“As if I were such a goose!” cried Milly. “But she must be so old—so old! Mamma would not mind.”
This discovery, or supposed discovery, relieved them from the nervous alarm and misery which was beginning to overpower them. After a while they even laughed softly under their breath. Papa’s old, old love affair, though it was interesting and even touching, as a relic of the ancient ages, was yet more or less amusing too. They put back the scrap of paper along with all the big, imposing letters, which were so much more pretentious, but which it was very evident their father had not been nearly so much interested by. They liked him for going there first of all: and then they permitted themselves a little laugh.
“I dare say,” said Grace, “they were quite young when they were parted. How strange it must be to meet after so many years! One reads of it in books sometimes. I wonder if he will take us to see her. I should think she would like to see us—if she is nice,” she added with a little hesitation.
“She must be nice,” said Milly, “or he would not have remembered all these years, and gone to see her the very first minute. I wonder if mamma would be angry, Grace? I wonder if she is married too?”
“Oh, no, no!” cried Grace, decidedly. “Men may do that, but not women. You may be sure she has lived all the time—oh, not making herself unhappy—but always faithful! She will be good; she will do all sorts of things for people; but marry—no! I hope he will take us to see her. It is like England. It is what I have always thought of England. People are so faithful here. Not changing about, not always looking for something new. I do hope he will take us to see her, Milly.”
“I suppose mamma would have no objection,” said Milly, her mind somewhat divided on the subject.
They exhausted this new theme, looking at it from every side. And at last, much more cheerful—having, indeed, to exercise restraint upon themselves not to chatter too much as they passed their father’s door, and perhaps disturb him—they went to bed, no longer thinking it so dismal. This hypothesis, which was built upon so slight a foundation, was on the whole the most amusing and the most interesting suggestion that had ever yet entered their minds in respect to papa.
[CHAPTER IV]
ROBERT YORKE had gone to Canada about thirty years before the beginning of this history. He was then a robust young man of about twenty-five, a great athlete, and bringing from “home” all that science in cricket and other cognate sports which people out there are proud to think is the inheritance of every Englishman. He had begun in a very humble way, without introductions or recommendations of any sort—a thing which made the first steps of his course both slow and difficult; but besides being a gentleman, which is a thing never without effect, he was a young fellow of resolution and self-control, and there is no disadvantage in the world which will stand against those qualities. He made his way slowly, but very surely, always working upward. He was a man whom people could not fail to note wherever he went, a man who was loved and hated, or at least vehemently disliked: the mild approval of indifference never was his. Perhaps it might even be said that the majority of people disliked the man. He was not conciliatory. He was very silent, very reserved, so reserved that his wife even knew nothing about him, where he came from, who were his relations, or if he had any. On the other side of the Atlantic a man is permitted to be the son of his own actions. Where there are so many new people there are not the same researches into the antecedents of a candidate for social acceptance, as are common among us. He did not belong to a Canadian family, but was entirely a new man; and he was not enquired into. Any rash person who attempted to do so made little by his motion. Such anxious inquirers as ventured to put the question to him, whether he belonged to the Yorkes of Hardwicke, or any other great family of the name, were met with a stern and simple negative which made an end of them. “No,” he would say, with a perfectly blank countenance, and remain silent, defying further inquiry. When a man is married, then is the moment for investigations; but though Yorke married into a very good family, a family which had been settled in Canada for at least three generations—which is something like coming in with the Conqueror—he would seem to have successfully resisted all attempts to make him give an account of himself. He said shortly that he had “no relations” to the inquiries of his parents-in-law. It is not to be denied that they disliked this at first; but finding that no better was to be made of it, they reflected that it was rather a recommendation to a husband in some cases, and permitted the marriage. Mrs Yorke was about ten years younger than her husband, still a pretty woman, as she had a good right to be, having had neither cares nor troubles to deepen the genial lines, or engrave a single wrinkle on her pleasant countenance. She had never been required to think of anything beyond the needs of her household. Her mind was as fresh as her face. Though she was a great authority to her children, and knew exactly what to do in household emergencies, and how to take care of them all when anything was the matter with them—and even how to manage her husband when he had one of his bad colds—she had never had any harder intercourse with life. All went smoothly with her in its bigger affairs. She had everything that heart could desire—according to her position in life.
That position was very different in Canada from what it would have been at home. Here, in this old island, we ordinary folks, who modestly call ourselves ladies and gentlemen without aspiring to rank or greatness, are quite aware that we are out of the way of Princes and Princesses, and Secretaries of State. When we go to London, even if we may have arranged a royal entry into our special burgh, or been “of use” to a wandering Prince, it never occurs to us that the Princess will have heard of our arrival in town, and will forthwith ask us to tea. But on the other side of the Atlantic things are different, and to be in the best society, to be in the way of meeting, and even entertaining all the illustrious wanderers of the earth, it is not necessary to be very rich or great. Your position in life does not depend upon money, but upon many things that are little taken into account in more formal society—upon energy and civic services, and even sometimes upon that faculty of keeping in the front of affairs which many people who have no other merit possess, and which tells everywhere, more or less. The Yorkes were not overwhelmingly rich. He had not made a colossal fortune; but, on the other hand, his expenses were moderate. And without living at all splendidly, or with any ostentation of wealth, it was recognised that they were to be reckoned among the best people. They lived that kind of life which to many people appears, or did once appear, an ideal existence—a life of domestic comfort, of homely wealth, and family companionship: in which Cowper’s picture of the close-drawn curtains, the blazing fire, the hissing tea-urn was realised continually, with all the warm family adoration and mutual knowledge, and also, perhaps, something of the narrowness and sense of superior virtue which that ideal implies. The Yorkes living thus quite simply and domestically, parents and children together, had a position which people possessing six times their income, and living ten times as expensively, would not have had in England. They kept no more than one homely little carriage of all work, and were served in-doors by maidservants; but, notwithstanding, they were among “the best people,” and were not afraid to offer their simple hospitality, in happy ignorance of its want of splendour, to all the strangers who pleased them, and sometimes, among these, to very great people indeed.