Throckmorton

“ Beverley looked meditatively at the distance. It seemed a perilous way for a six-year old. Judith stood, crimson and helpless. Throckmorton was a masterful man, and, when he took things in his own hands, he was apt to have his own way. She knew at once what he meant, and it gave her a kind of shock—she seemed about to be transported to another world. This sending away of her child was what nobody had ever done before. Throckmorton, smiling, said to the boy, “A soldier shouldn’t be afraid.” ”

“ It was disconcerting intelligence to men in search of a lodging and repose; and Throckmorton, in especial, fresh from his hurried journey, felt that he was hardly treated.
“I am weary and faint,” he complained, “and I wax now cold.” No man would open his door in this dangerous time, and he would perish that night. Such was his piteous lament.
Underhyll, a man of resource, had a plan to propose. ”

“ Throckmorton's uprightness and good intentions, and believing as I do, hope to make it equally plain to your honor. This is my reason and excuse for appearing here. It has been my good fortune to be the close companion of these young gentlemen for several days, and during that time my opportunities for studying them have been such as rarely fall to one's lot, and unconsciously too, and without purpose on their part. Moreover, I know Mr. Throckmorton through others, and no man stands higher in the regard of men, for he is trusted and his word accepted wherever given. ”

“ Sometimes Judith and Throckmorton, smiling, would watch them. Jack liked Mrs. Beverley immensely, but he confided to Jacqueline that he was a little afraid of her—just as Jacqueline candidly admitted she was in awe of Major Throckmorton. Throckmorton, watching this childish boy and girl fun, would sometimes laugh inwardly and grimly at himself. How true was it, as Mrs. Sherrard had said, that Jacqueline would make a good playmate for Jack! And then he would turn to Judith, and try to persuade himself of her sweetness and truth. But love comes not by persuasion. ”

“ Judith thought that Jacqueline, in her simplicity, had taken it literally; but she had not.
“Once, Throckmorton read some in this book to me. He said that meant human life—that little moment. Why can’t people let other people be comfortable in that least space, instead of—of—killing them as—being so unkind to them?” Jacqueline stopped. Her mind was ever working on that deep resentment against her county people. “And Throckmorton, too,” she continued, after a pause, “you know, Judith, how noble he is—and see how they have treated him!” ”

“ At the door of the room his courage, which Judith had thought invincible, seemed suddenly to leave him. He, the strong man, turned pale, and clung to the weak woman’s arm. Something of the divine pity in Judith’s face went to his soul. He stayed only a few minutes. It came to Judith, like a flash, that his grief was not like Freke’s. Throckmorton pitied Jacqueline. Freke pitied himself, for the sharp misery of life without her. When Throckmorton came out, Judith went in and resumed her watch. ”

“ That wouldn’t be dignified, you know; it would make Major Throckmorton ridiculous. You must do all you can to keep the difference in your ages from becoming too obvious.”
Judith felt a rising indignation. Jacqueline’s head was bent lower. She dreaded and feared that people would tease her about Throckmorton’s age. Freke saw in a moment how it was with her, and kept it up.
“Throckmorton is sensible in one way. His hair is plentifully sprinkled with gray, but he doesn’t use art to conceal it.” ”

“ Only one got the commission, but all were qualified when Throckmorton got through with them. He was not any less alert and attentive than before, but in all his waking moments, when his mind was not imperatively drawn to other things, he was thinking over those six months at Millenbeck—the hopes with which he went back; the strangeness of finding himself under the ban among his own people; the renewal of the link with Barn Elms, after thirty years’ absence; his complete infatuation with Jacqueline—and, out of it all, rose Judith’s face. ”

“ The Temples, possibly to avoid him, had made straight for the iron gate of the churchyard, and stood outside the wall, waiting for the tumble-down carriage. Throckmorton quickened his pace, and went up to Mrs. Temple, carrying his hat in his hand.
“Mrs. Temple, have you forgotten George Throckmorton?” he asked in his pleasant voice.
Mrs. Temple turned to him with a somber look on her gentle face.
“No, I have not forgotten you, George Throckmorton. But you and I are widely apart. Between us is a great gulf, and war and sorrow.” ”

