Tales from Blackwood Volume Iv Part 21

"I will, Hawthorne, I will try; but oh, I have so much to think of!"

Distressed and anxious, I could only take my leave of him for the present, feeling how much there was, indeed, in his circ.u.mstances to make rest even more necessary, and more difficult to obtain, for the mind than for the body.

I had returned to the sitting-room, and was endeavouring to give as hopeful answers as I could to Miss Russell's anxious inquiries as to what I thought of her brother, when a card was brought up, with a message that Mr Ormiston was below, and "would be very glad if he could see Miss Russell for a few moments, at any hour she would mention, in the course of the day."

Ormiston! I started, I really did not know why. Miss Russell started also, visibly; did she know why? Her back was turned to me at the moment; she had moved, perhaps intentionally, the moment the message became intelligible, so that I had no opportunity of watching the effect it produced, which I confess I had an irrepressible anxiety to do. She was silent until I felt my position becoming awkward: I was rising to take leave, which perhaps would have made hers even more so, when, half turning round towards me, with a tone and gesture almost of command, she said, "Stay!" and then, in reply to the servant, who was still waiting, "Ask Mr Ormiston to walk up."

I felt the few moments of expectation which ensued to be insufferably embarra.s.sing. I tried to persuade myself it was my own folly to think them so. Why should Ormiston _not_ call at the Russells, under such circ.u.mstances? As college tutor, he stood almost in the relation of a natural guardian to Russell; had he not at least as much right to a.s.sume the privilege of a friend of the family as I had, with the additional argument, that he was likely to be much more useful in that capacity? He had known them longer, at all events, and any little coolness between the brother and himself was not a matter, I felt persuaded, to be remembered by him at such a moment, or to induce any false punctilio which might stand in the way of his offering his sympathy and a.s.sistance when required. But the impression on my mind was strong--stronger, perhaps, than any facts within my knowledge fairly warranted--that between Ormiston and Mary Russell there either was, or had been, some feeling which, whether acknowledged or unacknowledged--whether reciprocal or on one side only--whether crushed by any of those thousand crosses to which such feelings, fragile as they are precious, are liable, or only repressed by circ.u.mstances and awaiting its development--would make their meeting under such circ.u.mstances not that of ordinary acquaintances. And once again I rose, and would have gone; but again Mary Russell's sweet voice--and this time it was an accent of almost piteous entreaty, so melted and subdued were its tones, as if her spirit was failing her--begged me to remain--"I have something--something to consult you about--my brother."

She stopped, for Ormiston's step was at the door. I had naturally--not from any ungenerous curiosity to scan her feelings--raised my eyes to her countenance while she spoke to me, and could not but mark that her emotion amounted almost to agony. Ormiston entered: whatever his feelings were, he concealed them well; not so readily, however, could he suppress his evident astonishment, and almost as evident vexation, when he first noticed my presence: an actor in the drama for whose appearance he was manifestly unprepared. He approached Miss Russell, who never moved, with some words of ordinary salutation, but uttered in a low and earnest tone, and offered his hand, which she took at once, without any audible reply. Then turning to me, he asked if Russell were any better?

I answered somewhat indefinitely, and Miss Russell, to whom he turned as for a reply, shook her head, and, sinking into a chair, hid her face in her hands. Ormiston took a seat close by her, and after a pause of a moment said,

"I trust your very natural anxiety for your brother makes you inclined to antic.i.p.ate more danger than really exists, Miss Russell: but I have to explain my own intrusion upon you at such a moment"--and he gave me a glance which was meant to be searching--"I called by the particular request of the Princ.i.p.al, Dr Meredith."

Miss Russell could venture upon no answer, and he went on, speaking somewhat hurriedly and with embarra.s.sment.

