Part 3, Chapter XIX.
Sunday and Monday.
“There is no time like spring,
Like spring that passes by;
There is no life like spring-life born to die.”
Hugh Crichton was at this time in the sort of humour which, dignified by the name of misanthropy, would have admirably suited, one of those interesting and uncomfortable heroes who stalk through the pages of romance with masks over their faces, under a vow to speak to no one; or who, like Lara, cloaked and with folded arms, look on at life from an altitude of melancholy and disenchantment. The world seems to have watched such vagaries in former days with much patience; but times are changed, and Hugh had far too much to do to fold his arms, and was forced to put on a frock-coat and white waistcoat on Sunday morning as usual. But an invisible and impalpable mask may be as stifling as one made of black velvet; and the mysterious silence which everyone respected was scarcely a greater effort than the silence of which no one was to suspect the necessity, or the words that seemed so trivial or so foolish. In truth, it was as much to avoid Arthur’s constant companionship as for any other reason that Hugh had so persistently refused to allow him to begin his work at the Bank. He could not stand Arthur’s bright, shrewd eyes upon him as they went to and fro, or endure his notice of the fits of idleness which alternated with the hard work to which he thus condemned himself. For after his long absence he had more on hand than usual; and Arthur, who was brisk and business-like and just then full of an energy that would have made stone-breaking light and interesting work, might have been very helpful to him. Hugh did not, perhaps, dislike the notion of being overworked; but the fact that he was so did not tend to smooth his temper or to raise his spirits. For, of course, the life of a man of business, with all the calls and occupations of a country gentleman added to it, was an exceedingly laborious one; but it was Hugh’s pride that he had never shirked any of the work to which his father had been born, and that he made the squire give way to the banker where the two clashed.
James, on growing up, had so decidedly declared in favour of a London life that all notion of his coming into the business had been abandoned; but there was more since his father’s death than Hugh could properly manage; and so his determination that no pressure should be put on Arthur if his success at Oxford induced him to wish for a more ambitious career had been a real act of kind and liberal judgment. His refusal to accept at once Arthur’s decision in his favour sprang partly from a foolish and unworthy pride, which refused to be the better for anyone’s sense or good behaviour, and, partly, as has been said, from a sort of personal distaste to his bright young cousin—a feeling which Arthur had done nothing to deserve. Nor was his brother’s presence any satisfaction to Hugh. Now that the danger was past, James was quite ready to forget all the annoyance with which he had regarded the matter, and to find the recollection of so romantic an incident rather pleasant than otherwise. “What is it to him?” thought Hugh bitterly; but it was quite true that, even had James been himself concerned and had sincerely felt the disappointment, he would have taken a certain pleasure in recalling the picturesque aspects of the affair; could have laughed at himself with a smile on his lip and a tear in his eye have made full allowance for Violante’s difficulties, and even speculated a little about her future lot, honestly wishing it to be a prosperous one. He found room for kindly sentiment in his flirtations, and would have derived amusement from the externals even of a real passion. But Hugh’s equal judgment fell before the force of personal feeling; and as he had thought of nothing at the time but Violante herself his brother’s view of the matter seemed to him utterly heartless and frivolous.
Sunday was a pleasant day to the young people of Redhurst. Mr Harcourt, the Rector, was a very old man, who had christened their mother, and to whom “Mr Spencer, of Oxley Bank,” meant their grandfather. He was still fully capable of managing his little country parish; and though they had heard his sermons very often, and had not had the satisfaction of assisting at many improvements in his church—since the work had been well done for them in a former generation, when Mr Harcourt, now so cautious, had been regarded as a dangerous innovator—they were very fond of him and of his wife; and had any one of them, in a foreign country or in future years, recalled the Sundays of their youth it would have been the unaltered and seemingly unalterable services of Redhurst Church and its white-haired Rector that would have risen before their eyes. Not but that they liked a walk to Oxley and an evening service at the new Saint Michael’s considerably better than an afternoon one at Redhurst; but, whether they deserted his second sermon or not, they rarely failed to present themselves at the Rectory after it was over for a cup of tea and a chat. Indeed, it was almost a second home to Mysie, who had grown up to be the young lady of the village—all the Miss Harcourts having married almost before she was born. Hugh was a very useful and conscientious squire; his mother, by nature and position, a Lady Bountiful: so Redhurst was a favoured spot.
“So you come and eat my apricots, young people, and run away from my sermons?” said Mr Harcourt, as he picked out a specially-perfect specimen of the fruit in question and offered it to Mysie, who, with her smiling face peeping out from a sky-blue bonnet, looked much like a bright-eyed forget-me-not.
