Fated to Be Free Part 17

"I shall not do so in any case. How do I know whether the only use people may make of it (and that a metaphorical one) may not be to throw it at me ever after."

"I don't like that," said Miss Christie. "I could wish that every man should own his own."

"No," remarked John Mortimer; "if a man in youth writes a foolish book and gives his name to it, he has, so far as his name is concerned, used his one chance; and if, in maturer life, he writes something high and good, then if he wants his wise child to live, he must consent to die himself with the foolish one. It is much the same with one who has become notorious through the doing of some base or foolish action. If he repent, rise to better things, and write a n.o.ble book, he must not claim it as if it could elevate him. It must go forth on its own merits, or it will not be recognised for what it is, only for what he is or was. No, if a man wants to bring in new thoughts or work elevating changes, he must not clog them with a name that has been despised."

"I think Dorothea and I may as well write a book together," said Valentine. "She did begin one, but somehow it stuck fast."

"You had better write it about yourselves, then," said John, "that being nearly all you study just now, I should think. Many a novel contains the author and little else. He explains himself in trying to describe human nature."

"Human nature!" exclaimed Valentine; "we must have something grander than that to write of, I can tell you. We have read so many books that turn it 'the seamy side outward,' and point out the joins as if it was a glove, that we cannot condescend to it."

"No," said John, setting off on the subject again as if he was most seriously considering it, Valentine meanwhile smiling significantly on the others. "It is a mistake to describe too much from within. The external life as we see it should rather be given, and about as much of the motives and springs of action as an intelligent man with good opportunity could discover. We don't want to be told all. We do not know all about those we live with, and always have lived with. If ever I took to writing fiction I should not pretend to know all about my characters.

The author's world appears small if he makes it manifest that he reigns there. I don't understand myself thoroughly. How can I understand so many other people? I cannot fathom them. My own children often surprise me. If I believed thoroughly in the children of my pen, they would write themselves down sometimes in a fas.h.i.+on that I had not intended."

"John talks like a book," observed Valentine. "You propose a subject, and he lays forth his views as if he had considered it for a week.

'Drive on, Samivel.'"

"But I don't agree with him," said Miss Christie. "When I read a book I aye dislike to be left in any doubt what the man means or what the story means."

"I always think it a great proof of power in a writer," said Brandon, "when he consciously or unconsciously makes his reader feel that he knows a vast deal more about his characters than he has chosen to tell.

And what a keen sense some have of the reality of their invented men and women! So much so that you may occasionally see evident tokens that they are jealous of them. They cannot bear to put all the witty and clever speeches into the mouths of these 'fetches' of their own imagination.

Some must be saved up to edge in as a sly aside, a sage reflection of the author's own. There never should be any author's asides."

"I don't know about that," John answered, "but I often feel offended with authors who lack imagination to see that a group of their own creations would not look in one another's eyes just what they look in his own. The author's pretty woman is too often pretty to all; his wit is acknowledged as a wit by all. The difference of opinion comes from the readers. They differ certainly."

"Even I," observed Valentine, "if I were an author's wit, might be voted a bore, and how sad that would be, for in real life it is only right to testify that I find little or no difference of opinion."

He spoke in a melancholy tone, and heaved up a sigh.

"Is cousin Val a wit?" asked little Hugh.

"I am afraid I am," said Valentine; "they're always saying so, and it's very unkind of them to talk about it, because I couldn't help it, could I?"

Here the little Anastasia, touched with pity by the heartfelt pathos of his tone, put her dimpled hand in his and said tenderly, "Never mind, dear, it'll be better soon, p'raps, and you didn't do it on purpose."

"Does it hurt?" asked Hugh, also full of ruth.

"Be ashamed of yourself," whispered Miss Christie, "to work on the dear children's feelings so. No, my sweet mannie, it doesn't hurt a bit."

"I'm very much to be pitied," proceeded Valentine. "That isn't all"--he sighed again--"I was born with a bad French accent, and without a single tooth in my head, or, out of it, while such was my weakness, that it took two strong men, both masters of arts, to drag me through the rudiments of the Latin grammar."

Anastasia's eyes filled with tears. It seemed so sad; and the tender little heart had not gone yet into the question of _seeming_.