"Mrs Meredith has been from home some days, and the Princ.i.p.al himself has the gout severely; he feared you might think it unkind their not having called, and he begged me to be his deputy. Indeed he insisted on my seeing you in person, to express his very sincere concern for your brother's illness, and to beg that you will so far honour him--consider him sufficiently your friend, he said--as to send to his house for anything which Russell could either want or fancy, which, in lodgings, there might be some difficulty in finding at hand. In one respect, Miss Russell," continued Ormiston in somewhat a more cheerful tone, "your brother is fortunate in not being laid up within the college walls; we are not very good nurses there, as Hawthorne can tell you, though we do what we can; yet I much fear this watching and anxiety have been too much for you."

Her tears began to flow freely; there was nothing in Ormiston's words, but their tone implied deep feeling. Yet who, however indifferent, could look upon her helpless situation, and not be moved? I walked to the window, feeling terribly out of place where I was, yet uncertain whether to go or stay: for my own personal comfort, I would sooner have faced the collected anger of a whole common-room, called to investigate my particular misdemeanours; but to take leave at this moment seemed as awkward as to stay; besides, had not Miss Russell appeared almost imploringly anxious for me to spare her a _tete-a-tete_?

"My poor brother is very, very ill, Mr Ormiston," she said at last, raising her face, from which every trace of colour had again disappeared, and which seemed now as calm as ever. "Will you thank Dr Meredith for me, and say I will without hesitation avail myself of his most kind offers, if anything should occur to make his a.s.sistance necessary."

"I can be of no use myself in any way?" said Ormiston with some hesitation.

"I thank you, no," she replied; and then, as if conscious that her tone was cold, she added--"You are very kind: Mr Hawthorne was good enough to say the same. Every one is very kind to us, indeed; but"--and here she stopped again, her emotion threatening to master her; and Ormiston and myself simultaneously took our leave.

Preoccupied as my mind had been by anxiety on Russell's account, it did not prevent a feeling of awkwardness when I found myself alone with Mr Ormiston outside the door of his lodgings. It was impossible to devise any excuse at the moment for turning off in a different direction, as I felt very much inclined to do; for the little street in which he lived was not much of a thoroughfare. The natural route for both of us to take was that which led towards the High Street, for a few hundred steps the other way would have brought us out into the country, where it is not usual for either tutors or undergraduates to promenade in cap and gown, as they do, to the great admiration of the rustics, in our sister university. We walked on together, therefore, feeling--I will answer at least for one of us--that it would be an especial relief just then to meet the greatest bore with whom we had any pretence of a speaking acquaintance, or pa.s.s any shop in which we could frame the most threadbare excuse of having business, to cut short the embarra.s.sment of each other's company. After quitting any scene in which deep feelings have been displayed, and in which our own have been not slightly interested, it is painful to feel called upon to make any comment on what has pa.s.sed; we feel ashamed to do so in the strain and tone which would betray our own emotion, and we have not the heart to do so carelessly or indifferently. I should have felt this, even had I been sure that Ormiston's feelings towards Mary Russell had been nothing more than my own; whereas, in fact, I was almost sure of the contrary; in which case it was possible that, in his eyes, my own _locus standi_ in that quarter, surprised as I had been in an apparently very confidential interview, might seem to require some explanation which would be indelicate to ask for directly, and which it might not mend matters if I were to give indirectly without being asked. So we proceeded some paces up the little quiet street, gravely and silently, neither of us speaking a word. At last Ormiston asked me if I had seen Russell, and how I thought him? adding, without waiting for a reply, "Dr Wilson, I fear from what he told me, thinks but badly of him."

"I am very sorry to hear you say so," I replied; and then ventured to remark how very wretched it would be for his sister in the event of his growing worse, to be left at such a time so utterly helpless and alone.

He was silent for some moments. "Some of her friends," he said at last, "ought to come down; she must have friends, I know, who would come if they were sent for. I wish Mrs Meredith were returned--she might advise her."

He spoke rather in a soliloquy than as addressing me, and I did not feel called upon to make any answer. The next moment we arrived at the turn of the street, and, by what seemed a mutual impulse, wished each other good morning.

