Throckmorton: A Novel

by Molly Elliot Seawell

Throckmorton did not doubt it in the least. The general’s incapacity was only exceeded by his courage.

Throckmorton’s native modesty, as well as the fact that he knew a great deal about the war and his profession, kept him comparatively silent; but finding that, when he talked with General Temple about battles and campaigns, Judith’s face gradually grew scarlet with suppressed excitement, and that like most women she was easily carried away by the recitals of adventure, he artfully took up the thread of conversation and surprised himself by his own eloquence. It was not like the almost forgotten Freke’s polished and charming periods, but it was none the less eloquent for being rather brief and pointed; and once or twice when Judith paid him some little compliment, her speaking eyes conveying more meaning than her words, Throckmorton would be seized with a fit of bashfulness, and clapping his rusty but still cherished blue cap on his head would go home and never say “war” for a week.

Their lives were so quiet, so shut out from even the small world of a provincial neighborhood, that nothing was known or talked of about them. Judith, who was capable of revenge, felt a deep resentment against the county people. She, who before Jacqueline’s death had been all sweetness and affability, showed a kind of haughtiness to the people who were well enough disposed to make amends to the Barn Elms family. Throckmorton noticed, when she went out of church behind General and Mrs. Temple, holding her boy by the hand, that the father and mother stopped and talked as neighbors in the country do, but Judith made straight for the rickety carriage which Simon Peter still drove.

The two months were nearly over. Throckmorton and Judith had seen much of each other, but there had been no exchange of intimate thoughts between them but once. This was one afternoon when they were alone at Barn Elms, that Throckmorton talked openly of Jacqueline.

“It is not treason to her, poor child,” he said, “but—it was—a mistake. I truly loved her. I had thought that love was impossible to me after the loss I suffered so many years ago. But it was a madness; and, however delicious the madness of youth may be, when a man has reached my time of life he knows it to be madness. I have never dared to think what would the ultimate end have been had she lived and married me. The certainty one has of happiness is the life of love; but that certainty I never had. I never knew whether Jacqueline’s love would be enough for me, even had it been mine; and I could never shake off a horrible fear that mine would not be enough for her.”

Judith, who had listened silently to this, suddenly leaned forward and gazed at him involuntarily. The thought in her mind was, that no ordinary woman would be enough for Throckmorton. He could give much, but he would ask for much. Like all men of commanding sense and character, he was exacting.

Throckmorton could not follow her thought—he only saw her deep and expressive eyes, the pensive droop of her mouth, all the refined beauty of her face. He began to think how she would blossom out under the influence of happiness; what a happy, merry, delightful creature she would be if she loved; and something in his fixed and ardent gaze made Judith draw back, and brought the slight flush to her face, that meant much for her. She trembled a little, and Throckmorton saw it. When he returned to Millenbeck, he sat up half the night smoking strong cigars—the prosaic way in which his agitations always worked themselves off—lost in a delicious reverie of what might be. Here was a woman who appealed to his pride as much as to his love. Throckmorton, who was practical as well as romantic, thought it a very good thing for a man to marry a woman he could be proud of. Yet, when the last embers of the library fire had died out, and the cigars had given out too, and he began to be chill and stiff, sitting in his great arm-chair, he felt discouraged, and said almost out aloud, “I don’t believe she will marry me.”

It grew toward the last days of Throckmorton’s stay. He had gone to but few places in the county. The temper of the people toward him had changed since he first came there; every year had brought its crop of tolerance, but it had ceased to be of importance to him. Indeed, but one thing mattered to him then—whether Judith would marry him. But he deliberately put off the decisive moment until the very afternoon before he was to leave. He had in vain tried to find out whether the friendly regret at his going that she expressed concealed a deeper feeling, but Judith was too clever for him. She had gone through the whole range of feeling since she first knew him, and now was better armed than she had ever been before.

He walked over to Barn Elms on that last afternoon, feeling very much as he had done years before, when, after long waiting, with the thunder of cannon in his ears and the smoke of musketry before his eyes, the order had come for him to move forward. It was well enough to think and plan before—but now, it was time to act; and, just as in that time of battle, he became cool and confident as soon as he was brought face to face with danger.

He timed his visit just when he knew Judith would be taking her afternoon walk with little Beverley. Sure enough, she was out. He stayed a little while with General and Mrs. Temple. When he rose to go, he said, quite boldly, to Mrs. Temple: