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When the Squire entered the breakfast parlour, Kate was just coming in from the garden. The dew of the morning was on her cheeks, the scent of the sweet-briar and the daffodils in her hair, the songs of the thrush and the linnet in her heart. She was beautiful as Hebe, and fresh as Aurora. He clasped her face between his large hands, and she lifted the bunch of daffodils to his face, and asked, “Are they not beautiful? Do you know what Mr. Wordsworth says about them, Father?”
“Not I! I never read his foolishness.”
“His ‘foolishness’ is music; I can tell you that. Listen sir,–
“‘A smile of last year’s sun strayed down the hills,
And lost its way within yon windy wood;
Lost through the months of snow–but not for good:
I found it in a clump of daffodils.’
Are they not lovely lines?”
“They sound like most uncommon nonsense, Kitty. Come and sit beside me, I have something far more sensible and important to tell you.”
“About the Bill, Father?”
“Partly about the Bill and partly about Edgar. Which news will you have first?”
“Mother will say ‘Edgar,’ and I go with mother.”
“I do not think you can tell me any news about Edgar, John.”
“Go on, Father, mother is only talking. She is so anxious she cannot pour the coffee straight. What about Edgar?”
“I must tell you that I made a speech two days before the House closed; and the papers said it was a very great speech, and I think it was a tone or two above the average. Did you read it?”
“You never sent us a paper, Father.”
“You wouldn’t have read it if I had sent it. I knew Philip Brotherton would read every word, so it went to him. I was a little astonished at myself, for I did not know that I could bring out the very truth the way I did; but I saw Edgar watching me, and I saw no one else; and I just talked to him, as I used to do,–good, plain, household words, with a bit of Yorkshire now and then to give them pith and power. I was cheered to the echo, and if Edgar, when I used to talk to him for his good, had only cheered me on my hearthstone as he cheered me in the Commons, there wouldn’t have been any ill blood between us. Afterwards, in the crush of the lobby, I saw Edgar a little before me; and Mr. O’Connell walked up to him, and said, ‘Atheling, you ought to take lessons from your father, he strikes every nail on the head. In your case, the old cock crows, but the young one has not learnt his lesson.’ I was just behind, and I heard every word, and I was ready to answer; but Edgar did my work finely.’
‘He should not have noticed him,’ said Mrs. Atheling.
‘Ah, but he did! He said, “Mr. O’Connell, I will trouble you to speak of Squire Atheling respectfully. He is not old; he is in the prime of life; and, in all that makes youth desirable, he is twenty-five years younger than you are. I think you have felt his spurs once, and I would advise you to beware of them.” And what O’Connell answered I cannot tell, but it would be up to mark, I can warrant that! I slipped away before I was noticed, and I am not ashamed to say I was pleased with what I had heard. “Not as old as O’Connell by twenty-five years!” I laughed to myself all the way home; and, in the dark of the night, I could not help thinking of Edgar’s angry face, and the way he stood up for me. I do think, Maude, that somehow it must have been thy fault we had that quarrel–I mean to say, that if thou hadst stood firm by me,–that is, if thou hadst–’
‘John, go on and do not bother thyself to make excuses. Was that the end of it?’
‘In a way. The next afternoon I was sitting by the fireside having a quiet smoke, and thinking of the fine speech I had made, and if it would be safe to try again, when Dobson came in and said, “Squire, Mr. Edgar wishes to see you,” and I said, “Very well, bring Mr. Edgar upstairs.” I had thrown off my coat; but I had on one of my fine ruffled shirts and my best blue waistcoat, and so I didn’t feel so very out of the way when Edgar came in with the loveliest young woman on his arm–except Kitty–that I ever set eyes on; and I was dumfounded when he brought her to me and said, “My dear Father, Annie Curzon, who has promised to be my wife, wants to know you and to love you.” And the little thing–for she is but a sprite of a woman–laid her hand on my arm and looked at me; and what in heaven’s name was I to do?’
‘What did you do?’
‘I just lifted her up and kissed her bonny face, and said I had room enough in my heart and home for her; and that she was gladly welcome, and would be much made of, and I don’t know what else–plenty of things of the same sort. My word! Edgar was set up.’
‘He may well be set up,’ answered Mrs. Atheling; ‘she is the richest and sweetest girl in England; and she thinks the sun rises and sets in Edgar Atheling. He ought to be set up with a wife like that.’
‘He was, with her and me together. I don’t know which of us seemed to please him most. Maude, they are coming down to Lord Ashley’s on a visit, and I asked them here . I could not do any different, could I?’
‘If you had you would have been a poor kind of a father. What did you say?’
‘I said, when you are at Ashley Place come over to Atheling, and I gave Edgar my hand and looked at him; and he looked at me and clasped it tight, and said, “We will come.’”
“That was right.”
“I am glad I have done right for once, Maude. Do you know that Ashley is one of the worst Radicals in the lot of them?”
“Never mind, John. I have noticed that, as a general thing, the worse Radical, the better man; but a Tory cannot be trusted to give a Radical a character. The Tories are very like the poor cat who said, ‘If she only had wings, she would gladly extirpate the whole race of those troublesome sparrows.’”
“There are to be no more Tories now, we have got a new name. Lord John Russell called us ‘Conservatives,’ and we took to the word, and it is as like as not to stick to us. It will be Conservatives and Reformers in the future.”
“But you said the Reform Bill was lost.”
“I said it had not passed. What of that? The rascals have only been downed for this round; they will be up to time, when time is called June the twenty-first; and they will fight harder than ever.”
“How was the Bill lost? By obstructions?”
“Yes; when it was ready to go into Committee, General Gascoigne moved that, ‘The number of members returned to Parliament ought not to be diminished;’ and when the House divided on this motion, Gascoigne’s resolution had a majority of eight.”
“Then Grey’s Ministry have retired?” said Mrs. Atheling, in alarm.
“No, they have not; they should have done so by all decent precedents; but, instead of behaving like gentlemen, they resolved to appeal to the country. We sat all night quarrelling on this subject; but at five in the morning I was worn out with the stifling, roaring House, and sick with the smell of dying candles, and the reek and steam of quarrelling human beings, so I stepped out and took a few turns on Westminster Bridge. It was a dead-calm, lovely morning, and the sun was just rising over the trees of the Abbey and the Speaker’s house, and I had a bit of heart-longing for Atheling.”
“Why did you not run away to Atheling, Father?”
“I could not have done a thing like that, Kitty, not for the life of me. I went back to the House; and for three days we fought like dogs, tooth and nail, over the dissolution. Then Lord Grey and Lord Brougham did such a thing as never was: they went to the King and told him, plump and plain, he must dissolve Parliament or they would resign, and he must be answerable for consequences; and the King did not want to dissolve Parliament; he knew a new House would be still fuller of Reform members; and he made all kinds of excuses. He said, ‘The Crown and Robes were not ready, and the Guards and troops had not been notified;’ and then, to his amazement and anger, Lord Brougham told him that the officers of State had been summoned, that the Crown and Robes were ready, and the Guards and troops waiting.”
“My word, John! That was a daring thing to do.”
“If William the Fourth had been Henry the Eighth, Lord Brougham’s head wouldn’t have been worth a shilling; as it was, William flew into a great passion, and cried out, ‘You! You, my Lord Chancellor! You ought to know that such an act is treason, is high treason, my lord!’ And Brougham said, humbly, that he did know it was high treason, and that nothing but his solemn belief that the safety of the State depended on the act would have made him bold enough to venture on so improper a proceeding. Then the King cooled down; and Brougham took from his pocket the speech which the King was to read; and the King took it with words; that were partly menace, and partly joke at his Minister’s audacity, and so dismissed them.”
“I never heard of such carryings on. Why didn’t Brougham put the Crown on his own head, and be done with it?”
“I do not like Brougham; but in this matter, he acted very wisely. If the King had refused to dissolve a Parliament that had proved itself unable to carry Reform, I do think, Maude, London would have been in flames, and the whole country in rebellion, before another day broke.”
“Were you present at the dissolution, John?”
“I was sitting beside Piers, when the Usher of the Black Rod knocked at the door of the Commons. It had to be a very loud knock, for the House was in a state of turbulence and confusion far beyond the Speaker’s control; while Sir Robert Peel was denouncing the Ministry in the hardest words he could pick out, and being interrupted in much the same manner. I can tell you that a good many of us were glad enough to hear the guns announcing the King’s approach. The Duke told me afterwards that the Lords were in still greater commotion. Brougham was speaking, when there were cries of ‘The King! The King!’ And Lord Londonderry rose in a fury and said, ‘He would not submit to–’ Nobody heard what he would not submit to; for Brougham snatched up the Seals and rushed out of the House. Then there was terrible confusion, and Lord Mansfield rose and was making a passionate oration against the Reform Bill, when the King entered and cut it short. Well, London went mad for a few hours. Nearly every house was illuminated; and the Duke of Wellington, and the Duke of Richmoor, and other great Tories had their windows broken, as a warning not to obstruct the next Parliament. I really don’t know what to make of it all, Maude!”