“ Freke was a black sheep, and, as Throckmorton devoutly and thankfully remembered, the daughter of General and Mrs. Temple would not be likely to regard a divorced man as a single man. So, in the course of two or three weeks, Throckmorton had gone through all his phases, and had made up his mind. He could not but laugh at Mrs. Temple’s unsuspecting security. She had always regarded Jacqueline as a child, and indeed regarded her very little in any way. ”

“ She had, indeed, a sort of childish cleverness, which was, however, of no practical good to her; but then, as Judith remembered, Throckmorton’s love could transform any woman. “Yes, I shall go through it,” she thought, still kneeling on the carpet, and pressing her face to the child’s in the crib; “Jacqueline will insist that I shall take off the mourning I wear for the man I never loved, at the wedding of the man I do love. If Throckmorton has any doubts or troubles with Jacqueline, he will certainly come to me. I will help him loyally, and he will need a friend. ”

“ Jacqueline’s nature was so impressionable that a strong determination could conquer her at any time and at any thing for a season. Throckmorton, tramping about the country roads with his gun on his shoulder; having jolly bachelor parties at Millenbeck, which were confined strictly to the Severn neighborhood; in church on Sunday, half-listening to Morford’s pyrotechnics in the pulpit; smoking at unearthly hours in his own den; riding hard after the hounds—the thought of Jacqueline was never far away, and never without a suspicion of pain and dissatisfaction. ”

“ Jacqueline herself was deeply interested in this gown; more so than in any particular of the coming wedding. Judith had marked off for herself a certain task of work each day upon the embroidery of the gown. Every night, when she stopped at the end of her task, it was as if another stone were laid upon her heart. Throckmorton had noticed her industry, and had admired her handiwork, which she proudly showed him. ”

“ Edmund Morford, who was afraid that laughing was injurious to his dignity, tried not to smile, but Freke was too comical for him.
Amid all the laughter and jollity and good-cheer, Jacqueline sat, glancing shyly up at Throckmorton once in a while with a look that Nature had endowed her with, and which, had she but known it, was a full equivalent to a fortune. She had never, in all her simple provincial life, seen anything like this—endless forks and spoons at the table; queer ways of serving queerer things ”

“ There can be no real companionship for any man like Throckmorton except with a woman somewhere near his own level—least of all now, when he is no longer young.”
Then she came back and took the child out of his little bed, and held him in her arms and wept passionately over him. “At least I have you, darling; I have you!” she cried.
Down-stairs, in the drawing-room, Throckmorton made good use of his time. With very little apprenticeship, he knew how to make love so that any woman would listen to him.
He told Jacqueline that he loved her, in his own straightforward way ”

“ He reminded Judith that we should accept peace and tranquillity thankfully, and that it was no sin to be happy; and everything that Throckmorton said commended itself to Judith. For the first time in her narrow and secluded life she enjoyed with him the pleasure of being as clever as she wanted to be. He was no timid soul, like Edmund Morford, to fear a rival in a woman. ”

“ I know Major Throckmorton can manage mamma—he can do anything with her now; and mamma, of course, will manage papa; but nobody can do anything with Freke.”
“Jacqueline,” said Judith, sitting down and taking Jacqueline in her lap, and changing all at once into the sweetest sisterly persuasion, “no other man on earth must matter to you now but Throckmorton. Let me tell you what a true marriage is. It is to love one man so much that with him is everything—without him is nothing. It is to study what he likes, and to like it too. ”

“ Throckmorton knew many things, and one thing surpassingly well—his profession. Freke excelled in conversation; what he knew was imposing, but what he could do was not. However, he had not only traveled, but he had observed as well as read. He never made himself the hero of his own stories; and there was a sparkle in his eyes, an animation that gave a deeper tone to his voice, and Judith, in her dull and colorless life, could not but feel the charm of it. Nevertheless, it was not all charm. Judith felt as strongly as ever the incongruity of Freke with his surroundings. ”

