Christmas at Thompson Hall (13 page)

“I'm sure I have appropriated nobody,” said Patty, “and don't intend.”

“Godfrey, then, is the only knight whose services are claimed,” said Miss Holmes, looking at Bessy. Bessy made no immediate answer with either her eyes or tongue, but when the Coverdales were gone she took her new friend to task.

“How can you fill those young girls' heads with such nonsense?”

“Nature has done that, my dear.”

“But Nature should be trained, should it not? You will make them think that those foolish boys are in love with them.”

“They'll be sure to think that without any teaching from me. The foolish boys, as you call them, will look after that themselves. It seems to me that the foolish boys know what they are about better than some of their elders.” And then, after a moment's pause, she added, “As for my brother, I have no patience with him.”

“Pray do not discuss your brother,” said Bessy. “And, Bella, unless you wish to drive me away, pray do not speak of him and me together as you did just now.”

“Are you so bad as that, that the slightest commonplace joke upsets you? Would not his services be due to you as a matter of course? If you are so sore about it you will betray your secret.”

“I have no secret — none, at least, from you, or from mamma; and, indeed, none from him. We were both very foolish, thinking that we knew each other and our own hearts, when we knew neither.”

“I hate to hear people talk of knowing their hearts. My idea is that, if you like a young man, and he asks you to marry him, you ought to have him — that is, if there's enough to live on. I don't know what more is wanted. But girls are getting to talk and think as though they were to send their hearts through some fiery furnace of trial before they give them up to a husband's keeping. I'm not at all sure that the French fashion is not the best, and that these things shouldn't be managed by the fathers and mothers, or perhaps by the family lawyers. Girls who are so intent upon knowing their own hearts generally end by knowing nobody's hearts but their own, and then they die old maids.”

“Better that than give themselves to the keeping of those they don't know or cannot esteem.”

“That's a matter of taste. I mean to take the first that comes, so long as he looks like a gentleman and has no less than eight hundred a year. Now, Godfrey does look like a gentleman, and has nearly double that. If I had such a chance I shouldn't think twice of it.”

“And if you had not you would not think of it at all.”

“That's the way the wind blows, is it?”

“No, no! Oh, Bella, pray, pray leave me alone. Pray do not interfere. There is no wind blowing any way. All that I want is your silence and your sympathy.”

“Very well. I will be silent and sympathetic as the grave. Only don't imagine that I am cold as the grave also. I don't exactly appreciate your ideas; but, if I can do no good, I will at any rate endeavour to do no harm.”

After lunch, at about three, they started on their walk, and managed to ferry themselves over the river. “Oh, do let me, Bessy,” said Kate Coverdale; “I understand all about it. Look here, Miss Holmes. You pull the chain through your hands” —

“And inevitably tear your gloves to pieces,” said Miss Holmes. Kate certainly had done so, and did not seem to be particularly well pleased with the accident.

“There's a nasty nail in the chain,” she said. “I wonder why those stupid boys did not tell us.”

Of course they reached the trysting-place much too soon, and were very tired of walking up and down to keep their feet warm before the sportsmen came up; but this was their own fault, seeing that they had reached the stile half an hour before the time fixed.

“I never will go anywhere to meet gentlemen again,” said Miss Holmes. “It is most preposterous that ladies should be left in the snow for an hour. Well, young men, what sport have you had?”

“I shot the big black cock,” said Harry.

“Did you, indeed?” said Kate Coverdale.

“And there are the feathers out of his tail for you. He dropped them in the water, and I had to go in after them up to my middle; but I told you that I would, so I was determined to get them.”

“Oh, you silly, silly boy!” said Kate. “But I'll keep them for ever; I will indeed.”

This was said a little apart, for Harry had managed to draw the young lady aside before he presented the feathers.

Frank also had his trophies for Patty, and the tale to tell of his own prowess. In that he was a year older than his brother, he was by a year's growth less ready to tender his present to his lady-love openly in the presence of them all; but he found his opportunity; and then he and Patty went on a little in advance. Kate was deep in her consolations to Harry as to his ducking, and thus they four disposed of themselves. Miss Holmes, therefore, and her brother, and Bessy Garrow were left together in the path, and discussed the performances of the day in a manner that exhibited no very ecstatic interest. So they walked for a mile, and by degree the conversation between them dwindled down almost to silence.

“There is nothing I dislike so much as coming out with people younger than myself,” said Miss Holmes; “one always feels so old and dull. Listen to those children, there! They make me think myself an old maiden aunt brought out with them to do propriety.”

“Patty won't at all approve if she hears you call her a child.”

“Nor shall I approve if she treats me like an old woman.” And then she stepped on and joined “the children.” “I wouldn't spoil even their sport if I could help it,” she said to herself. “But with them I shall only be a temporary nuisance. If I remain behind I shall do permanent injury.” And thus Bessy and her old lover were left by themselves.

“I hope you will get on well with Bella,” said Godfrey, when they had remained silent for a minute or two.

“Oh, yes; she is so good-natured and light-hearted that everybody must like her. But I fear she must find it very dull here.”

“She is never dull anywhere; not even at Liverpool, which, for a young lady, I sometimes think is the dullest place on earth. I know it is for a man.”

“A man who has work to do can never be dull; can he?”

“Indeed he can; as dull as death. I am so often enough. I have never been very bright there, Bessy, since you left us.”

There was nothing in his calling her Bessy, for it had become a habit with him since they were children, and they had formally agreed that everything between them should be as it had been before that foolish whisper of love had been spoken. Indeed, provision had been made by them specially on this point, so that there need be no awkwardness in their mode of addressing each other. Such provision had seemed to be very prudent, but it hardly had the desired effect on the present occasion.