"They _teached_ you the Latin grammar did they?" said Bertram, who had also been listening, and was relieved to hear of something in this list of miseries that he could understand; "that's what Miss Crampton teaches me. I don't like it, and you didn't either, then. I'm six and three quarters; how old were you?"

Before Valentine had answered, John and Brandon, finding themselves before the party, had stopped and turned. Brandon was surprised to see how earnestly the two elder children, while he talked, had been looking at him, and then at their father and Valentine. At last, when this pause occurred, and the two groups met, Janie said--

"I am sure papa is a great deal prettier than Mr. Brandon, and Cousin Val looks quite ugly beside him."

"Yes, Janie," said Bertram, with an air of high satisfaction, "papa's much more beautiful than either of the others. I shall ask Miss Crampton when I go in if she doesn't think so. You would like to know what she thinks, wouldn't you, father?"

John had opened his mouth to say no, when his better sense coming to his aid, he forbore to speak. For this lady taught his children to perfection, but his friends always would insist that she wanted to teach him too--something that he wouldn't learn.

Aunt Christie, his constant friend and champion, presently spoke for him.

"No, children," she said, as soon as she had composed her voice to a due gravity, "it's natural ye should admire your father, good children generally do, but, now, if I were you, I would never tell anybody at all, not even Miss Crampton--do ye hear me, all of you? I would never tell anybody your opinion of him. If ye do, they will certainly think ye highly conceited, for ye know quite well that people say you four little ones are just as exactly like him as ye can be."

The children were evidently impressed.

"In fact," said Valentine, "now I take a good look at him, I should say that you are even more like him than he is himself--but--I may be mistaken."

"I won't say it then," said Bertram, now quite convinced.

"And I won't, and I won't," added others, as they ran forward to open a grate.

"Cheer up, John," said St. George, "let us not see so much beauty and virtue cast down. There's Miss Crampton looking out of the school-room window."

But though he laughed he did not deceive John Mortimer, who knew as well as possible that the loss of Dorothea Graham pressed heavily on his heart.

"You two are going to dine with me, of course," he said, when all the party had pa.s.sed into the wilderness beyond his garden.

"On the contrary, with your leave," answered Valentine, "we are going to take a lesson of Swan in the art of budding roses. We cannot manage it to our minds. We dined early."

"And I suppose you will agree with Val," observed Brandon, "that a rose-garden is one of the necessaries of life."

"Dorothea must have one, must she, out in New Zealand? Well, Swan will be proud to teach you anything he knows or doesn't know, and he will give you an opinion if you ask it on any subject whatever."

Accordingly John went into the house to dine, and perhaps it was in consequence of this a.s.sertion that the two young men asked their old friend's opinion on various points not at all in his line. Valentine even told him that his brother intended to write a book, and asked him what he thought it had better be about; whereupon Swan, while deftly shaping his _bud_, shook his head gravely, and said that wanted a deal of thinking over.

"But if I was you, sir," he continued, speaking to Brandon, "I should get Mr. Mortimer--Mr. John--to help you, specially if there's going to be any foreign talk in it. My word, I don't believe there's any language going that Mr. Mortimer can't lay his tongue to!"

CHAPTER XI.

WANTED A DESERT ISLAND.

"We, too, have autumns, when our leaves Drop loosely through the dampened air; When all our good seems bound in sheaves, And we stand reaped and bare."

Lowell.

Laura and Mrs. Melcombe went home, and Laura saw the window again that Joseph had so skilfully glazed. Joseph was not there, and Laura would not have occupied herself with constant thoughts about him if there had been anything, or rather anybody else to think of. She soon began to feel low-spirited and restless, while, like a potato-plant in a dark cellar, she put forth long runners towards the light, and no light was to be found. This homely simile ought to be forgiven, because it is such a good one.

Peter was getting too old for her teaching. He had a tutor, but the tutor was a married man, and had taken lodgings for himself and his wife in one of the farm-houses.

Laura had no career before her, and no worthy occupation. All that came to pa.s.s in her day was a short saunter, or a drive, or a visit to the market-town, where she sat looking on while her sister-in-law did some shopping.

Melcombe was six or seven miles from any _visitable_ families, excepting two or three clergymen and their wives; it was shut up in a three-cornered nook of land, and could not be approached excepting through turn-pikes, and up and down some specially steep hills. These things make havoc with country sociability.