“Well, John, I think statesmen ought to know what to make of it.”
“I rode down from London on my own nag; and in many a town and village I saw things that made my heart ache. Why, my dears, there has been sixty thousand pounds put into–not bread and meat–but peas and meal to feed the starving women and children; the Government has given away forty thousand garments to clothe the naked; and the Bank of England–a very close concern–is lending money, yes, as much as ten thousand pounds, to some private individuals, in order to keep their factories going. Something is far wrong, when good English workmen are paupers. But I don’t see how Parliamentary Reform is going to help them to bread and meat and decent work.”
“John, these hungry, naked men know what they want. Edgar says a Reform Parliament will open all the ports to free trade, and tear to pieces the infamous Corn Laws, and make hours of work shorter, and wages higher and–”
“Give the whole country to the working men. I see! I see! Now, Maude, men are not going to run factories for fun, nor yet for charity; and farmers are not going to till their fields just to see how little they can get for their wheat.”
“Father, what part did Piers take in all this trouble?”
“He voted with his party. He was very regular in his place.”
“I will go now and put on my habit. Piers sent me word that he would be here soon after eleven o’clock;” and Kate, with a smile, went quickly out of the room. The Squire was nonplussed by the suddenness of her movement, and did not know whether to detain her or not. Mrs. Atheling saw his irresolution, and said,–
“Let her go this time, John. Let her have one last happy memory to keep through the time of trouble you seem bound to give her.”
“Can I help it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You speak as if it was a pleasure to me.”
“What for are you so set on interfering just at this time?”
“Because it is the right time.”
“Who told you it was the right time?”
“My own heart, and my own knowledge of what is right and wrong.”
“You are never liable to make a mistake, I suppose, John?”
“Not on this subject. I never saw such an unreasonable woman! Never! It is enough to discourage any man;” and as Mrs. Atheling rose and began to put away her silver without answering him a word, he grew angry at her want of approval, and put on his hat and went towards the stables.
He had no special intention of watching for Lord Exham, and indeed had for the moment forgotten his existence, when the young man leaped his horse over the wall of the Atheling plantation. The act annoyed the Squire; he was proud of his plantation, and did not like trespassing through it. Such a little thing often decides a great thing; and this trifling offence made it easy for the Squire to say,–
“Good-morning, Piers, I wish you would dismount. I have a few words to speak to you;” and there was in his voice that shivery half-tone which is neither one thing nor the other: and Exham recognised it without applying the change to himself. He was a little annoyed at the delay; but he leaped to the ground, put the bridle over his arm, and stood beside the Squire, who then said,–
“Piers, I have come to the decision not to sanction any longer your attentions to Kate–unless your father also sanctions them. It is high time your engagement was either publicly acknowledged or else put an end to.”
“You are right, Squire; what do you wish me to do? I will make Kate my wife at any time you propose. I desire nothing more earnestly than this.”
“Easy, Piers, easy. You must obtain the Duke’s consent first.”
“I could hardly select a worse time to ask him for it. I am of full age. I am my own master. I will marry Kate in the face of all opposition.”
“I say you will not. My daughter is not for you, if there is any opposition. The Duke and Duchess are at the head of your house; and Kate cannot enter a house in which she would be unwelcome.”
“Kate will reside at Exham.”
“And be a divider between you and your father and mother. No! In the end she would get the worst of it; and, even if she got the best of it, I am not willing she should begin a life of quarrelling and hatred. You can see the Duke at your convenience, and let me know what he says.”
“I will see him to-day,” he had taken out his watch and was looking at it as he spoke. “Will you excuse me now, Squire?” he asked. “I sent Kate a message early this morning promising to call for her about eleven. I am already late.”
“You may turn back. I will make an excuse for you. You cannot ride with Kate to-day.”
“Squire, I made the offer and the promise. Permit me to honour my word.”
“I will honour it for you. There has been enough, and too much, riding and walking, unless you are to ride and walk all your lives together. Good-morning!”