“I don't know what you mean by brightness,” she said, after a pause. “Perhaps it is not intended that people's lives should be what you call bright.”

“Life ought to be as bright as we can make it.”

“It all depends on the meaning of the word. I suppose we are not very bright here at Thwaite Hall; but yet we think ourselves very happy.”

“I'm sure you are,” said Godfrey. “I very often think of you here.”

“We always think of the places where we've been when we were young,” said Bessy. Then again they walked on for some way in silence, and Bessy began to increase her pace with the view of catching the children. The present walk to her was anything but bright, and she reflected with dismay that they were still two miles distant from the ferry.

“Bessy,” Godfrey said at last; and then he stopped, doubting how he ought to proceed. She, however, did not say a word, but walked on quickly, as though her only hope were in catching the party before her. But they also were walking quickly; for Bella had determined that she would not be caught.

“Bessy, I must speak to you once of what passed between us at Liverpool.”

“Must you?” said she.

“Unless you positively forbid it.”

“Stop, Godfrey,” she said. And they did stop in the path; for now she no longer thought of putting an end to her embarrassment by overtaking her companions. “If any such words are necessary for your comfort it would hardly become me to forbid them. Were I to do so, you might accuse me afterwards of harshness in your own heart. It must be for you to judge whether it is well to reopen a wound that is nearly healed.”

“But with me it is not nearly healed. The wound is open always.”

“There are some hurts,” she said, “which do not admit of an absolute and perfect cure, unless after long years.” As she said this she could not but think how much better was his chance of such perfect cure than her own. With her — so she said to herself — such curing was all but impossible; whereas with him it was almost as impossible that the injury should last.

“Bessy,” he said — and he again stopped her in the narrow path, standing immediately before on the way — “you remember all the circumstances that made us part?”

“Yes, I think I remember them.”

“And you still think that we were right?”

She paused for a moment before she answered him; but it was only for a moment, and then she spoke quite firmly. “Yes, Godfrey, I do. I have thought about it much since then. I have thought, I fear to no good purpose, about aught else. But I have never thought that we had been unwise in that.”

“And yet, I think, you loved me?”

“I am bound to confess I did so, as otherwise I must confess myself a liar. I told you at that time that I loved you, and I told you so truly. But it is better — ten times better — that those who love should part, even though they still should love, than that two should be joined together who are incapable of making each other happy. Remember what you told me.”

“I do remember.”

“You found yourself unhappy in your engagement, and you said that it was my fault.”

“Bessy, there is my hand. If you have ceased to love me, there is an end of it; but if you love me still let all that I then said be forgotten.”

“Forgotten, Godfrey! How can it be forgotten? You were unhappy, and it was my fault. My fault — as it would be if I tried to solace a sick child with arithmetic, or feed a dog with grass. I had no right to love you, knowing you as I did, and knowing also that my ways would not be your ways. My punishment I understand, and it is not more than I can bear; but I had hoped that your punishment would have been soon over.”

“You are too proud, Bessy.”

“That is very likely. Frank says that I am a Puritan, and pride was the worst of their sins.”

“Too proud and unbending. In marriage should not the man and woman adapt themselves to each other?”

“When they are married, yes; and every girl who thinks of marrying should know that in very much she must adapt herself to her husband. But I do not think that a woman should be the ivy, to take the direction of every branch of the tree to which she clings. If she does so, what can be her own character? But we must go on, or we shall be too late.”

“And you will give me no other answer?”

“None other, Godfrey. Have you not just now, at this very moment, told me that I was too proud? Can it be possible that you should wish to tie yourself for life to female pride? And if you tell me that now, at such a moment as this, what would you tell me in the close intimacy of married life, when the trifles of every day would have worn away the courtesies of the guest and lover?”

There was a sharpness of rebuke in this which Godfrey Holmes could not at the moment overcome. Nevertheless, he knew the girl, and understood the workings of her heart and mind. Now, in her present state, she would be unbending, proud, and almost rough. In that she had much to lose in declining the renewed offer which he made her, she would, as it were, continually prompt herself to be harsh and inflexible. Had he been poor, had she not loved him, had not all good things seemed to have attended the promise of such a marriage, she would have been less suspicious of herself in receiving the offer, and more gracious in replying to it. Had he lost all his money before he came back to her she would have taken him at once; or had he been deprived of an eye or become crippled in his legs she would have done so. But, circumstanced as he was, she had no motive to tenderness. There was an organic defect in her character, which, no doubt, was plainly marked by its own bump on her cranium — the bump of philomartyrdom, as it might properly be called. She had shipwrecked her own happiness in rejecting Godfrey Holmes, but it seemed to her to be the proper thing that a well-behaved young lady should shipwreck her own happiness. In the last month or two she had been tossed about by the waters and was nearly drowned. Now there was beautiful land again close to her, and a strong, pleasant hand stretched out to save her; but, though she had suffered terribly among the waves, she still thought it wrong to be saved. It would be so pleasant to take that hand, — so sweet, so joyous, that it surely must be wrong. That was her doctrine; and Godfrey Holmes, though he had hardly analysed the matter, partly understood that it was so; and yet, if once she were landed on that green island, she would be happy. She spoke with scorn of a woman clinging to her husband like ivy to a tree; and yet, were she once married, no woman would cling to her husband with sweeter feminine tenacity than Bessy Garrow. He spoke no further word to her as he walked home, but in handing her down into the ferry-boat he pressed her hand: for a second it seemed as though she had returned his pressure; if so, the action was involuntary, and her hand instantly resumed its stiffness to his touch.

It was late that night when Major Garrow went to his bedroom, but his wife was still up waiting for him. “Well,” said she, “what has he said to you? He has been with you above an hour.”

“Such stories are never very quickly told,” said the father, “and in this case it was necessary to understand him very accurately.”