HARRY JOSCELYN.
——
VOL. I.
HARRY JOSCELYN.
BY
MRS. OLIPHANT
AUTHOR OF
“The Chronicles of Carlingford,”
&c., &c.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,
13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1881.
All rights reserved.
HARRY JOSCELYN.
| [CHAPTER I., ] [ II., ] [ III., ] [ IV., ] [ V., ] [ VI., ] [ VII., ] [ VIII., ] [ IX., ] [ X., ] [ XI., ] [ XII., ] [ XIII., ] [ XIV., ] [ XV., ] [ XVI.] |
CHAPTER I.
THE WHITE HOUSE.
“MOTHER, I wish you would not make such a fuss. It is only Harry quarrelling with father; I am sure you ought to be used to that by this time. It is just as sure to happen when they get together as that night will come after day.”
“I never can be used to it if I should live a hundred years,” said the mother thus addressed. She was walking up and down a long low room, wringing her hands as she walked, her brow contracted with anxiety and alarm. Her daughter sat tranquilly knitting, following her with eyes full of calm disapproval as her figure crossed the glow of the firelight, and went and came into the gloom on either side. The occasional sound of their low voices, the faint rustle of the elder woman’s movements, the crackle of the fire burning brightly, with now and then a small explosion and sudden blaze, were all the sounds that broke the quiet here; and this made all the more apparent a growl of deep-voiced talk in an adjoining room, with now and then a high word, almost audible, quite comprehensible in its excited tone. Father and son were in the dining-room, mother and daughter were in the parlour, a pleasant division one might have thought. Outside the wind was blowing down the valley with a force which might have suggested storm in other localities, but was natural and ordinary here. It was April, but scarcely spring as yet in the north country. “As the day lengthens the cold strengthens,” is the rule under the Shap Fells. Joan Joscelyn, the elder daughter of the house, was seated near the fire with her knitting. She was quite still save for the twinkle of her knitting needles, which caught the firelight, and her eyes, with which she watched her mother without turning her head. Her shadow upon the drawn curtains behind her was as still as though cut out of paper. She was not very young nor had she any traces of beauty in the somewhat worn and very fixed and steady lines of her face. Her dark hair was very smooth, her dress very neat, everything about her orderly and calm. A slight look of restrained impatience in her eyes, impatience mingled with disapproval, and that sort of faint contempt which children so often feel for their parents, was the only sign which the calm daughter of a nervous mother gave of her feelings. “I wish you would not make such a fuss, you ought to be used to it by this time,” was written all over her, and perhaps there was in her aspect something of that conscientious superiority felt by Mrs. Hardcastle in the play when she said, “See me, how calm I am;” but all subdued by the natural spectatorship of her position. What could she do one way or another? Then why should she excite herself for nothing? This was Joan’s sensible conclusion—and why her mother could not adopt it too was a thing she could not understand.
Mrs. Joscelyn was a pale woman of a very different aspect. She was, people thought at the first glance, not so old as her daughter, notwithstanding the advantage which a calm temperament is supposed to have over an excitable one. But it is not always true that the sensitive and self-tormenting grow old sooner than their more tranquil companions. Joan had never been young at all, so to speak. Her mother was young still in the freshness of a mind which would not be controlled by experience, which trusted every new promise and embraced every new hope, and was as bitterly disappointed by every failure of her hopes as if she had never known a disappointment before. How many pangs this temperament brought to her it would be impossible to reckon; but it kept a sentiment of youth about her, a sense of living such as her daughter in her best days never knew. Both of them however agreed in believing that this temperament was a curse and not a blessing; the daughter with heartfelt astonishment at the power which her mother possessed of tormenting herself—if indeed it were not a fictitious torture which she rather liked than otherwise, as Joan sometimes imagined with instinctive contempt; while the mother as often sighed, Oh, that she could take things as quietly, give up making a fuss, bear her troubles with the same calm as Joan. But neither could the one bring herself to the level of the other, nor either understand the different conditions which made similar action impossible. Joan for her part followed Mrs. Joscelyn’s restless movements with a wonder which she could never get over. What good could it do? Why couldn’t she sit down and get her work, and occupy herself? Even, Joan thought, it would be better to get a book and read (though that was a waste of time) and “take her mind off,” the thing that so troubled her. “Of course it was a pity that father and Harry should quarrel; but then, bless me,” Joan said to herself, “boys so often quarrel with their fathers. Why should there be more fuss made about it here than anywhere else?” She was knitting a long worsted stocking which hung down from her hands like a big grey bag; now and then she gave it a momentary look, to see that the ribs were right and the “seam” kept straight; but for the most part did not look at it at all, but watched her mother while the needles twinkled in the firelight and the big stocking leg turned round in her hands with an occasional jerk.
Meanwhile Mrs. Joscelyn walked up and down wringing her hands. The room was not very light. There were two candles on the table; but it was the brilliant glow of the fire which lit up the space in front, throwing a ruddy reflection even into the darkness of the corners. She paced all the length of the room, crossing periodically the bar of brighter light. She was rather tall, but stooped, her shoulders coming together with the ceaseless movement of her hands. Harry had put his hand into hers and vowed to her that he would avoid all subjects of quarrel, that he would give to his father the soft answer that turns away wrath. But, alas! he must have broken his word. It was not the first time nor the thirtieth time; but she felt astonished and disappointed as if up to that moment all promises had been kept to her. She was one who could not get used to suffering. It was as intolerable to her after so many years of it, so many pangs, as if she had lived the life of a spoilt child up to that moment and never known what contradiction was. The sound of the voices in the next room seemed to pierce into her heart. When they rose louder than usual she would give a low cry. Sometimes she stood still for a moment to hear the better, sometimes she spoke half to Joan, half to herself.