Mrs. Oliphant

“ Mr. Stoke, he’s an old man and no credit to fight. Go and sit down by Norah yonder, and talk to the child, and for goodness’ sake let us have no more.”
“I will obey you, Lady Louisa,” said Everard; his eyes gave one flash and he made the short stranger a bow, and turned and came straight up to Norah. “Come into the conservatory and look at the flowers,” he said, offering her his arm; “It is your mother who sends me.” It all passed with such rapidity that no one could interfere. Norah turned to him as if by compulsion, not as if she had any will of her own. ”

“ I looked her very closely in the face and shook my head. “Oh Norah—” I began.
“Nothing more—don’t say anything more,” cried the girl. “I know what you mean when you say ‘Oh Norah!’ Is it so bad as that? you mean to say; and I tell you it is not bad at all, Mrs. Mulgrave. I know all—he has told me all, poor fellow, and I am so sorry for him. It does not matter to me—or rather, he is my friend and it does matter—but not in the way you think. Only because people are so queer and so prejudiced, I would not have you tell mamma.” ”

“ Mulgrave. He will keep her there till everybody knows she has gone away with him, and then he will not marry her. I know him. Sometimes he is like the Devil himself!” cried Lottie, “and that is why I would not lose a moment I will bring her home if I should die!”
“Lottie!” I cried, “he could not be such a villain. Men are bad enough, but not so bad as that.”
“I do not mean he will do her any harm,” said Lottie, with a violent crimson blush, which I could see, even in the moonlight; and her whip rose, and my poor pony started forward on the silent, silent road. ”

“ And beside, people forget, when they don’t happen to be friends and take an interest in one,” poor Lottie said, with a little bitter meaning. I took no notice of her unkindness, poor child. It is very true that people forget when you don’t much care for their recollection, but a secret rarely dies out, especially if there is shame in it. It hangs about in the general memory—a sort of shadow—and with one individual here and there always lives keen enough and sharp enough to defy oblivion. ”

“ But Norah always had a spirit of her own; she takes after me family, not after the Beresfords. Did they tell ye how we quarreled, me dear ma’am?” continued the cheerful mother; and I, a miserable deceiver, did not dare to meet her eye.
“No, mamma, unless Norah did,” said poor little Priscilla, who was as pallid as a ghost. “It was this,” said Lady Louisa; “and me child, you can go and tell your sister I forgive her. Sure we’ll beat her when we get home,” she added with a twinkle in her eye,—“don’t look like a specter, me dear. ”

“ I cried. “We must wait till the morning. Two ladies alone! Lottie, you do not think what you say.”
“Patrick came with me,” said Priscilla, “he is as faithful as one of ourselves. He would go through fire and water for her. Oh, my Norah! I feel as if I dare not name her. Take Patrick, Mrs. Mulgrave, and for God’s sake go!”
In ten minutes I found myself sitting wrapped up, and ready, waiting for the pony-carriage to come round. ”

“ But the men are all fools, and never know what’s good for them. So, as I was saying, it was Norah that took his eyes, and what do you think she came and told me just before dinner, to spoil me appetite: ‘He may have sixty thousand a year if he likes,’ she says, ‘or the queen’s crown, but I won’t have him.’ Think of that, me dear ma’am, for a mother that thinks of nothing but her children! But she takes it of me own family,” said Lady Louisa, with a curious self-consolation. “I was a fool meself in me young days, and downright uncivil to the men. ”

“ It’s not I would be such a bad friend to him as to throw me pretty daughter in his way.”
“Indeed, when nothing can come of it, I think it is wrong, very wrong,” said I, with emphasis which made Lady Louisa stare.
“And that is true,” she said, with vague surprise. “It is one of the things I will never allow. When a young man owes it to his family to make a marriage of a certain kind, it’s cruel, it’s downright barbarity, me dear ma’am, to go poking your pretty girls into the poor boy’s way. ”

“ When the lawn was mowed by Patrick it looked so much like a hayfield from which the crop had just been removed that a glance of dismay had momentarily overwhelmed Lady Louisa’s delightful confidence. But she soon recovered. “Sure it’s in the country,” she said. “It’s Nature—what can ye expect? Young Everton, my Cousin Fascally’s eldest son, a charming, handsome young fellow and the best of sons, was in raptures with it. He’d have Norah take him to see the moon. ”