“Squire, give me one hour?”
“I will not.”
“I have told you that I would explain.”
“I never knew you unkind before. Have I offended you? Have I done anything which you do not approve?”
“That is not the question. I will see you again–when you have seen your father.”
“You are very unkind, very unkind indeed, sir.”
“Maybe I am; but when the surgeon’s knife is to use, there is no use pottering with drugs and fine speeches. It is the knife between you and Kate–or it is the ring;” and the word reminded him of the lost love gage, and made his face hard and stern. Then he turned from the young man, and had a momentary pleasure in the sound of his furious galloping in the other direction; for he was in a state of great turmoil. He had suddenly done a thing he had been wishing to do for a long time; and he was not satisfied. In short, passionate ejaculations, he tried to relieve himself of something wrong, and did not succeed. “He deserves it; he was all the time with that Other One,–day by day in the parks, night after night in the House and the opera; he gave her that ring–I’ll swear he did; how else should she have it? My Kate is not going to be second-best–not if I can help it; what do I care for their dukedom?–confound the whole business! A man with a daughter to watch has a heart full of sorrow–and it is all her mother’s fault!”
Setting his steps to such aggravating opinions, he reached the Manor House and went into the parlour. Kate stood at the window in her riding dress. She had lost her usual fine composure, and was nervously tapping the wooden sill with the handle of her whip. On her father’s entrance, she turned an anxious face to him, and asked, “Did you see anything of Piers, Father?”
“I did. I have been having a bit of a talk with him.”
“Then he is at the door? I am so glad! I thought something was wrong!”
“Stop, Kitty. He is not at the door. He has gone home. I sent him home. Now don’t interrupt me. I made up my mind in London that he should not see you again until your engagement was recognised by his father and mother.”
“Should not see me again! Father!”
“That is right.”
“But I must see him! I must see him! Where is mother?”
“Mother thinks as I do, Kate.”
“Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?”
“Go upstairs, and take off your habit, and think over things. You know quite well that such underhand courting–”
“Piers is not underhand. He is as straight-forward as you are, Father.”
“There now! Don’t cry. I won’t have any crying about what is only right. Come here, Kitty. Thou knowest thy father loves every hair of thy head. Will he wrong thee? Will he give thee a moment’s pain he can help? Kitty, I heard talk in London that fired me–I saw things that have to be explained.”
“Father, you will break my heart!”
“Well, Kitty, I have had a good many heartaches all winter about my girl. And I have made up my mind, if I die for it, that there shall be no more whispering and wondering about your relationship to Piers Exham. Now don’t fret till you know you have a reason. Piers has a deal of power over the Duke. He will win his way–if he wants to win it. Then I will have a business talk with both men, and your engagement and marriage will be square and above-board, and no nodding and winking and shrugging about it. You are Kate Atheling, and I will not have you sought in any by-way. Before God, I will not! Cry, if you must. But I think better of you.”
“Oh, Mother! Mother! Mother!”
“Yes! you and your mother have brought all this on, with your ‘let things alone, be happy to-day, and to-morrow will take care of itself’ ways. If you were a milk-maid, that plan might do; but a girl with your lineage has to look behind and before; she can’t live for herself and herself only.”
“I wish I was a milk-maid!”
“To be sure. Let me have the lover I want, and my father, and my mother, and my brother, and my home, and all that are behind me, and all that are to come after, and all honour, and all gratitude, and all decent affection can go to the devil!” and with these words, the Squire lifted his hat, and went passionately out of the room.
Though he had given Kate the hope that Piers would influence his father, he had no such expectation. There was a very strained political feeling between the Duke and himself; and, apart from that, the Squire had failed to win any social liking from the Richmoors. He was so independent; he thought so much of the Athelings, and was so indifferent to the glory of the Richmoors. He had also strong opinions of all kinds, and did not scruple to express them; and private opinions are just the one thing not wanted and not endurable in society. In fact, the Duke and Duchess had both been subject to serious relentings for having any alliance, either political or social, with their opinionated, domineering neighbour.
And Piers, driven by the anguish of his unexpected calamity, went into his father’s presence without any regard to favourable circumstances. Previously he had considered them too much; now he gave them no consideration at all. The Duke had premonitory symptoms of an attack of gout; and the Duchess had just told him that her brother Lord Francis Gower was going to Germany, and that she had decided to accompany his party. “Annabel looks ill,” she added; “the season has been too much for a girl so emotional; and as for myself, I am thoroughly worn out.”
