Mrs. Oliphant

“ She sighed, not because she was faithless to John or had ceased to love him, but only at the thought of how much easier a life that other woman would have; and an easy life was pleasant to Kate.
I don’t know if it was this conversation which made Fred Huntley so over-bold; but in the evening he spoke as he had never yet ventured to speak. It was the evening which John spent in his dismal little parlour, weary, and wrapt in the stillness of despair, writing his letters before he went home. At Fernwood the young people had got up an impromptu dance. ”

“ John did not hear a word as they went slowly past; but imagine how it must have felt to wake up out of a feverish haze of doubt and inquietude and unreality, and suddenly open his eyes on such a sight! He stood spell-bound, scarcely venturing to breathe, and heard the rustle and sweep of her dress over the grass, and her sometimes faltering, unsteady step, and Huntley’s foot, that rang firm upon the path. Their very breathing seemed to come to him in the air, and the faint violet scent, which was Kate’s favourite perfume, and the movement and rustle of her going. ”

“ You can put on looks easily enough when it is for your own ends; and then, when one wants you just to be a little prudent——”
“Happy Mitford!” said Fred. “I should stand on my head, if you took the trouble to ask me.”
“That is not the question,” said Kate, giving her pretty head a little toss, as if to shake off the suspicion of a blush which had come against her will; “why should I ask you to stand on your head? Now you are vexed,” she added, hastily, seeing his face cloud over. “What have I done? I am sure I did not mean to vex you. I was only thinking of—poor John.” ”

“ The inn was in the High Street, not very far from the bank and the Crediton mansion. The young men walked about the twilight streets talking of everything in earth and heaven. It was to John as if they had met in the depths of Africa or at a lonely Indian station. He had never been very intimate with Fred Huntley, but they were of the same class, with something like the same training and associations, and the exile could have embraced the new-comer, who spoke his own language, and put the same meaning to ordinary words as he did. ”

“ All is over for the year, nature was saying to herself. Shall there be another year? shall old earth begin again, take in the new seeds, keep the spring germs alive for another blossoming? or shall all come to a conclusion at last, and the new heavens and the new earth come down out of those rolling clouds and fathomless shrill breaks of blue? John was in much the same mood. Kate’s little note in his pocket had a kind of promise in it of the new earth and the new heaven. ”

“ You will come home for Christmas, John,” said Mrs Mitford, suddenly, with a tighter clasp of his arm.
“I cannot tell, mother. I don’t seem to realise Christmas,” said John.
“Well, dear, I won’t press you for any promise; but you know it will be a very poor Christmas without you. Life itself feels poor without my boy. There! I did not mean to have said it; but I am a foolish woman, and it is quite true. [Pg 209] ”
“Life is so poor in any case. I don’t know how it can matter one way or another,” said John, with a shrug of his shoulders. ”

“ But Fred felt in his calm veins a little thrill of excitement, as of a man setting forth in an unknown country, and found Fernwood much more interesting than he had ever done before. “They have always such nice people—Lady Winton for one,” he said to the man who sat next him after dinner; for Lady Winton was a very clever woman, and rather noted in society. Such was the fashion of life at Fernwood, when John sat down in the shadow of his mother’s lamp at Fanshawe Regis, and did his best to make the evening cheerful for her, for the first time for three months. ”

“ I wonder what it will be about!”
“And so do I,” said Fred; “but I fear it will be inaudible in the ladies' gallery. When you are all enjoying yourselves at home after the fatigues of the season, will you compassionate an unhappy man in town in August for the sake of his country? Do you think it is worth such a sacrifice?”
“What a different life it will be!” said Kate, with a half-sigh. “It is all very well to laugh, but how odd it is to think what different lives people have—some in the world and some out of it! I should like to go into Parliament, and be a great potentate too. ”

“ When she had said this, Kate stopped with a sudden blush; of course he knew that John Mitford’s wife would have no housekeeper, and would be obliged to spend as little money as possible. But somehow the contrast galled her, and she stopped short with momentary ill-humour. Why should fate be so different? Why should one be so well off and another so poor? Kate felt it as much for the moment as if she had been a poor needlewoman, making gorgeous garments for a fine lady. ”

“ She had never done such a thing all her life; but she did it now without stopping to think, and she read over the end of it, “yours, and only yours, whatever may happen,” with a gush of warmth and gladness at her heart. “Dear John! poor John! he is so fond of me. Why is he so fond of me?” she said to herself with sweet tears. And then all at once it struck her as with a great chill that there was more than mere fondness in this letter of John’s. “If you should ever want me.” “This may pass over and be to you as if it had never been.” How could that be? Was not he hers and she his as of old? ”

“ Dr Mitford looked at his son with an absolute astonishment that would have been comical had John been able to see it. But then it was not so much his son’s perplexity the Doctor thought of as that curious, quite inexplicable reference. “Like your mother!” the Rector of Fanshawe Regis said, with utter amazement. It took away his breath. He could not even notice his son’s question in his consternation. “Yes,” said John, not in the least perceiving the point, “what is the good? That is what one asks one’s self; it does not seem to make any difference to the world.” ”

“ But it is wrong, when you know I am engaged to him, to try to turn me against John.”
“It would be if you were married to him,” said Fred; “but, Kate, because I love you, must I be blind to what is best for you? He is not like you, neither am I like you; we are neither of us worthy to kiss the hem of your dress——”
“Nonsense!” cried Kate, vigorously, almost freeing herself; for this was so much out of Fred’s way, that it moved her in the midst of so grave a situation almost to the point of laughter. ”