“I’ve been to church and to school, too, this afternoon,” said Mysie, with a deprecating look.
“Ah, you are always a good girl. Why didn’t you bring Arthur with you?”
“She wouldn’t let me come to the Sunday-school,” said Arthur. “She says the girls laugh at her. So you see, sir, I can’t be useful if I would.”
“For shame, Arthur! Mr Harcourt, he did not want to be of any use, only to walk down with me.”
“Well, my dear, in my young days we liked a walk with our sweethearts on Sundays.”
“And I am going to walk with him to Oxley,” said Mysie, slipping her little hand into the old Rector’s arm and very little discomposed by his joke.
“Ay, ay, walk away, and come back and tell me what fine things they’re doing at Saint Michael’s. There is Hugh has never told me a word about Italy. When young men made the grand tour formerly their conversation was quite an enlightenment to their friends.”
“Weren’t they rather a bore, sir?” said Arthur.
“We weren’t so easily bored in those days, my dear boy, by useful information.”
“No,” said James, “those were the days to live, when each event had time to round into its proper proportion—the days of taste and leisure, when people were simple enough to be excited by a Christmas party or by the coming in of a coach.”
“But don’t you think, Jem,” said Mysie, “that they must have been rather dull to care about the coach coming. I’ve heard Arthur say he used to go at school on a wet half-holiday and watch the trains. I’m sure he wouldn’t have done it if he had had anything else to amuse him.”
“Very true,” said Arthur.
“Well,” said Mrs Harcourt, “when I was a girl I used to read Sir Charles Grandison, but I took it down the other day and found it very lengthy.”
“Such a prig as Sir Charles Grandison never can have really existed,” said Hugh.
“Well, Hugh,” said the Rector, with a humorous twinkle, “we none of us know what we might come to under favourable circumstances. But, now, what day do you think to-morrow is?”
“Your wedding-day, Mr Harcourt,” said Mysie, after a moment’s pause. “I remember it was on Sunday last year, and you gave Mrs Harcourt an apricot.”
“Ah, you’re the little girl for a good memory. Our golden wedding. Yes, it’s fifty years ago that I married Mrs Harcourt, and she wore a dark green riding-habit for the occasion. Fifty years to be thankful for!”
“Fifty years ago!” said Mysie, rather awestruck.
“Yes,” said the Rector’s wife, “and we have asked the school-children to come up after school and drink our health; but not having such a good memory as Mysie I have forgotten some of them. If you could ask the little Woods, my dear, and the Masons to-morrow I should be glad.”
Mysie promised to do so, and distant chimes sounding on their ears reminded them that it was time to start for Oxley. Hugh and his mother went home, the old couple went slowly up their sunny garden-path together, while the young pair, lingering a little behind their companions, looked back and smiled.
“There’s our model, Mysie,” said Arthur, as he drew her hand through his arm. “In fifty years’ time—”
“Oh, don’t, Arthur!”
“Why not?”
“It frightens me to think of fifty years,” said Mysie, with quivering lips. Then suddenly she said, “I wonder which are the happiest, they or we!”
“Let us go to-morrow and ask them,” said Arthur, more lightly, perhaps, than he felt.
“Oh, yes! Let us go the first thing to-morrow and take them some flowers ready for their breakfast—they always breakfast at eight.”
“Very well,” said Arthur, “and they will give us some breakfast. I promised George to take him out shooting to-morrow—the rabbits are really getting intolerable. I want Hugh to come home early and join us.”
They soon reached Saint Michael’s and dispersed in search of places, for the church was crowded. Arthur and Mysie had the good luck to find them side by side. Mysie’s feelings had been somewhat disturbed by what had passed, and she was glad of the quiet and of the service, which took her out of herself. The sermons at Saint Michael’s were considered striking, and this one was about thankfulness. “He giveth us all things richly to enjoy.” Mysie listened, and thought that she had more to be thankful for than anyone in the world; and she turned her listening into a prayer that she might never forget it. Arthur listened too, but his thoughts were less defined and were pervaded by a certain sense of the prettiness of Mysie’s face in its blue setting.
And then they stood up and sang—
“Brief life is here our portion,
Brief sorrow, short-lived care;
The life that knows no ending,
The tearless life, is there.”
Brief? And yet they might keep their golden wedding after those long fifty years!
Fifty years of going to church together, of sorrows shared and joys doubled! And as Mysie’s heart went forward to what those joys and sorrows might be it was no wonder that she walked home hushed and silent, though there never came to her a moment’s doubt of how she might regard her young lover after the fifty years were past.