“I do not like separating Piers and Annabel,” answered the Duke. “They have just become confidential and familiar; and in the country too, where Miss Atheling will have everything in her favour!”
“Annabel is resolved to go abroad. She says she detests England. You had better make the best of the inevitable, Duke. I shall want one thousand pounds.”
“I cannot spare a thousand pounds. My expenses have been very great this past winter.”
“Still, I shall require a thousand pounds.”
The Duchess had just left her husband with this question to consider. He did not want to part with a thousand pounds, and he did not want to part with Annabel. She was the brightest element in his life. She had become dear to him, and the thought of her fortune made his financial difficulties easier to bear. For the encumbrances which the times forced him to lay on his estate need not embarrass Piers; Annabel’s money would easily remove them.
He was under the influence of these conflicting emotions, when Piers entered the room, with a brusque hurry quite at variance with his natural placid manner. The Duke started at the clash of the door. It gave him a twinge of pain; it dissipated his reveries; and he asked petulantly, “What brings you here so early, and so noisily, Piers?”
“I am in great trouble, sir. Squire Atheling–”
“Squire Atheling again! I am weary of the man!”
“He has forbidden me to see Miss Atheling.”
“He has done quite right. I did not expect so much propriety from him.”
“Until you give your consent to our marriage.”
“Why, then, you will see her no more, Piers. I will never give it. Never! We need not multiply words. You will marry Annabel.”
“Suppose Annabel will not marry me?”
“The supposition is impossible, therefore unnecessary.”
“If I cannot marry Miss Atheling, I will remain unmarried.”
“That threat is as old as the world; it amounts to nothing.”
“On all public and social questions, I am your obedient son and successor. I claim the right to choose my wife.”
“A man in your position, Piers, has not this privilege. I had not. If I had followed my youthful desires, I should have married an Italian woman. I married, not to please myself, but for the good of Richmoor; and I am glad to-day that I did so. Your duty to Richmoor is first; to yourself, secondary.”
“Have you anything against Miss Atheling?”
“I object to her family–though they are undoubtedly in direct descent from the royal Saxon family of Atheling; I object to her poverty; I object to her taking the place of a young lady who has every desirable qualification for your wife.”
“Is there no way to meet these objections, sir?”
“No way whatever.” At these words the Duke stood painfully up, and said, with angry emphasis, “I will not have this subject mentioned to me again. It is dead. I forbid you to speak of it.” Then he rang the bell for his Secretary, and gave him some orders. Lord Exham leaned against the mantelpiece, lost in sorrowful thought, until the Duke turned to him and said,–
“I am going to ride; will you go with me? There are letters from Wetherell and Lyndhurst to talk over.”
“I cannot think of politics at present. I should be no help to you.”
“Your mother and Annabel are thinking of going to Germany. I wish you would persuade them to stop at home. Is Annabel sick? I am told she is.”
“I do not know, sir.”
“You might trouble yourself to inquire.”
“Father, I have never at any time disobeyed you. Permit me to marry the woman I love. In all else, I follow where you lead.”
“Piers, my dear son, if my wisdom is sufficient for ‘all else,’ can you not trust it in this matter? Miss Atheling is an impossibility,–mind, I say an impossibility,–now, and to-morrow, and in all the future. That is enough about Miss Atheling. Good-afternoon! I feel far from well, and I will try what a gallop may do for me.”
Piers bowed; he could not speak. His heart beat at his lips; he was choking with emotion. The very attitude of the Duke filled him with despair. It permitted of no argument; it would allow of no hope. He knew the Squire’s mood was just as inexorable as his father’s. Mrs. Atheling had defined the position very well, when she called the two men, “upper and nether millstones.” Kate and he were now between them. And there was only one way out of the situation supposable. If Kate was willing, they could marry without permission. The Rector of Belward would not be difficult to manage; for the Duke had nothing to do with Belward; it was in the gift of Mrs. Atheling. On some appointed morning Kate could meet him before the little altar. Love has ways and means and messengers; and his face flushed, and a kind of angry hope came into his heart as this idea entered it. Just then, he did not consider how far Kate would fall below his best thoughts if it were possible to persuade her to such clandestine disobedience.