“ Think how Throckmorton’s wife should conduct herself; fancy how frightful the contrast, if she should not in some degree be like him! I tell you, Jacqueline, a woman to sustain Throckmorton’s name and credit should be no ordinary woman. If you do not love him, if you do not make him proud and happy to say, ‘This is my wife,’ you deserve the worst fate—”
One of Jacqueline’s fits of acuteness was on her. She looked hard at Judith. ”

“ Throckmorton reminded himself that miracles sometimes happened in love. He did not suffer himself to think what Jacqueline would be twenty years from then. Time is always fatal to women of her type. Even her beauty was essentially the beauty of youth. In twenty years she would be stout and florid. Here Throckmorton, in his reflections, unexpectedly went off on Judith. Hers was a beauty that would last—the beauty of expression, of esprit. Then his thoughts, with a sort of shock, reverted to Jacqueline.
As for Freke, Throckmorton did not once connect him with Jacqueline. ”

“ Sometimes, walking home from Barn Elms, across the fields in autumn nights, he would find himself comparing the two women, and wishing that the older woman possessed for him the subtle charm of the younger one. Any man might love Judith Temple—she was so gentle, so unconscious of her own superiority [Pg 143] to the average woman, so winning upon one’s reason and self-respect—and then Throckmorton would sigh, and stride faster along the path in the wintry darkness. Suppose—suppose he should seriously try to win Jacqueline? ”

“ As they all got out, laughing, huddling, and slipping up the stone steps, Mrs. Sherrard greeted them with her characteristic cordiality, demanding that they should take off their wraps before they were half up the steps. She gave Throckmorton a comical look, and whispered to him as he shook hands with her: “Out with the Sister of Charity, hey? Or is it the child Jacky?” Throckmorton laughed rather uneasily. He had never got over that remark of Mrs. Sherrard’s about Jacqueline being a playmate for Jack. ”

“ Judith seemed to be the only person who was concerned to make Jacqueline love him; to regard the girl as a woman, and not as a child. For Jacqueline herself, she was as changeable as the weather. Had she been steadily indifferent to him, Throckmorton would have thought nothing necessary but a manly fight to win her; but sometimes she showed devoted fondness for him, and, without rhyme or reason, she would change into the coldest indifference or teasing irritability. Throckmorton told himself it was the coyness and fickleness of a young girl in love ”

“ Judith, on the contrary, without a particle of authority over Jacqueline, could do anything she wished with her. Mrs. Temple could only command and be obeyed in outward things, but Judith ruled Jacqueline’s inner soul more than anybody else.
The county people, outside of the Severn neighborhood, still held perfectly aloof from Throckmorton. This angered him somewhat, although, as a matter of fact, the people who did recognize him supplied him with all the company he wanted; for Throckmorton was always enough for himself, and depended upon no man and no woman for his content. ”

“ Not one line had Jacqueline written, either to him or to Judith. Nor had Throckmorton written again to her. He was not the man to give a woman more than one opportunity to snub him. In his heart he was cruelly mortified; his pride, of which he had much, was hurt. He feared that it was a part of that arrogance which first youth shows to maturity.
On the eighth day after Jacqueline’s departure something like alarm began to possess Judith. ”

“ Sherrard, in a plain black silk, but with a diamond comb in her white hair and a general air of superbness, was delighted to see Judith. It was a victory over Jane Temple. She detained her for a moment to whisper: “My dear, I am dreadfully afraid I shall make a failure in trying to get George Throckmorton accepted here. The girls, who most of them never saw so fine a man before, will hardly have a word to say to him; the men are a little better, but it isn’t a pronounced success by any means. ”

“ Like you, this thing has been upon me ever since Throckmorton’s return. I have felt it every day harder to maintain my attitude. Now, for your sake, I will abandon it. Have Throckmorton when you like. I will invite him over to tea on Sunday evening.”
General Temple fairly beamed. When Mrs. Temple gave in to him, which was not oftener than once a year, she gave in thoroughly.
“Thank you, my wife. It certainly seems unnatural that Millenbeck and Barn Elms should be estranged. It shall be so no longer, please God. ”