A Country Gentleman and His Family

by Mrs. Oliphant

"You are quite right," said Dick, recovering himself, "and I spoke like a fool. For all that you say, misery is the end of such a life; and if I could help it I should not like her to come to want."

"Oh!" said Lizzie, with exasperation, stamping her foot. "Want yourself! You are more like to come to it than she is. I could show you in a moment—I could just let you see——" Here she paused, and faltered, and grew red, meeting his eyes. He did not ask any further questions. He had grown pale as she grew red. Their looks exchanged a rapid communication, in which neither Lizzie's reluctance to speak nor his hesitation in asking was of any avail. He put down the sixpence which he had in his hand upon the counter, and went out into the night in a dumb confusion of mind, as if he had received a blow.

Here, breathing the same air, seeing the same sights, within reach! He went a little further on in the darkness, not knowing where, nor caring, in the bewilderment of the shock which had come to him unawares, and suddenly in the dark was aware of a range of lighted windows which seemed to hang high in the air—the windows of the Elms appearing over the high garden wall. He went along towards the house mechanically, and only stopped when his shoulder rubbed against the bricks, near the spot where he had seen Lizzie come out, as he walked past. The lights moved about from window to window; the house seemed full of movement and life; and within the wall there was a sound of conversation and laughter. Did he recognise the voices, or any one among them? He did not say so even to himself, but turned round and hurried back, stumbling through the darkness which hid and blinded him. In the village he met a woman with a lantern, who he did not doubt was Lizzie's grandmother, the village authority; no doubt a gossip, quite disposed to search into other people's mysteries, quite unaware of the secret story which had connected itself with his own. She passed him in a little mist of light in the midst of the dark, raising her head instinctively as he passed with a sense of something unfamiliar, but of course not seeing who he was. Presently he found his way again into the Rectory garden, avoiding the prickles of the tree against which he had spiked himself on his way out. Mrs. Wilberforce was on her way upstairs with her candle as he came in. She looked at him disapprovingly, and hoped, with something like irony, that he had enjoyed his walk. "Though you must have had to grope along in the dark, which does not seem much of a pleasure."

"The air is delightful," said Dick, with unnecessary fervour. "I like a stroll in the dark, and the lights in the cottages are pretty to see."

"Dear me, I should have thought everybody was in bed; but late hours are creeping in with other things," said the rector's wife as she went upstairs. The rector himself was standing at the door of his study, with an unlighted pipe in his hand. "Come and have a smoke," he said. For a moment it occurred to Cavendish, though rather as a temptation than as a relief, to tell the story which seemed to fill his mind like something palpable, leaving room for nothing else, to his simple-minded rural friend, an older man than himself and a clergyman, and therefore likely to have received other confidences before now. But something sealed his lips; the very atmosphere of the house, the narrow life with its thousand little occupations, in which there was an ideal yet prosaic innocence, an incapacity even to understand those elements of which tragedy is made. How could he say it—how reveal anything so alien to every possibility! He might have told the good Wilberforce had he been in debt or in love, or any light difficulty in which the parson might have played the part of mediator, whether with an angry father or an irritated creditor. He would have made an excellent confidant in such cases, but not in this.

In debt or in love—in love! Dick Cavendish's character was well known; or so, at least, everybody thought. He was always in love, just as he was always in good spirits,—a fellow full of frolic and fun, only too light-hearted to take life with sufficient seriousness; and life must be taken seriously if you are going to make anything of it. This had been said to him a great many times since he came home. There was no harm known of him, as there generally is of a young man who lets a few years drop in the heyday of life. He liked his fun, the servants said, which was their way of putting it: and his parents considered that he did not take life with sufficient seriousness; the two verdicts were the same. But the people most interested in him had almost unanimously agreed in that theory, of which mention has been already made, about the "nice girl." He was himself aware of the plan and had got a great deal of amusement out of it. Whether it came to anything else or not, it at least promised him a great deal of pleasure. Scores of nice girls had been invited to meet him, and all his relatives and friends had laid themselves out thus to make a reformed character of Dick. He liked them all, he declared; they were delightful company, and he did not mind how many he was presented to; for what can be nicer than a nice girl? and to see how many of them there were in the world was exhilarating to a man fresh out of the backwoods. As he had never once approached the limits of the serious, or had occasion to ask himself what might be the end of any of these pleasant triflings into which his own temperament, seconding the plots of his friends, carried him lightly, all had gone quite well and easily, as Dick loved the things about him to go. But suddenly, on this occasion, when there was an unexpected break in the pleasant surface of affairs, and dark remembrances, never forgotten, had got uppermost in his mind; in this night of all others, when those two words, "in love," floated through his mind, there rose up with them a sudden apparition,—the figure, light, yet not shadowy, of Chatty Warrender holding the bowl of roses with both hands, and with that look of innocent surprise and pleasure in her face. Who can account for such appearances? She walked into his imagination at the mere passage of these words through his head, stepping across the threshold of his fancy with almost as strong a sensation of reality as if she had pushed open his door and come into the room in which he was to all appearance quite tranquilly taking off his boots and changing his coat to join the rector in the study below. He had seen a great many girls more beautiful, more clever, more striking in every way, than Chatty. He had not been aware, even, that he had himself distinguished her; yet there she was, with her look, which was not addressed to him, yet perhaps was more or less on account of him,—that look of unexpected pleasure. Was it on his account? No; only because in the midst of the dulness some one was asked to dinner. Bah! he said to himself, and tossed the boot he had taken off upon the floor—in the noisy way that young men do before they learn in marriage how to behave themselves, was the silent comment of Mrs. Wilberforce, who heard him, as she made her preparations for bed, next door.

Dick was not so jolly as usual, in the hour of smoke and converse which ensued. It was usually the rector's favourite hour, the moment for expansion, for confidences, for assurances on his part, to his young friends, that life in the company of a nice woman, and with your children growing up round you, was in reality a far better thing than your clubs and theatres—although a momentary regret might occasionally cross the mind, and a strong desire for just so many reasonable neighbours as might form a whist-party. Dick was in the habit of making fun of the rector's self-congratulations and regrets, but on this evening he scarcely made a single joke. Three or four times he relapsed into that silence, meditative or otherwise, which is permitted and even enjoyable in the midst of smoke, when two men are confidential without saying anything, and are the best of company without exchanging one idea. But in the midst of one of those pauses, which was more remarkable, he suddenly sat bolt upright in his chair, and said, "I am afraid I must leave you to-morrow," taking away the rector's breath.

"Leave us to-morrow! Why in the name of wonder should you leave us to-morrow?" Mr. Wilberforce cried.

"Well, the truth is," said Dick, "you see I have been away from home a considerable time: and my people are going abroad very soon; and then I've been remiss, you know, in my home duties."

"But you knew all that, my dear fellow, yesterday as well as to-day."