The Duke was pleased with himself. He felt that he had settled the disagreeable question promptly and kindly; and he was cantering cheerfully across Belward Bents, when he came suddenly face to face with Squire Atheling. The surprise was not pleasant; but he instantly resolved to turn it to service.
“Squire,” he said, with a forced heartiness, “well met! I thank you for your co-operation. In forbidding Lord Exham your daughter’s society, you have done precisely what I wished you to do.”
“There is no ‘co-operation’ in the question, Duke. I considered only Miss Atheling’s rights and happiness. And what I have done, was not done for any wish of yours, but to satisfy myself. Lord Exham is your business, not mine.”
“I have just told him that a marriage with Miss Atheling is out of all consideration; that both you and I are of this opinion; and, I may add, that my plans for Lord Exham’s future would be utterly ruined by a mésalliance at this time.”
“You will retract the word ‘ mésalliance ,’ Duke. You know Miss Atheling’s lineage, and that a duke of the reigning family would make no ‘ mésalliance ’ in marrying her. I say retract the word!” and the Squire involuntarily gave emphasis to the order by the passionate tightening of his hand on his riding-whip.
“I certainly retract any word that gives you offence, Squire. I meant no reflection on Miss Atheling, who is a most charming young lady–”
“There is no more necessity for compliments than for–the other thing. I have told Miss Atheling to see Lord Exham no more. I will make my order still more positive to her.”
“Yet, Squire, lovers will often outwit the wisest fathers.”
“My daughter will give me her word, and she would not be an Atheling if she broke it. I shall make her understand that I will never forgive her if she allies herself with the house of Richmoor.”
“Come, come, Squire! You need not speak so contemptuously of the house of Richmoor. The noblest women in England would gladly ally themselves with my house.”
“I cannot prevent them doing so; but I can keep my own daughter’s honour, and I will. Good-afternoon, Duke! I hope this is our last word on a subject so unpleasant.”
“I hope so. Squire, there are some important letters from Lyndhurst and Wetherell; can you come to the Castle to-morrow and talk them over with me.”
“I cannot, Duke.”
Then the Duke bowed haughtily, and gave his horse both rein and whip; and the angry thoughts in his heart were, “What a proud, perverse unmanageable creature! He was as ready to strike as to speak. If I had been equally uncivilised, we should have come to blows as easily as words. I am sorry I have had any dealings with the fellow. Julia warned me–a man ought to take his wife’s advice wherever women are factors in a question. Confound the whole race of country squires!–they make all the trouble that is made.”
Squire Atheling had not any more pleasant thoughts about dukes; but they were an undercurrent, his daughter dominated them. He dreaded his next interview with her, but was not inclined to put it off, even when he found her, on his return home, with Mrs. Atheling. She had been weeping; she hardly dried her tears on his approach. Her lovely face was flushed and feverish; she had the look of a rose blown by a stormy wind. He pushed his chair to her side, and gently drew her on to his knees, and put his arm around her, as he said,–
“My little girl, I am sorry! I am sorry! But it has to be, Kitty. There is no hope, and I will not fool thee with false promises. I have just had a talk with Richmoor. He was very rude, very rude indeed, to thy father.” She did not speak or lift her eyes; and the Squire continued, “He used a word about a marriage with thee that I would not permit. I had to bring him to his senses.”
“Oh, Father!”
“Would you have me sit quiet and hear the Athelings made little of.”
“No, Father.”
“I thought not.”
“After what the Duke has said to me, there can be no thought of marriage between Piers and thee. Give him up, now and forever.”
“I cannot.”
“But thou must.”
“It will kill me.”
“Not if thou art the good, brave girl I think thee. Piers is only one little bit of the happy life thy good God has given thee. Thou wilt still have thy mother, and thy brother, and thy sweet home, and all the honour and blessings of thy lot in life– and thy father, too , Kitty. Is thy father nobody?”
Then she laid her head on his breast and sobbed bitterly; and the Squire could not speak. He wept with her. And sitting a little apart, but watching them, Mrs. Atheling wept a little also. Yet, in spite of his emotion, the Squire was inexorable; and he continued, with stern and steady emphasis, “Thou art not to see him. Thou art not to write to him. Thou art not even to look at him. Get him out of thy life, root and branch. It is the only way. Come now, give me thy promise.”
“Let me see him once more.”
“I will not. What for? To pity one another, and abuse every other person, right or wrong. The Richmoors don’t want thee among them at any price; and if I was thee I would stay where I was wanted.”
