Weighed and Wanting Part 27

"That only reveals how little you know about such things, my love! You could no more hide it from the eyes of your mother than you could a husband."

"Such things have been hid before now, mamma! And yet why should a woman ever hide anything? I must think about that! From one's own mother? No; when I am dying of love, you shall know, mamma. But it won't be to-morrow or the next day."

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

THE MAJOR AND COUSIN HELEN'S BOYS.

The major was in no haste to leave, but he spent most of his time with Mark, and was in n.o.body's way. Mark was very happy with the major. The nature of the man was so childlike that, although he knew little of the deep things in which Mark was at home, his presence was never an interruption to the child's thoughts; and when the boy made a remark in the upward direction, he would look so grave, and hold such a peace that the child never missed the lacking words of response. Who knows what the man may not have gained even from silent communication with the child!

One day he was telling the boy how he had been out alone on a desolate hill all night; how he heard the beasts roaring round him, and not one of them came near him. "Did you see _him_?" asked Mark.

"See who, sonny?" returned the major.

"The one between you and them," answered Mark in a subdued tone; and from the tone the major understood.

"No," he answered; and taking into his the spirit of the child, went on.

"I don't think any one sees him now-a-days."

"Isn't it a pity?" said Mark. Then after a thoughtful pause, he resumed: "Well, not see him just with your eyes, you know! But old Jonathan at the cottage--he has got no eyes--at least none to speak of, for they're no good to see with--he always speaks of seeing the people he has been talking with--and in a way he does see them, don't you think? But I fancy sometimes I must have seen _him_ with my very eyes when I was young: and that's why I keep always expecting to see him again--some day, you know--some day. Don't you think I shall, Majie?"

"I hope so, indeed, Mark! It would be a bad job if we were never to see him!" he added, suddenly struck with a feeling he had never had before.

"Yes, indeed; that it would!" responded the child. "Why, where would be the good of it all, you know! That's what we came here for--ain't it?

G.o.d calls children--I know he calls some, for he said, 'Samuel! Samuel!'

I wish he would call me!"

"What would you say?" asked the major.

"I would say--' Here I am, G.o.d! What is it?' We musn't keep G.o.d waiting, you know!"

The major felt, like Wordsworth with the leech-gatherer, that the child was there to give him "apt admonishment." Could G.o.d have ever called him and he not have listened? Of course it was all a fancy! And yet as he looked at the child, and met his simple believing eyes, he felt he had been a great sinner, and the best things he had done were not fit to be looked at. Happily there were no conventional religious phrases in the mouth of the child to repel him; his father and mother had a horror of pharisaic Christianity: I use the word _pharisaic_ in its true sense--as _formal_, not as _hypocritical_. They had both seen in their youth too many religious prigs to endure temple-whitewash on their children. Except what they heard at church, hardly a special religious phrase ever entered their ears. Those of the New Testament were avoided from reverence, lest they should grow common and fail of their purpose when the children read them for themselves. "But if this succeeded with Hester and Mark, how with Cornelius?" I answer, if to that youth's education had been added the common _forms_ of a religious one, he would have been--not perhaps a worse fellow, but a far more offensive one, and harder to influence for good. Inclined to scoff, he would have had the religious material for jest and ribaldry ready to his hand; while if he had wanted to start as a hypocrite, it would have been specially easy. The true teaching for children is persons, history and doctrine in the old sense of the New Testament--instruction in righteousness, that is--not human theory about divine facts.

The major was still at Yrndale, when, in the gloomy month to which for reasons he had s.h.i.+fted his holiday, Cornelius arrived. The major could hardly accept him as one of the family, so utterly inferior did he show.

There was a kind of mean beauty about his face and person and an evident varnish on his manners which revolted him. "That lad will bring grief on them!" he said to himself. He was more than usually polite to the major: he was in the army, the goal of his aspiration! but he laughed at what he called his vulgarity in private, and delighted to annoy Hester with remarks upon her "ancient adorer." Because he prized nothing of the kind, he could see nothing of his essential worth, and took note merely of his blunders, personal ways and oddities. The major was not properly vulgar, only ill-bred: he had not had a sharp enough mother, jealous for the good manners as well as good behaviour of her boy. There are many ladylike mothers--ladylike because their mothers were ladies and taught them to behave like ladies, whose children do not turn out ladies and gentlemen because they do not teach them as they were taught themselves.

Cornelius had been taught--and had learned nothing but manners. He was vulgar with a vulgarity that went miles deeper than that of the major.

The major would have been sorry to find he had hurt the feelings of a dog; Cornelius would have whistled on learning that he had hurt the feelings of a woman. If the major was a clown, Cornelius was a cad. The one was capable of genuine sympathy; the other not yet of any. The latter loved his own paltry self, counting it the most precious thing in creation; the former was conceited it is true, but had no lofty opinion of himself. Hence it was that he thought so much of his small successes.