I went straight down to Smith's rooms, at ----Hall, to get him to come and dine with me; for I pitied the poor fellow's forlorn condition, and considered myself in some degree bound to supply Russell's place towards him. A Bible-clerk's position in the University is always more or less one of mortification and constraint. It is true that the same academical degree, the same honours--if he can obtain them--the same position in after life--all the solid advantages of a University education, are open to him, as to other men; but, so long as his undergraduates.h.i.+p lasts, he stands in a very different position from other men, and he feels it--feels it, too, through three or four of those years of life when such feelings are most acute, and when that strength of mind which is the only antidote--which can measure men by themselves and not by their accidents--is not as yet matured either in himself or in the society of which he becomes a member. If, indeed, he be a decidedly clever man, and has the opportunity early in his career of showing himself to be such, then there is good sense and good feeling enough--let us say, to the honour of the University, there is sufficient of that true _esprit du corps_, a real consciousness of the great objects for which men are thus brought together--to insure the acknowledgment from all but the most unworthy of its members, that a scholar is always a gentleman. But if he be a man of only moderate abilities, and known only as a Bible-clerk, then, the more he is of a gentleman by birth and education, the more painful does his position generally become. There are not above two or three in residence in most colleges, and their society is confined almost wholly to themselves. Some old schoolfellow, indeed, or some man who "knows him at home," holding an independent rank in college, may occasionally venture upon the condescension of asking him to wine--even to meet a friend or two with whom he can take such a liberty; and even then, the gnawing consciousness that he is considered an inferior--though not treated as such--makes it a questionable act of kindness. Among the two or three of his own table, one is the son of a college butler, another has been for years usher at a preparatory school; he treats them with civility, they treat him with deference; but they have no tastes or feelings in common. At an age, therefore, which most of all seeks and requires companions.h.i.+p, he has no companions; and the period of life which should be the most joyous, becomes to him almost a purgatory. Of course the radical and the leveller will say at once, "Ay, this comes of your aristocratic distinctions; they ought not to be allowed in universities at all." Not so: it comes of human nature; the distinction between a dependent and an independent position will always be felt in all societies, mark it outwardly as little as you will. Humiliation, more or less, is a penalty which poverty must always pay. These humbler offices in the University were founded by a charity as wise as benevolent, which has afforded to hundreds of men of talent, but of humble means, an education equal to that of the highest n.o.ble in the land, and, in consequence, a position and usefulness in after life which otherwise they could never have hoped for. And if the somewhat servile tenure by which they are held (which in late years has in most colleges been very much relaxed) were wholly done away with, there is reason to fear the charity of the founders would be liable to continual abuse, by their being bestowed upon many who required no such a.s.sistance. As it is, this occurs too often; and it is much to be desired that the same regulations were followed in their distribution throughout the University, which some colleges have long most properly adopted: namely, that the appointment should be bestowed on the successful candidate after examination, strict regard being had to the circ.u.mstances of all the parties before they are allowed to offer themselves. It would make their position far more definite and respectable, because all would then be considered honourable to a certain degree, as being the reward of merit; instead of which, too often, they are convenient items of patronage in the hands of the Princ.i.p.al and Fellows, the nomination to them depending on private interest, which, by no means insuring the nominee's being a gentleman by birth, while it is wholly careless of his being a scholar by education, tends to lower the general standing of the order in the University.

This struck me forcibly in Smith's case. Poor fellow! with an excellent heart and a great deal of sound common sense, he had neither the breeding nor the talent to make a gentleman of. I doubt if an university education was any real boon to him. It insured him four years of hard work--harder, perhaps, than if he had sat at a desk all the time--without the society of any of his own cla.s.s and habits, and with the prospect of very little remuneration ultimately. I think he might have been very happy in his own sphere, and I do not see how he could be happy at Oxford. And whether he or the world in general ever profited much by the B.A. which he eventually attached to his name, is a point at least doubtful.

