Hugh Crichton's Romance

by Christabel R. Coleridge

“That is exactly what I say, my dear. You make matters worse by exaggerating. No one would think of such a thing but yourself. Turn your back at once on the thought. There is quite enough to break all our hearts without that.”

It is not always wise to ignore passionate feeling, even when it is supposed to be unreasonable. Hugh felt keenly that his mother gave him no sympathy in the trial which he believed to be more bitter than that of Arthur, whom he had seen her soothe and caress. He had neither the tact to conceive nor the unselfishness to carry out the idea that, as the miserable truth did greatly add to the pain of all concerned, it would be better to bury it and his remorse in his own breast. Rather would he do penance for it in every way that he could.

“There is enough to break hearts,” he said, “and it is through my means they are broken. But don’t fear that I shall shrink from anything that has to be done. There is no need that Arthur should see me.”

“Arthur must rest, and you too, Hugh,” interposed James. “There is nothing very pressing. Go to bed, you were up all night—do, now, there’s a good fellow.”

“Thank you, I want no rest,” said Hugh. “If mother likes I will come and write letters and settle matters now.”

“Yes, my dear, that will be best,” said Mrs Crichton, “and will help you to recover your balance better.”

Hugh thought his mother unfeeling; Arthur clung to her as his kindest comforter. She thoroughly understood and acknowledged the one grief, and it was such that no one could turn their backs on it; but Mrs Crichton was a person whom nature had gifted with an almost over-amount of that rare quality, a tendency to make the best of things. It was her nature to ignore grief where it was possible, to smoothe it over and hide it, to seize on its most tolerable side; and she could not understand Hugh’s impulse to drink the cup to the dregs. Her mind went on, even in these first sad days, to plans for a little lightening the cloud that covered them; and she was not a person who could sympathise with an unhappiness of which she did not thoroughly admit the necessity, or the duration of which she thought extreme. Moreover, there was some sense in the view that least said was soonest mended, as far as Hugh was concerned, and that the unhappy words which had accompanied the fatal shot were best forgotten. Here James agreed with her. He had more power of realising the feelings of those around him; but the black oppression was very trying to his kindly nature, and, in the intervals of being as kind and helpful as he knew how, would creep out into the shrubbery with a book or his pipe, or get a little taste of the outside world by answering enquiries or undertaking commissions. Hugh did everything that was necessary, and did not renew the discussion; but he avoided Arthur entirely, and looked so worn out with misery as to excite the pity of everyone who saw him. He pictured to himself the dread that Arthur must have of meeting him, till his own dread grew so intense that nothing but his sense that he deserved any and every punishment could have induced him to face the hour when they must stand side by side at Mysie’s grave.

The truth was that Arthur had hardly thought about him at all, had scarcely noticed that when he occasionally came downstairs or sat on the terrace Hugh was not there. His own future life had not yet come before him; the causes that had so changed it were all swallowed up in the great fact of the change. It was of Mysie that he thought hour after hour, of her face and her voice and her sweet eyes, and of every word and look they had exchanged during their brief and sweet betrothal. He was very gentle and grateful for the kindness shown him, and his habitual unselfishness made him considerate of all the rest; but, though there was a sort of surface readiness to be comforted about him, nothing really touched him much. They were all very kind, but he loved none of them with the intense and personal love which only could have gone to his heart then. He made no effort to hide or deny his sorrow, admitting it simply; but he did not talk much about Mysie, and not at all about himself. He did not seem conscious of any want of occupation, though he did little or nothing, and suffered less physically than might have been expected after such a shock. But that awful scene which seemed to have burnt itself in on Hugh’s eyeballs as yet scarcely haunted Arthur—partly because he had acted in it, not seen it; but more entirely because he was so much absorbed in his sorrow that he had not begun to think of how it had come about. They said he bore it beautifully, because he uttered no outcries against fate and could smile when people were kind to him; but, in truth, his spirit was too much crushed for rebellion; even his own loneliness and changed life had hardly yet come before him. At night, or when he had been long alone, his first sense of unreality would again recur to him and the truth come upon him in its first freshness as he met the sad faces of the others, or as he looked on the face, not sad, but still and fair, of his lost love. On that face Hugh never looked; but it was as Arthur knelt beside her that he saw Mr Harcourt again. The old rector laid his hands on his head, and once more repeated the blessing he had given him so short a time before.

“She will have fifty happy years, my boy,” he said.

“But I—but I—” and poor Arthur hurried away, utterly overpowered, though afterwards he tried to say something to James about “Mr Harcourt’s kindness, and there was one thing he wished.”