the other hand, how could he utter certain words, how make certain confessions, how take up{169} that for his faith which was not his faith? John’s heart had been wrung in many a melancholy hour of musing with this struggle, which was so very different from Kate’s conception of his difficulties. ”

“ What a cold world it must have been!—how sombre and miserable!” cried the enthusiast. “I can’t realise it now.”
“Oh, please!—what nonsense you do talk, to be sure!” cried Kate; and then she gave her pretty head a little shake to dissipate the blush and the faint mist of some emotion that had been stealing over her eyes, and took up the interrupted strain. “Now that you do know there is a me, you must pay attention to me. I have thought over it a great deal. You must not do it—indeed you must not. A man who is not quite certain, how can he teach others? ”

“ Have we ever had a young lady here before, my dear?” said Dr Mitford. “As it is an opportunity which does not occur every day, we must make the most of it. Miss Crediton, Mrs Mitford, of course, has her own occupations, but, so far as the men of the house are concerned, command us—you must let us know what you like best.”
“Oh, please, Doctor Mitford! fancy my dragging you out to go places with me,” cried Kate. “I should be so dreadfully ashamed of myself! ”

“ You know, everybody says ours is such good tea.”
“Don’t I know it!” said Kate; “but——”
“But I can’t take any refusal,” said Mrs Mitford, drawing the girl’s arm within her own. Oh, how little she wanted her at that moment, had the truth been known! and yet she coaxed and wooed her as if it were a personal grace. And the girl yielded, thinking more a great deal of the sweetness of being thus sought and coaxed by the mother, than of the son who was sitting in the dumps on the sofa in the dark corner down-stairs. ”

“ Them as is no skolards has no chance.” But Lizzie’s heart beat as the morning came, and she went softly into Miss Crediton’s room, and set the windows open, and dusted and settled and put everything to rights. Kate watched her, saying nothing at first, not without a little natural interest on her side in the young woman of her own age, in all the roundness, and softness, and whiteness, and rosiness of youth. She saw the girl’s awe-stricken looks at herself, and was amused, and even a little flattered, by Lizzie’s admiration,—and being weary of silence, began to draw her out. ”

“ You may laugh, miss, as don’t know no better—but there are folks as can’t laugh.”
“I did not laugh, Lizzie,” said Kate. “I am very sorry—but why are you so serious about it? I hope the girls are better than the lads.”
“Mother says we’ve haven’t got the same temptations,” said Lizzie, dubiously; “but she’s old, you know, miss, and I dare to say she don’t think on. I’ve got four brothers, all idler the one nor the other. And if I don’t know, I don’ know who should. Mother she’s a good woman, and I hope we’ll all pass for her sake—but missis, she never hears a cross word from Mr John.” ”

“ I’ll serve you night and day—I will. I don’t mind sitting up nights—not till daylight—and I’d never ask for holidays, nor followers, nor nothing. You’d have a faithful servant, though I says it as shouldn’t,” said Lizzie, with her apron at her eyes; “and mother’s prayers, and a blessin’ from the Lord—oh, miss, if you’d try me!”
“Try you in place of Parsons!” cried Kate, in consternation. “Why, Lizzie, are you mad? Can you make dresses, you foolish girl, and dress hair, and do all sorts of things, like Parsons? You are only Mrs Mitford’s housemaid. ”

“ The dinner-party, which, contrary to her own lights, she was going to give in honour of Kate, would have the same people at it as had been at her first dinner-party after her wedding. She said to herself that if John were rich he could give his wife a great deal more change; but still there remained the fact that John’s wife would have the parish to think of, and the schools, and the old women. It would not do, alas! it could not do, Mrs Mitford concluded, as she rose from dinner with a sigh. And yet it would be such a thing for John. ”