I could not get him to come and dine with me in my own college. He knew his own position, as it seemed, and was not ashamed of it; in fact, in his case, it could not involve any consciousness of degradation; and I am sure his only reason for refusing my invitations of that kind was, that he thought it possible my dignity might be compromised by so open an a.s.sociation with him. He would come over to my rooms in the evening to tea, he said; and he came accordingly. When I told him in the morning that Russell had inquired very kindly after him, he was much affected; but it had evidently been a comfort to him to feel that he was not forgotten, and during the hour or two which we spent together in the evening, he seemed much more cheerful.

"Perhaps they will let me see him to-morrow, if he is better?" he said, with an appealing look to me. I a.s.sured him I would mention his wish to Russell, and his countenance at once brightened up, as if he thought only his presence were needed to insure our friend's recovery.

But the next morning all our hopes were dashed again; delirium had returned, as had been feared, and the feverish symptoms seemed to gain strength rather than abate. Bleeding and other usual remedies had been had recourse to already to a perilous extent, and in Russell's present reduced state, no further treatment of the kind could be ventured upon.

"All we can do now, sir," said Dr Wilson, "is little more than to let nature take her course. I _have known_ such cases recover." I did not ask to see Mary Russell that day; for what could I have answered to her fears and inquiries? But I thought of Ormiston's words; surely she ought to have some friend--some one of her own family, or some known and tried companion of her own s.e.x, would surely come to her at a moment's notice, did they but know of her trying situation. If--if her brother were to die--she surely would not be left here among strangers, quite alone? Yet I much feared, from what had escaped him at our last interview, that they had both incurred the charge of wilfulness in refusing offers of a.s.sistance at the time of their father's disgrace and flight, and that having, contrary to the advice of their friends, and perhaps imprudently, taken the step they had done in coming to Oxford, Mary Russell, with something of her brother's spirit, had made up her mind now, however heavy and unforeseen the blow that was to fall, to suffer all in solitude and silence. For Ormiston, too, I felt with an interest and intensity that was hourly increasing. I met him after morning chapel, and though he appeared intentionally to avoid any conversation with me, I knew by his countenance that he had heard the unfavourable news of the morning; and it could be no common emotion that had left its visible trace upon features usually so calm and impa.s.sible.

From thoughts of this nature, indulged in the not very appropriate locality of the centre of the quadrangle, I was roused by the good-humoured voice of Mrs Meredith--"our governess," as we used to call her--who, with the Doctor himself, was just then entering the college, and found me right in the line of her movements towards the door of "the lodgings." I was not until that moment aware of her return, and altogether was considerably startled as she addressed me with--"Oh! how do you do, Mr Hawthorne? You young gentlemen don't take care of yourselves, you see, when I am away--I am so sorry to hear this about poor Mr Russell. Is he so very ill? Dr Meredith is just going to see him."

I coloured up, I dare say, for it was a trick I was given to in those days, and, in the confusion, replied rather to my own thoughts than to Mrs Meredith's question.

"Mrs Meredith! I really beg your pardon," I first stammered out as a very necessary apology, for I had nearly stumbled over her--"May I say how very glad I am you are returned, on Miss Russell's account--I am sure"----

"Really, Mr Hawthorne, it is very natural I suppose, but you gentlemen seem to expend your whole sympathy upon the young lady, and forget the brother altogether! Mr Ormiston actually took the trouble to write to me about her"----

"My dear!" interposed the Princ.i.p.al.

"Nay, Dr Meredith, see how guilty Mr Hawthorne looks! and as to Mr Ormiston"---- "Well, never mind" (the Doctor was visibly checking his lady's volubility), "I love the poor dear girl so much myself, that I am really grieved to the heart for her. I shall go down and see her directly, and make her keep up her spirits. Dr Wilson is apt to make out all the bad symptoms he can--I shall try if I can cure Mr Russell myself, after all; a little proper nursing in those cases is worth a whole staff of doctors--and, as to this poor girl, what can she know about it? I dare say she sits crying her eyes out, poor thing, and doing nothing--_I'll_ see about it. Why, I wouldn't lose Mr Russell from the college for half the young men in it--would I, Dr Meredith?"