His boasting of them was mainly an uneasy effort at establis.h.i.+ng himself comfortably in his own eyes and the eyes of friends. It was little more than a dog's turning of himself round and round before he lies down.

He knew they were small things of which he boasted but he had no other, and scorned to invent: his great things, those in which he had shown himself a true and generous man, he looked on as matters of course, nor recognized anything in them worth thinking of. He was not a great man, but had elements of greatness; he had no vision of truth, but obeyed his moral instincts: when those should blossom into true intents, as one day they must, he would be a great man. As yet he was not safe. But how blessed a thing that G.o.d will judge us and man shall not! Where we see no difference, he sees ages of difference. The very thing that looks to us for condemnation may to the eyes of G.o.d show in its heart ground of excuse, yea, of partial justification. Only G.o.d's excuse is, I suspect, seldom coincident with the excuse a man makes for himself. If any one thinks that G.o.d will not search closely into things, I say there could not be such a G.o.d. He will see the uttermost farthing paid. His excuses are as just as his condemnations.

In respect of Cornelius the major was more careful than usual not to make himself disagreeable, for his feelings put him on his guard: there are not a few who behave better to those they do not like than to those they do. He thus flattered, without intending it, the vanity of the youth, who did not therefore spare his criticism behind his back. Hester usually answered in his defence, but sometimes would not condescend to justify him to such an accuser. One day she lost her temper with her beam-eyed brother. "Cornelius, the major may have his faults," she said, "but you are not the man to find them out. He is ten times the gentleman you are. I say it deliberately, and with all my soul!" As she began this speech, the major entered the room, but she did not see him. He asked Cornelius to go with him for a walk. Hoping he had only just come in, but a little anxious, Cornelius agreed, and as they walked behaved better than he had ever done before--till he had persuaded himself that the major had heard nothing, when he speedily relapsed into his former manner--one of condescension and thin offence to nearly every one about him. But all the time the major was studying him, and saw into him deeper than his mother or Hester--descried a certain furtive anxiety in the youth's eyes when he was silent, an unrest as of trouble he would not show. "The rascal has been doing something wrong," he said to himself; "he is afraid of being found out! And found out he is sure to be; he has not the brains to hide a thing! It's not murder--he ain't got the pluck for that; but it may be petty larceny!"

The weeks went on. Cornelius's month wore out, but he seemed restless for it to be gone, making no response to the lamentations of the children that Christmas was so near, and their new home such a grand one for keeping it in, and Corney not to be with them! He did not show them much kindness, but a little went a great way with them, and they loved him.

"Mind you're well, before I come again, Markie," he said as he took his leave; "you're not a pleasant sight moping about the house!" The tears came in the child's eyes. He was not moping--only weakly and even when looking a little sad, was quite happy.

"I don't think I mope, Hessy--do I?" he said. "What does Corney mean? I don't want to do what ain't nice. I want to be pleasant!"

"Never mind, Markie dear," answered Hester; "it's only that you are not very strong--not up to a game of romps as you used to be. You will be merry again one day."

"I am merry enough," replied Mark; "only somehow the merry goes all about inside me, and don't want to come out--like the little bird, you know, that wouldn't go out of its cage though I left the door open for it. I suppose it felt just like me. I don't care if I never go out of the house again."

He was indeed happy enough--more than happy when _Majie_ was there.

They would be together most days all day long. And the amount of stories Mark, with all his contemplativeness could swallow, was amazing. That may be good food which cannot give life. But the family-party was soon to be broken up--not by subtraction, but by addition. The presence of the major had done nothing to spoil the homeness of home, but it was now for a time to be set aside.

There is something wrong with anyone who, entering a house of any kind, makes it less of a home. The angel-stranger makes the children of a house more aware of their home; they delight in showing it to him, for he takes interest in all that belongs to the family-life--the only blessed life in heaven or upon earth, and sees the things as the children see them. But the stranger of this world makes the very home by his presence feel out of doors.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

A DISTINGUISHED GUEST.

A letter came from lord Gartley, begging Mrs. Raymount to excuse the liberty he took, and allow him to ask whether he might presume upon her wish, casually expressed, to welcome his aunt to the hospitality of Yrndale. London was empty, therefore her engagements, although Parliament was sitting, were few, and he believed if Mrs. Raymount would take the trouble to invite her, she might be persuaded to avail herself of the courtesy. "I am well aware," he wrote, "of the seeming rudeness of this suggestion, but you, dear Mrs. Raymount, can read between lines, and understand that it is no presumptuous desire to boast my friends to my relatives that makes me venture what to other eyes than yours might well seem an arrogance. If you have not room for us, or if our presence would spoil your Christmas party, do not hesitate to put us off, I beg. I shall understand you, and say nothing to my rather peculiar but most worthy aunt, waiting a more convenient season." The desired invitation was immediately dispatched,--with some wry faces on the part of the head of the house who, however, would not oppose what his wife wished.

