Barren Honour: A Novel

by George A. Lawrence

There was not a shade of anger, or even disdain, on the placid face, but he must have been a bolder man than Vavasour who would have argued the point with her then. Hubert knew that the fiat just issued by those beautiful lips, ever so little set, was irrevocable.

"She is an awful infliction!" he assented, gravely; "I can't call you unjust, dear Mildred. Indeed, I almost regret having brought her so near you. I must manage it with Geoffry as best I can; I should not like to lose his society. Poor fellow! I was very wroth when I first heard of his derogation—but I can do nothing but pity him now. If she affected us so disagreeably this evening, think what it must be to have to live with her all the year round! It is no use saying, 'He's used to it.' There are some nuisances one never gets indifferent to."

Lady Mildred shrugged her round white shoulders slightly, as though to intimate that Mr. Knowles's domestic Nemesis was essentially his concern; and so the matter ended.

It was not long before that worried, nervous expression, to which I have alluded, became the habitual one of poor Geoffry's face. He never spoke of his troubles, even to Hubert Vavasour; but they must have been heavy, and almost incessant. His wife had captured him simply as a measure of expediency: she would have married him just as readily if he had been elderly and repulsive when she first saw him; she very soon got tired of keeping up affectionate appearances; indeed, that farce scarcely outlasted the honeymoon. The last phantasm of romance had ceased to haunt the dreary fireside, years and years ago. Laura's sharp tongue and acid face were enough to scare away a legion of such sensitive elves. As soon as she found that their income was far more than sufficient for their wants she took severely to parsimony, and "screwed" to an extent scarcely credible. There never breathed a more liberal and openhanded man than Geoffry Knowles—it must have been a poor satisfaction to him to know that about thirty pounds per annum were saved by economy in beer alone, and that his servants'-hall was a byword throughout the county. The wives of the squirearchy had been very kind and civil to her at first, and were not all inclined to follow the lead of the grande dame at Dene; but they couldn't stand her long, and one by one they fell off to a ceremonious distance, doing out their visits and invitations by measure and rule. This did not improve the lady's temper, which was exacting and suspicious to a degree: she never would allow that she ever lost a friend or failed to make one by her own fault; though she had a pleasant habit of abusing people savagely to their nearest neighbours, so that it was about ten to one that every syllable came round to them. They had one child—a son—who might have been some comfort to the Rector if his mother would have let him alone: but she asserted her exclusive right to the child even before he was christened, insisting on calling him by her own family's name—"Harding"—(some one said, "it was to commemorate an incomplete victory over the aspirates"); and maintained her ascendency over his mind by the simple process of abusing her husband to and before the boy, as soon as he was old enough to understand anything; it is needless to say there was always more distrust than sympathy between father and son.

So, you see, Geoffry Knowles had a good deal to fight against, and very little to fall back upon. His one consolation was, his neighbourhood to Dene: he clung fast to this, and would not let it go, in spite of incessant sarcasms levelled at his meanness of spirit for "always hanging about a house where his wife was not thought good enough to be invited:"—(she never missed one of those quarterly dinners, though). It was inexpressibly refreshing to get out of hearing of the shrill dissonant voice—ever querulous when not wrathful, and to share

The delight of happy laughter,
The delight of low replies,

which one could always count on finding at Dene when its mistress or her daughters were to the fore. Those visits had the same effect on the unlucky rector, in calming and bracing his nerves, as change of air will work on an invalid who moves up from the close dank valley to the fresh mountain-side, where the breeze sweeps straight from the sea over crag, and heather, and tarn. Lady Mildred liked him—perhaps pitied him a little—in her own cool way, and the Squire was always glad to see him; so he came and went pretty much as he chose, till it would have been hard to say to which family he really most belonged. Helen was very fond of him; it would have been strange had it been otherwise, for he had petted her ever since he held her in his arms at the font, and, indeed, had lavished on her all the father-love of a kindly nature, which he was debarred from giving to his own child. As her loveliness ripened from bud to blossom under their eyes, no one could have said which was the proudest of their darling—the Rector or the Squire.

It rather spoils the romance of the thing—but, truth to say, there were other and much more material links in the chain that bound Geoffry Knowles so closely to Dene. He had always been of a convivial turn, and, from youth upwards, not averse or indifferent to the enjoyment of old wine and fat venison: of late years he had become ultra-canonical in his devotion to good cheer. I do not mean to imply that he drank hard or carried gourmandise to excess; but certainly not one of Vavasour's guests, whose name was legion, savoured more keenly the precious vintages that never ceased to flow from his cellars, or the master-strokes of the great artist who deigned to superintend the preparation of his banquets. Was it a despicable weakness? At all events, it was not an uncommon one. The world has not grown weary of trying that somewhat sensual anodyne, since Ulysses and his comrades revelled on the island-shore till the going down of the sun—

[Greek: dainymenoi krea t' aspeta kai methy hêdy]

a few hours after he crept out of the Cyclops' cave, leaving the bones of six of his best and bravest behind; many bond-slaves since Sindbad, as the jocund juice rose to their brain, have forgotten for awhile that they carried a burden more hideous and heavy than the horrible Old Man of the Sea.