Old Mr. Tredgold

by Mrs. Oliphant

The flowers had never yet got put into the water. She had thrown them down again into the basket. The empty vase stood reproachfully full and useless, reflecting in its side a tiny sparkle of the firelight; and the girl sitting over them, and the man standing by her, had both of them downcast heads, and did not dare to look at each other. This group continued for a moment, and then he moved again towards the window. “It has begun at last,” he said in a strange changed tone. “It is snowing fast.”

And the rector walked home in a blinding downfall, and was a white man, snow covered, when he arrived at home, where his children ran out to meet him, exclaiming at his beard which had grown white, and his hair, which, when his hat was taken off, exhibited a round of natural colour fringed off with ends of snow. The family surrounded him with chatterings and caresses, pulling off his coat, unwinding his scarf, shaking off the snow, leading him into the warm room by the warm fire, running off for warm shoes and everything he could want. An accident! The accident of a family! He submitted with a great effort over himself, but in his heart he would have liked to push them off, the whole band of them, into the snow.

CHAPTER XXV.

It will perhaps be thought very unfeeling of Katherine to have received as she did this unlooked for elderly lover. All Sliplin, it is true, could have told her for some time past that the Rector was in love with her, and meant to make her an offer, and Miss Mildmay believed that she had been aware of it long before that. But it had never occurred to Katherine that the father of Charlotte and Gerard was occupied with herself in any way, or that such an idea could enter his mind. He had heard her say her catechism! He had given Charlotte in her presence the little sting of a reproof about making a noise, and other domestic sins which Katherine was very well aware she was intended to share. In the douceurs which, there was no denying, he had lately shed about, she had thought of nothing but a fatherly intention to console her in her changed circumstances; and to think that all the time this old middle-aged man, this father of a family, had it in his mind to make her his wife! Katherine let her flowers lie drooping, and paced up and down the room furious, angry even with herself. Forty-five is a tremendous age to three-and-twenty; and it was the first time she had ever received a proposal straight in the face, so to speak. Turny and Company had treated with her father, but had retreated from before her own severe aspect when she gave it to be seen how immovable she was. And to think that her first veritable proposal should be this—a thing that filled her with indignation! What! did the man suppose for a moment that she, his daughter’s friend, would marry him? Did all men think that a girl would do anything to be married?—or what did they think?

Katherine could not realise that Mr. Stanley to the Rector was not at all the same person that he was to her. The Rector thought himself in the prime of life, and so he was. The children belonged to him and he was accustomed to them, and did not, except now and then, think them a great burden; but himself was naturally the first person in his thoughts. He knew that he was a very personable man, that his voice was considered beautiful, and his aspect (in the pulpit) imposing. His features were good, his height was good, he was in full health and vigour. Why shouldn’t he have asked anybody to marry him? The idea that it was an insult to a girl never entered his mind. And it was no insult. He was not even poor or in pursuit of her wealth. No doubt her wealth would make a great difference, but that was not in the least his motive, for he had thought of her for years. And in his own person he was a man any woman might have been proud of. All this was very visible to him.

But to Katherine it only appeared that Mr. Stanley was forty-five, that he was the father of a girl as old as herself, and of a young man, whom she had laughed at, indeed, but who also had wished to make love to her. What would Gerard say? This was the first thing that changed Katherine’s mood, that made her laugh. It brought in a ludicrous element. What Charlotte would say was not half so funny. Charlotte would be horrified, but she would probably think that any woman might snatch at a man so admired as her father, and the fear of being put out of her place would occupy her and darken her understanding. But the thought of Gerard made Katherine laugh and restored her equilibrium. Strengthened by this new view she came down from her pinnacle of indignation and began to look after the things she had to do. The snow went on falling thickly, a white moving veil across every one of the windows; the great flickering flakes falling now quickly, now slowly, and everything growing whiter and whiter against the half-seen grey of the sky. This whiteness shut in the house, encircling it as with a flowing mantle. Nobody would come near the house that afternoon, nobody would come out that could help it—not even the midge was likely to appear along the white path. The snow made an end of visitors, and Katherine felt herself shut up within it, condemned not to hear any voice or meet with any incident for the rest of the day. It was not a cheering sensation. She finished her letter to Stella, and paused and wondered whether she should tell her what had happened; but she fortunately remembered that a high standard of honour forbade the disclosure of secrets like this, which were the secrets of others as well as her own. She had herself condemned from that high eminence with much indignation the way in which other girls blazoned such secrets. She would not be like one of them. And besides, Stella and her husband would laugh and make jokes in bad taste and hold up the Rector to the laughter of the regiment, which would not be fair though Katherine was so angry with him. When she had finished her letter she returned to the flowers, and finally arranged them as she had intended to do long ago. And then she went and stood for a long time at the window watching the snow falling. It was very dull to see nobody, to be alone, all alone, for all these hours. There was a new novel fresh from Mudie’s on the table, which was always something to look forward to; but even a novel is but a poor substitute for society when you have been so shaken and put out of your assiette as Katherine had been by a personal incident. Would she have told anyone if anyone had come? She said to herself, “No, certainly not.” But as she was still thrilling and throbbing all over, and felt it almost impossible to keep still, I cannot feel so sure as she was that she would not have followed a multitude to do evil, and betrayed her suitor’s secret by way of relieving her own mind. But I am sure that she would have felt very sorry had she done so as soon as the words were out of her mouth.

She had seated herself by the fire and taken up her novel, not with the content and pleasure which a well-conditioned girl ought to exhibit at the sight of a new story in three volumes (in which form it is always most welcome, according to my old-fashioned ideas) and a long afternoon to enjoy it in, but still with resignation and a pulse beating more quietly—when there arose sounds which indicated a visit after all. Katherine listened eagerly, then subsided as the footsteps and voices faded again, going off to the other end of the house.

“Dr. Burnet to see papa,” she said half with relief, half with expectation. She had no desire to see Dr. Burnet. She could not certainly to him breathe the faintest sigh of a revelation, or relieve her mind by the most distant hint of anything that had happened. Still, he was somebody. It was rather agreeable to give him tea. The bread and butter disappeared so quickly, and it had come to be such a familiar operation to watch those strong white teeth getting through it. Certainly he had wonderful teeth. Katherine gave but a half attention to her book, listening to the sounds in the house. Her father’s door closed, he had gone in, and then after a while the bell rang and the footsteps became audible once more in the corridor. She closed her book upon her hand wondering if he would come this way, or—— He was coming this way! She pushed her chair away from the hearth, feeling that, what with the past excitement and the glow of the fire, her cheeks were ablaze.

But Dr. Burnet did not seem to see this when he came in. She had gone to the window by that time to look out again upon the falling snow. It was falling, falling, silent and white and soft, in large flakes like feathers, or rather like white swan’s down. He joined her there and they stood looking at it together, and saying to each other how it seemed to close round the house and wrap everything up as in a downy mantle.

“I like to see it,” the doctor said, “which is very babyish, I know. I like to see that flutter in the air and the great soft flakes dilating as they fall. But it puts a great stop to everything. You have had no visitors, I suppose, to-day?”