I bowed, and they pa.s.sed on. Mrs Princ.i.p.al, if somewhat pompous occasionally, was a kind-hearted woman. I believe an hour scarcely elapsed after her return to Oxford, before she was in Russell's lodgings, ordering everything about as coolly as if it were in her own house, and all but insisting on seeing the patient and prescribing herself for him, in spite of all professional injunctions to the contrary. The delirium pa.s.sed off again, and though it left Russell sensibly weaker, so weak, that when I next was admitted to see him with Smith, he could do little more than feebly grasp our hands, yet the fever was evidently abated; and in the course of the next day, whether it was to be attributed to the remedies originally used, or to his own youth and good const.i.tution, or to Mrs Meredith's experienced directions in the way of nursing, and the cheerful spirit which that good lady, in spite of a little fussiness, succeeded generally in producing around her, there was a decided promise of amendment, which happily each succeeding hour tended gradually to fulfil. Ormiston had been unremitting in his inquiries; but I believe had never since sought an interview either with the brother or sister. I took advantage of the first conversation Russell was able to hold with me, to mention how very sincerely I believed him to have felt the interest he expressed. A moment afterwards I felt almost sorry I had mentioned the name--it was the first time I had done so during Russell's illness. He almost started up in bed, and his face glowed again with more than the flush of fever, as he caught up my words.

"Sincere, did you say? Ormiston sincere! You don't know the man as I do.

Inquired here, did he? What right has he to intrude his"----

"Hush, my dear Russell," I interposed, really almost alarmed at his violence. "Pray, don't excite yourself--I think you do him great injustice; but we will drop the subject, if you please."

"I tell you, Hawthorne, if you knew all, you would despise him as much as I do."

It is foolish to argue with an invalid--but really even my friends.h.i.+p for Russell would not allow me to bear in silence an attack so unjustifiable, as it seemed to me, on the character of a man who had every claim to my grat.i.tude and respect. I replied therefore somewhat incautiously, that perhaps I did know a little more than Russell suspected.

He stared at me with a look of bewilderment. "What do you know?" he asked quickly.

It was too late to hesitate or retract. I had started an unfortunate subject; but I knew Russell too well to endeavour now to mislead him. "I have no right perhaps to say I know anything; but I have gathered from Ormiston's manner, that he has very strong reasons for the anxiety he has shown on your account. I will not say more."

"And how do you know this? Has Mr Ormiston dared"----

"No, no, Russell," said I, earnestly; "see how unjust you are, in this instance." I wished to say something to calm him, and it would have been worse than useless to say anything but the truth. I saw he guessed to what I alluded; and I gave him briefly my reasons for what I thought, not concealing the interview with his sister, at which I had unintentionally been present.

It was a very painful scene. When he first understood that Ormiston had sought the meeting, his temper, usually calm, but perhaps now tried by such long hours of pain and heaviness, broke out with bitter expressions against both. I told him, shortly and warmly, that such remarks towards his sister were unmanly and unkind; and then he cried, like a chidden and penitent child, till his remorse was as painful to look upon as his pa.s.sion. "Mary! my own Mary! even you, Hawthorne, know and feel her value better than I do! I for whom she has borne so much."

"I am much mistaken," said I, "if Ormiston has not learned to appreciate her even yet more truly. And why not?"

"Leave me now," he said; "I am not strong enough to talk; but if you wish to know what cause I have to speak as I have done of your friend Ormiston, you shall hear again."

So exhausted did he seem by the excess of feeling which I had so unfortunately called forth, that I would not see him again for some days, contenting myself with learning that no relapse had taken place, and that he was still progressing rapidly towards recovery.

I had an invitation to visit my aunt again during the Easter vacation, which had already commenced, and had only been prevented from leaving Oxford by Russell's alarming state. As soon, therefore, as all danger was p.r.o.nounced over, I prepared to go up to town at once, and my next visit to Russell was in fact to wish him good-by for two or three weeks.