“ She withdrew a little from Kate in her consternation, and sat down and gazed, trying to take in and understand this extraordinary piece of news.
“Papa, you cannot mean it,” cried Kate, vehemently. “Oh, are you papa, or somebody come to mock us? A clerkship in the bank—for Dr Mitford’s son—for—John!”
“John is no doubt possessed of many attractions,” said Mr Crediton, in his hardest tones, “but I am only an ordinary mortal, and I cannot make him Prime Minister. When a man throws himself out of his proper occupation, he must take what he can get. And he has accepted my offer, Kate. ”

“ It is not often I go so far, but you know I pretend to a little antiquarian knowledge——”
“Oh, a little indeed!” said Mrs Huntley; “we all know what that means. You may be very proud, Kate, to have such a cicerone. I can’t tell you how I sigh for you, Doctor, when we have people down from town, and they go to see the camp. Oh, don’t ask me, I always beg of them—you should hear all about it if Dr Mitford were here.”
“Well, one has one’s little bits of information, of course,” said Dr Mitford, with a deprecating wave of the hand; “one’s hobby, I suppose the young people would call it. ”

“ To step for the first time into a new country is thrilling to the inexperienced traveller; but to put your foot into a new house,—a place which is utterly strange to you, and yet which you are free to penetrate through as if it were your own—to take your chance of stumbling against people whom you know intimately and yet have no acquaintance with—to set out on a voyage of discovery into the most intimate domestic shrines, with no light but that of your own genius to guide you,—is more thrilling still. ”

“ Then Kate remembered suddenly that it was very contrary to her interest to depreciate any of the Mitford family, and changed her tone—“but so nice—you cannot think, papa, how kind, how good they have all been to me: they have made me like their own child.”
“So much the better, my dear,” said Mr Crediton. “I am very grateful to them. I am sure they are very good sort of people. But I hope, Kate, you are not sorry to be going home?”
“I am not sorry to see you, papa,” cried Kate, clasping his arm with both her hands. And then she leaned her head towards him in her caressing way. “Dear papa! ”

“ Mr Crediton was not a common banker. He was well connected, to begin with, and he was the Rothschild of the neighbourhood. Even to the large red-brick house in the High Street, to which he had been always faithful, very fine people would now and then condescend to come. And Fernwood, his country “place,” was always as full as he liked to make it of autumn guests, so that Kate’s knowledge of men was not inconsiderable. But John Mitford did not belong to any of the types she knew. He was not the ordinary university man, with which she was so well acquainted. ”

“ This would have hurt Kate’s feelings if she had heard it, for she thought she was a favourite of Mrs Huntley’s—and so indeed she was; but it is hard upon a woman to hear unmoved that somebody else’s son has been braver, abler, more successful than her son, even though, as she reminded herself with a toss of her head, her boys had no need for that sort of thing, thank heaven! “Fred shall go, if I can persuade him,” she said within herself, “and spoil that John’s game, though they think so much of him;” and yet there was not a shadow of a reason why Mrs Huntley should wish to thwart that John. ”

“ But when a man has to teach others, I suppose that is how he ought to be; and my very soul shrinks, Miss Crediton——”
“Yes?”
“You will not say anything to my mother? She has brought me up for it, and set her heart on it, and I would not fail her for the world.”
“But, Mr John,” said Kate, “I don’t understand; if you are not a—I mean, if you don’t believe—the Bible—should you be a clergyman for any other reason? ”

“ It is so silly. What stupids servants are! If I had been brought up a housemaid, I should have remained a housemaid. And to be willing to leave her good mistress and her home and all her past life—for what?” said Kate, moralising. Had she but known what a very similar strain of reasoning was going on in Mrs Mitford’s mind! “To give up his home, and all his associations, and his prospects in life, and the work God had provided for him—for what?” John’s mother was musing. The school, and the old women in the village, and all her parish work, had slid out of her thoughts. ”

“ CHAPTER X. Dinner falling in a time of excitement like that which I have just described, with its suggestions of perfect calm and regularity, the unbroken routine of life, has a very curious effect upon agitated minds. John Mitford felt as if some catastrophe must have happened to him as he sat alone at his side of the table, and looked across at Kate, who was a little troubled too, and reflected how long a time he must sit there eating and drinking, or pretending to eat and drink ”