The morning light brought the golden wedding before her in a more cheerful aspect, and she had gathered most of her flowers and was arranging them in a large basket before Arthur joined her, accusing her of being unnecessarily early.
“Oh, I wanted to gather plenty. Look. I have put the hothouse flowers in the centre, and then the outdoor ones, and ferns round the edge.”
“And what’s that?”
“That is a note from Aunt Lily to ask them to come up to dinner to-night. It is all ready now.”
Arthur took up the basket, and they went down the garden, out at a side-gate, and across the road into the almost adjoining garden of the Rectory. This was small, but within walls, and so gay with flowers as to seem to render Mysie’s gift unnecessary. Arthur gave her one side of the basket, and they came across the lawn in the bright morning sunshine up to the open French window of the dining-room, where Mr and Mrs Harcourt had already perceived them.
“Here comes the young couple to see the old one!”
“We have brought you some flowers.”
“We have come to wish you many happy returns of the day,” said both at once.
Mrs Harcourt took the flowers, and her husband, kissing Mysie, held out his hand to Arthur.
“God bless you, my dear children, and give you fifty such happy years as He has given to my wife and me!”
“Amen!” said Arthur, and he turned, and, drawing Mysie towards him, he kissed her, as if the blessing had been the seal of their betrothal. The tears came into her eyes, and she was glad to turn to the old lady to be praised and thanked for her beautiful flowers.
“Now, then, of course you are come to breakfast? Arthur, when you were a little boy you always liked my pine-apple preserve; so I shall get you some.”
“At his present stage of existence, my dear, I should think he would rather begin upon eggs and bacon.”
“But don’t forget the jam for a finish, Mrs Harcourt,” said Arthur.
So they sat down and had a merry breakfast, lingering over it till Arthur jumped up, saying:
“I must go home to catch Hugh before he goes to Oxley, to ask him where we shall shoot.”
“But you are not going to carry away Mysie?”
“Oh, no,” said Mysie. “I don’t like the neighbourhood of guns at all, and I must stay to put my flowers in water.”
“Very well, then, I’ll leave you. Mr Harcourt, we shall see you to-night.”
Mysie stayed behind, and arranged her flowers and renovated Mrs Harcourt’s dinner-cap, by which time the morning was so far advanced that she was persuaded to stay to lunch, before going to give the forgotten invitations. Meanwhile Mrs Harcourt entertained her with much pleasant gossip about the days of her courtship and the wedding that had followed it.
“Did not fifty years seem a long time to you then?” asked Mysie.
“Well, my dear, I don’t think I looked forward to any special time, or to any end at all in those days. And I don’t now, Mysie—I don’t now, in another sense, for fifty years is a very little bit of eternity.”
The old lady spoke rather to herself than to the girl; but the words chimed in with Mysie’s previous thoughts.
“I think,” she said, dreamily, “you are the happiest. If Mr Harcourt were to die you would have such a little while to wait; but if Arthur— It’s almost all life, if it is but a little bit of eternity.”
“Die, my dear? What has put such sad thoughts into your head this bright morning?”
“I don’t know. But I shall remember this morning as long as I live.” Then, shaking off her sadness, she started up, and, kissing the old lady, went off rather hastily on her errands.
The everyday occupation soon chased away the solemn thoughts that had oppressed her, and having disposed of her other business she went down to the canal, along the bank, and across the gates of the lock—the unrailed condition of which was one of those grievances which are always talked of and never remedied—to the lock-keeper’s cottage, where she gave her message about the health-drinking; and sent two little girls, who were at home from school, off in a great hurry to join their companions. These children were motherless, and Mysie took great interest in the pretty sister Alice, who had charge of them.
The youngest boy was ill, and Mr Dickenson, the Oxley doctor—who was most favoured at Redhurst—was paying him a visit. Mysie heard his opinion, and promised sundry delicacies to assist the child’s recovery.
“Then you will send the children down to the Rectory, Alice?” she said.
“Yes, Miss Mysie. I can’t come with them, because of Freddy.”
“No, of course not. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye, miss.”
Mysie tripped out into the sunshine, and on to the gates of the lock, Alice thinking how pretty her white dress and muslin-covered hat looked on this hot August day. “She always wears her prettiest things now Mr Arthur’s here,” she thought, when the sudden loud report of a gun sounded from the copse close at hand. Alice gave a little scream and start. Mysie, half-way across, started violently also, and, either losing her balance or catching her foot on the rough surface, slipped and fell, out of the sunshine, out of the light, down into the cold, dark water below.
End of the First Volume.