“ If you will believe me, Kate, not only shall I never make any fortune where your father has placed me, but I am so stupid that I cannot see how a man may rise out of such a position, nor how a fortune is to be made.”
“But people do it,” said Kate, eagerly; “one hears of them every day. Of course I don’t know how. It is energy or something—making up their minds to it; and of course though papa may look cross he must be favourable to you. John, you know he must. ”

“ It was a great deal more amusing to sit and listen to Fred Huntley’s talk, and watch him gliding along the edge of the precipice, just clearing it by a hair’s-breadth, filling the air with captivating suggestions of devotion. Could it be possible that he was so fond of her—a man of the world like Fred? Kate was one of those women who feel a kindness for the men who love them. It may be love out of place—presumptuous, uncalled-for, even treacherous ”

“ To give his child as salvage-money was a thing he could not bear to think of; and when he looked at John’s pale face among the more animated faces round him, Mr Crediton grew wellnigh spiteful. “That fellow! without an attraction!”—he would say to himself. John was not handsome; he had little of the ready wit and ready talk of society; he did not distinguish himself socially above other men; he was nobody to speak of—a country clergyman’s son without a penny. And yet he was to have Kate! Mr Crediton asked himself why he had ever consented to it, when he saw John’s pale face at his table. ”

“ Kate had never been very unhappy before all her life, and she did not know how to be very unhappy. She pulled all the blinds down impatiently, thinking it was wicked that the day should be so bright, and then threw herself upon her little white bed. It was not that she wanted to lie down, or to be in darkness, but only that the crisis was so strange, and she felt it necessary to conform to it. ”

“ Could there be anything wrong in putting on a look just for a little while, when it might conciliate papa? Any girl would do it naturally,” Kate continued, in a slightly aggrieved tone. “I know you men are honester, and superior, and all that; but when one has not a bad motive, it can’t be any harm to make-believe a little, for so short a time.”
“I think I could make-believe as much and as long as you liked,” said Fred, “if you would condescend to ask me.”
“Everybody does it—a little—in ordinary society,” said Kate. “Of course we all smile and say things we don’t mean. ”

“ But when she was alone she could not elude the questions—What did John mean by his silence?—was he unhappy, poor fellow? Was it her fault or his fault? Would the time ever come when Mr Crediton would consent, and everything would be arranged? Should she be able to make him happy if they were married? All these questions were passing through Kate’s mind. “He takes everything so seriously,” she said to herself; “he thinks one means it, and one so seldom means it.” ”

“ Do I ever distrust you? When I see you talking to somebody at the very other end of the drawing-room, just when I am wanting you perhaps, I don’t make myself wretched, as you do. I only say to myself, Never mind, he is my John and not hers; and I am quite happy—though I am sure a girl has a great deal more cause to be uneasy than a man.”
And when John had been brought to this point, he would swallow such a speech, and would not allow himself to ask whether it was possible that his absence at the other end of the drawing-room could make Kate wretched. ”

“ An imprudent marriage is a different thing, for then the consequences are inevitable when once the step has been taken, and have to be borne, will he nill he. But to make love his all—the sole object and meaning of his life—there was in this a certain humiliation which by turns overwhelmed John’s fortitude and courage. It was indeed almost a relief to him, and helped him to bear his burden more steadily when the annual removal of the family to Fernwood took place, and Kate vanished from before his eyes. ”

“ John walked all the long way home to his little lodgings, which were at the other end of the town, contemplating the dim Sunday streets, all so dark, with gleams of lamplight and dim reflections from the wet pavement—for in the mean time rain had fallen. And this was all he had for all he had sacrificed. He did not reckon Kate herself in the self-discussion. She was worth everything a man could do ”

“ The course of true love should certainly be made to run smooth for him, and everything should go right—at the last. That, of course, was all that was necessary—the most severe critic could not demand more than a happy conclusion. “Papa is very, very much mistaken if he thinks he can make me a traitor to John,” Kate said within herself, indignantly, and hurried off to put on her habit, and went out to ride with a countenance severe in conscious virtue. She was pleased that it was Fred Huntley who kept most closely by her side all the way. ”

“ Kate concluded with a sigh.
“It is a way our fathers have,” said Fred, “though they ought to know better at their time of life; but Mr Crediton is a model in his way—small blame to him when he has only to deal with——”
“Me,” said Kate; “please don’t pay me any compliments; we don’t really like them, you know, though we have to pretend to. I know I am sometimes very aggravating; but if there is any good in a girl at all, she must stand up for anybody who—who is fond of her: don’t you think so, Mr Huntley? ”

“ He had been a dreamer, planning high things for the welfare of the world; he had been a reformer, rousing, sometimes tenderly, sometimes violently, the indifferent country from its slumbers; sometimes, even, retiring to the prose of things, he had tried to realise the details of a clergyman’s work, and to fit himself into them, and ask himself how he should perform them. But never, in all these questionings, had he thought of himself as a banker’s clerk—a man working for money alone, and the hope of money. ”

“ There is more noise and more demonstration than when the full tide of waters begins to swell into the broader channel, but it is not the great crisis which it has the look of being. It is the commencement of a process of which it is impossible to predict the end. This had been emphatically the case with John Mitford when he was suddenly swept out of his father’s house and out of all the traditions of his youth. ”

“ She was miserable and impatient of her misery, and every way of escape seemed shut off except this one, and it was something to do which soothed her excitement. It was not with any such thought that she had sent Parsons away. Nothing had been settled in her mind, or even thought of, till Fred Huntley’s voice and the railway bell thus succeeded each other. In circumstances so desperate there is nothing like a sudden inspiration. ”