“ Heaven knows I did not care in this case for the young men—but what was one to say?
“Ah then, he’ll take care of himself,” said Lady Louisa lightly. “He’s no fool, me dear ma’am, and you may be sure he’d never believe I’d throw away one of me girls on a well-bred beggar, for sure that’s what it comes to. When people have lived in the world all their lives they understand each other.—Norah, go and tell the boy.—Me dear, I wouldn’t speak before the child, but ye may make your mind easy. ”

“ A girl’s painful first love, thank Heaven, seldom stands a great shock, and never surely such a shock as that.
Not very long after this the Beresfords left the mansion, to the great affliction of all Dinglefield. They have been living in Italy since, and all over the world; and the last news we heard was, that the ten thousand a year was, after all, likely to come into the family, but not through Norah. Her dear little sister Priscilla, who had no objections to Colonel Fitzgerald, having, it would seem, caught his heart (if heavy dragoons have hearts) in the rebound. ”

“ Probably Norah had been alarmed in spite of herself by that strange sensation of discovery, and the tingle of shame which had scorched her cheeks, and had put a stop to those half clandestine, half accidental meetings. And accordingly he took to calling openly, and amused Lady Louisa and told her bits of scandal. “The men fish up everything at their clubs, ye know,” she said; and none of us had the courage to tell her that Everard Stoke, in spite of his good connections, had managed to banish himself forever from that condition in which clubs are possible. ”

“ The men all prefer Norah, she is so pretty and so lively; and sometimes the women too.”
“Because you never let us see how good you are!” cried Lottie, starting up, as we heard the sound of wheels. And for my part, all trembling and excited as I was, I took Priscilla into my arms and kissed her. Her tears came on my face warmer than her cheek was. We watched her make a tremulous rush down through the moonlight, and get safely within her own gate; and then Lottie and I, with Patrick behind us, turned off across the Green. ”

“ The girl was excited and did not know what she was doing. I made her no answer, feeling sure that her indignation and agitation had carried her away, and warped her judgment even. Men are bad enough, but nowadays they don’t do such things as that.
The nearer we came to our destination, the more silent we grew, and the faster went the pony, urged on by Lottie, who did not know what she was doing. When we passed Brentworth station, some one looked out from the little house by the railway, evidently startled by the noise we made, and threw up a window to watch us two ladies and the boy behind. ”

“ There was a good deal of excitement on the Green about the first of the saries of tays, and Heaven knows some of us had good occasion to remember the day. The only sensible one of the Stokes did not take as she should have done my suggestion on the subject. I advised her with all my might to persuade Everard not to go. “There are people coming from the town,” I said, “and how can he tell whom he may meet? Anybody from his old office—any of his old friends. You know how disagreeable it would be.” “Men are not brutes,” said Lottie, indignantly, “at least not young men in society. ”

“ I went upstairs and put on my dressing-gown, and came down again, not feeling ready for bed. A summer night is a cheerless thing at such a moment. When one feels wakeful in winter one comes down to the fire, and that is always company. ”

“ I would have gone after them into the conservatory at all hazards, but that I saw some others of the young people going. And what could I do? I returned to my old seat, which was near Lady Louisa. I found her in an unmistakable flutter. Colonel Fitzgerald and the little man in the white waistcoat were standing by her, and the group was made up by Mr. Beresford and Lady Fascally, who still sat petrified in the background, with her son in front of her in defence.
“No better than a swindler,” said the fat man. ”

“ Two women alone driving across the country, in the middle of the night, through all that bright, prying, ghastly moonlight. We might meet tramps, or something worse, on the way. We might fall into evil hands. ”

“ He told the servants he had been sent for to town, and that one of his sisters was going to see him off, and took a cloak of Lottie’s and a hat. He was to leave the gig at a little inn near the Brentworth station, which was where the night express stopped. The maid, who had been curious, reported that the gig took him up with his companion under the shade of the lodge trees, so that she could not see which of the young ladies it was. ”