Notwithstanding his knowledge of men, that is, of fundamental human nature, Mr. Raymount was not good at reading a man who made himself agreeable, and did not tread on the toes of any of his theories--of which, though mostly good, he made too much, as every man of theory does. I would not have him supposed a man of theory only: such a man is hardly man at all; but while he thought of the practice, he too sparingly practiced the thought. He laid too much upon words altogether; especially words in print, attributing more power to them for the regeneration of the world than was reasonable. If he had known how few cared a pin's point for those in which he poured out his mind, just flavored a little with his heart, he would have lost hope altogether. If he had known how his arguments were sometimes used against the very principles he used them for, it would have enraged him. Perhaps the knowledge of how few of those who admired his words acted upon them, would have made him think how little he struggled himself to do the things which by persuasion and argument he drove home upon the consciences of others. He had not yet believed that to do right is more to do for the regeneration of the world than any quality or amount of teaching can do. "_The Press_" no doubt has a great power for good, but every man possesses, involved in the very fact of his consciousness, a greater power than any verbal utterance of truth whatever. It is righteousness--not of words, not of theories, but in being, that is, in vital action, which alone is the prince of the power of the spirit.

Where that is, everything has its perfect work; where that is not, the man is not a power--is but a walker in a vain show.

He did not see through or even into Gartley who was by no means a profound or intentional hypocrite. But he never started on a new relation with any suspicions. Men of the world called him too good, therefore a fool. It was not however any over-exalted idea of human nature that led him astray in his judgment of the individual; it was merely that he was too much occupied with what he counted his work--with his theories first, then his writing of them, then the endless defending of them, to care to see beyond the focus of his short-sighted eyes.

Vavasor was a gentlemanly fellow, and that went a long way with him. He did not oppose him, and that went another long way: of all things he could not bear to be opposed in what he so plainly saw to be true, nor could think why every other honest man should not at once also see it true. He forgot that the difficulty is not so much in recognizing the truth of a proposition, as in recognizing what the proposition is. In the higher regions of thought the recognition of what a proposition is, and the recognition of its truth are more than h.o.m.ologous--they are the same thing.

The ruin of a man's teaching comes of his followers, such as having never touched the foundation he has laid, build upon it wood, hay, and stubble, fit only to be burnt. Therefore, if only to avoid his worst foes, his admirers, a man should avoid system. The more correct a system the worse will it be misunderstood; its professed admirers will take both its errors and their misconceptions of its truths, and hold them forth as its essence. Mr. Raymount, then, was not the man to take that care of his daughter which people of the world think necessary. But, on the whole, even with the poor education they have, women, if let alone, would take better care of themselves, than father or brother will for them. I say _on the whole_; there may well be some exceptions. The only thing making men more fit to take care of women than the women themselves, is their greater opportunity of knowing the character of men concerned--which knowledge, alas! they generally use against those they claim to protect, concealing facts from the woman to whom they ought to be conveyed; sometimes indeed having already deluded her with the persuasion that is of no consequence in the man which is essential in herself.

The day before Christmas-eve the expected visitors arrived--just in time to dress for dinner.

The family was a.s.sembled in the large old drawing-room of dingy white and tarnished gold when Miss Vavasor entered. She was tall and handsome and had been handsomer, for she was not of those who, growing within, grow more beautiful without as they grow older. She was dressed in the plainest, handsomest fas.h.i.+on--in black velvet, fitting well her fine figure, and half covered with point lace of a very thick texture--Venetian probably. The only stones she wore were diamonds. Her features were regular; her complexion was sallow, but not too sallow for the sunset of beauty; her eyes were rather large, and of a clear gray; her expression was very still, self-contained and self-dependent, without being self-satisfied; her hair was more than half gray, but very plentiful. Altogether she was one with an evident claim to distinction, never a.s.serted because always yielded. To the merest glance she showed herself well born, well nurtured, well trained, and well kept, hence well preserved. At an age when a poor woman must have been old and wrinkled, and half undressed for the tomb, she was enough to make any company look distinguished by her mere presence. Her manner was as simple as her dress--without a trace of the vulgarity of condescension or the least more stiffness than was becoming with persons towards whose acquaintance, the rather that she was their guest, it was but decent to advance gently, while it was also prudent to protect her line of retreat, lest it should prove desirable to draw back. She spoke with the utmost readiness and simplicity, looked with interest at Hester but without curiosity, had the sweetest smile at hand for use as often as wanted--a modest smile which gleamed but a moment and was gone. There was nothing in her behaviour to indicate a consciousness of error from her sphere. The world had given her the appearance of much of which Christ gives the reality. For the world very oddly prizes the form whose informing reality it despises.