He was already sitting up, and fast regaining strength. He complained of having seen so little of me lately, and asked me if I had seen his sister. "I had not noticed it until the last few days," he said--"illness makes one selfish, I suppose; but I think Mary looks thin and ill--very different from what she did a month back."

But watching and anxiety, as I told him, were not unlikely to produce that effect; and I advised him strongly to take her somewhere for a few weeks for change of air and scene. "It will do you both good," I said; "and you can draw another 50 from your unknown friend for that purpose; it cannot be better applied, and I should not hesitate for a moment."

"I would not," he replied, "if I wanted money; but I do not. Do you know that Dr Wilson would take no fee whatever from Mary during the whole of his attendance; and when I asked him to name some sufficient remuneration, a.s.suring him I could afford it, he said he would never forgive me if I ever mentioned the subject again. So what remains of the fifty you drew for me, will amply suffice for a little trip somewhere for us. And I quite agree with you in thinking it desirable, on every account, that Mary should move from Oxford--perhaps altogether--for one reason, to be out of the way of a friend of yours."

"Ormiston?"

"Yes, Ormiston; he called here again since I saw you, and wished to see me; but I declined the honour. Possibly," he added bitterly, "as we have succeeded in keeping out of jail here, he thinks Mary has grown rich again." And then he went on to tell me how, in the days of his father's reputed wealth, Ormiston had been a constant visitor at their house in town, and how his attentions to his sister had even attracted his father's attention, and led to his name being mentioned as likely to make an excellent match with the rich banker's daughter. "My father did not like it," he said, "for he had higher views for her, as was perhaps excusable--though I doubt if he would have refused Mary anything. I did not like it for another reason: because I knew all the time how matters really stood, and that any man who looked for wealth with my sister would in the end be miserably disappointed. What Mary's own feelings were, and what actually pa.s.sed between her and Ormiston, I never asked; but she knew my views on the subject, and would, I am certain, never have accepted any man under the circ.u.mstances in which she was placed, and which she could not explain. I did hope and believe, however, then, that there was sufficient high principle about Ormiston to save Mary from any risk of throwing away her heart upon a man who would desert her upon a change of fortune. I think he loved her at the time--as well as such men as he can love any one; but from the moment the crash came--Ormiston, you know, was in town at the time--there was an end of everything. It was an opportunity for a man to show feeling if he had any; and though I do not affect much romance, I almost think that in such a case even an ordinary heart might have been warmed into devotion; but Ormiston--cold, cautious, calculating as he is--I could almost have laughed at the sudden change that came over him when he heard the news.

He pretended, indeed, great interest for us, and certainly did seem cut up about it; but he had not committed himself, I conclude, and took care to retreat in time. Thank Heaven! even if Mary did ever care for him, she is not the girl to break her heart for a man who proves so unworthy of her regard. But why he should insist on inflicting his visits upon us now, is what I cannot make out; and what I will not endure."

I listened with grief and surprise. I knew well that not even the strong prejudice which I believed Russell to have always felt against Ormiston, would tempt him to be guilty of misrepresentation; and, again, I gave him credit for too much penetration to have been easily deceived. Yet I could not bring myself all at once to think so ill of Ormiston. He had always been considered in pecuniary matters liberal almost to a fault; that he really loved Mary Russell, I felt more than ever persuaded; and, at my age, it was hard to believe that a few thousand pounds could affect any man's decision in such a point, even for a moment. Why, the very fact of her being poor and friendless was enough to make one fall in love with such a girl at once! So when Russell, after watching the effect of his disclosure, misconstruing my silence, proceeded to ask somewhat triumphantly--"_Now_, what say you of Mr Ormiston?"--I answered at once, that I was strongly convinced there was a mistake.

"Ay," rejoined he with a sneering laugh; "on Ormiston's part, you mean; decidedly there was."