Lord Gartley was in fine humour. He had not before appeared to so great advantage. Vavasor had never put off his company manner with Hester's family, but Gartley was almost merry, quite graciously familiar--as if set on bringing out the best points of his friends, and preventing his aunt's greatness from making them abashed, or their own too much modesty from showing a lack of breeding. But how shall I describe his face when major Marvel entered! he had not even feared his presence. A blank dismay, such as could seldom have been visible there, a strange mingling of annoyance, contempt, and fear, clouded it with an inharmonious expression, which made him look much like a discomfited commoner. In a moment he had overcome the unworthy sensation, and was again impa.s.sive and seemingly cool. The major did not choose to see him at first, but was presented to Miss Vavasor by their hostess as her cousin. He appeared a little awed by the fine woman, and comported himself with the dignity which awe gives, behaving like any gentleman used to society.

Seated next her at dinner, he did not once allude to pig-sticking or tiger-shooting, to elephants or n.i.g.g.e.rs, or even to his regiment or India, but talked about the last opera and the last play, with some good criticisms on the acting he had last seen, conducting himself in such manner as would have made lord Gartley quite grateful to him, had he not put it down to the imperial presence of his high-born aunt, cowering his inferior nature. But while indeed the major was naturally checked by a self-sufficing feminine presence, the cause that mainly operated to his suppression was of another kind and from an opposite source.

He had been strongly tempted all that day to a very different behaviour.

Remembering what he had heard of the character of the lady, and of the relation between her and her nephew, he knew at once, when told she was coming, that lord Gartley was bringing her down with the hope of gaining her consent to his asking Hester to marry him. "The rascal knows," said the major to himself, "that nothing human could stand out against her!

There is only her inferior position to urge from any point of view!" And therewith arose his temptation: might he not so comport himself before the aunt as to disgust her with the family, and save his lovely cousin from being sacrificed to a heartless noodle? To the extent of his means he would do what money could to console her! It was at least better than the empty t.i.tle! He recalled the ways of his youth, remembered with what delightful success he had annoyed aunts and cousins and lady friends, chuckled to think that some of them had for months pa.s.sed him without even looking at him:

"I'll settle the young ape's hash for him!" he said to himself. "It only wants a little free-and-easyness with my lady to do the deed. It can cost me nothing except her good opinion, which I can afford. But I'll lay you anything to nothing, if she knew the weight of my four quarters, she would have me herself after all! I don't quite think myself a lady-killer: by George, my--hum!--_entourage_ is against that, but where money is money can! Only I don't want her, and my money is for her betters! What d.a.m.ned jolly fun it will be to send her out of the house in a rage!--and a good deed done too!--By George, I'll do it! See if I don't!"

He might possibly have found it not quite so easy to shock Miss Vavasor as some of his late country cousins.

In this resolution he had begun to dress, but before he had finished had begun to have his doubts. Would it not be dishonorable? Would it not bring such indignation upon him that even Mark would turn away? Hester would never except so much as a postage-stamp from him if he brought disgrace on her family, and drove away her suitor! Besides, he might fail! They might come to an understanding and leave him out in the cold!

By the time he was dressed he had resolved to leave the fancy alone, and behave like a gentleman. But now with every sip of wine the temptation came stronger and stronger. The spirit of fun kept stirring in him. Not merely for the sake of Hester, but for the joke of the thing, he was tempted, and had to keep fighting the impulse till the struggle was almost more than he could endure. And just from this came the subdued character of his demeanour! What had threatened to destroy his manners for the evening turned out the corrective of his usual behaviour: as an escape from the strife within him, he tried to make himself agreeable.

Miss Vavasor being good natured, was soon interested and by and by pleased with him. This reacted; he began to feel pleased with her, and was more at his ease. Therewith came the danger not unforeseen of some at the table: he began to tell one of his stories. But he saw Hester look anxious; and that was enough to put him on his careful honour. Ere dinner was over he said to himself that if only the nephew were half as good a fellow as the aunt, he would have been happy to give the young people his blessing and a handsome present.

"By Jove!" said lord Gartley, "the scoundrel is not such a low fellow after all! I think I will try to forgive him!" Now and then he would listen across the table to their talk, and everything the major said that pleased his aunt pleased him amazingly. At one little witticism of hers in answer to one of the major's he burst into such a hearty laugh that his aunt looked up.