“Piers wants me.”
“Now then, if you must have the whole bitter truth, take it. I don’t believe Piers will have any heartache wanting thee. He was here, there, and everywhere with Miss Vyner, after thou hadst left London; and I saw the ring thou loanedst him on her finger.”
Then Kate looked quickly up. Once, when Annabel had removed her glove, and instantly replaced it, a vague suspicion of this fact had given her a shock that she had named to no one. It seemed so incredible she could not tell her mother. And now her father’s words brought back that moment of sick suspicion, and confirmed it.
“Are you sure of what you say, Father?”
“I will wage my word and honour on it.”
There was a moment’s intense silence. Kate glanced at her mother, who sat with dropped eyes, unconsciously knitting; but there was not a shadow of doubt or denial on her face. Then she looked at her father. His large countenance, usually so red and beaming, was white and drawn with feeling, and his troubled, aching soul looked at her pathetically from the misty depths of his tearful eyes. Her mother she might have argued and pleaded with; but the love and anguish supplicating her from that bending face was not to be denied. She lifted her own to it. She kissed the pale cheeks and trembling lips, and said, clearly,–
“I promise what you wish, Father. I will not speak to Piers, nor write to him, nor even look at him again–until you say I may,” and with the words she put her hand in his for surety.
He rose to his feet then and put her in his chair; but he could not speak a word. Tremblingly, he lifted his hat and stick and went out of the room; and Mrs. Atheling threw down her knitting, and followed him to the door, and watched him going slowly through the long, flagged passageway. Her face was troubled when she returned to Kate. She lifted her knitting and threw it with some temper into her work-basket, and then flung wide open the casement and let the fresh air into the room. Kate did not speak; her whole air and manner was that of injury and woe-begone extremity.
“Kate,” said her mother at last, “Kate, my dear! This is your first lesson in this world’s sorrow. Don’t be a coward under it. Lift up your heart to Him who is always sufficient.”
“Oh, Mother! I think I shall die.”
“I would be ashamed to say such words. Piers was good and lovesome, and I do not blame you for loving him as long as it was right to do so. But when your father’s word is against it, you may be very sure it is not right. Father would not give you a moment’s pain, if he could help it.”
“It is too cruel! I cannot bear it!”
“Are you asked to bear anything but what women in all ages, and in all countries, have had to bear? To give up what you love is always hard. I have had to give up three fine sons, and your dear little sister Edith. I have had to give up father, and mother, and brothers, and sisters; but I never once thought of dying. Whatever happens, happens with God’s will, or with God’s permission; so if you can’t give up cheerfully to your father’s will, do try and say to God, as pleasantly as you can, Thy Will be my will.”
“I thought you would pity me, Mother.”
“I do, Kate, with all my heart. But life has more loves and duties than one. If, in order to have Piers, you had to relinquish every one else, would you do so? No, you would not. Kate, I love you, and I pity you in your great trial; and I will help you to bear it as well as I can. But you must bear it cheerfully. I will not have father killed for Piers Exham. He looked very queerly when he went out. Be a brave girl, and if you are going to keep your promise, do it cheerfully–or it is not worth while.”
“How can I be cheerful, Mother?”
“As easy as not, if you have a good, unselfish heart. You will say to yourself, ‘What right have I to make every one in the house miserable, because I am miserable?’ Troubles must come to all, Kitty, but troubles need not be wicked; and it is wicked to be a destroyer of happiness . I think God himself may find it hard to forgive those who selfishly destroy the happiness of others, just because they are not satisfied, or have not the one thing they specially want. When you are going to be cross and unhappy, say to yourself, ”I will not be cross! I will not be unhappy! I will not make my good father wretched, and fill his pleasant home with a tearful drizzle, because I want to cry about my own loss.’ And, depend upon it, Kitty, you will find content and happiness in making others happy. Good comes to hearts prepared for good; but it cannot come to hearts full of worry, and fear, and selfish regrets.”
“You are setting me a hard lesson, Mother.”
“I know it is hard, Kate. Life is all a task; yet we may as well sing, as we fulfil it. Eh, dear?”
Kate did not answer. She lifted her habit over her arm, and went slowly upstairs. Sorrow filled her to the ears and eyes; but her mother heard her close and then turn the key in her door.
“That is well,” she thought. “Now her good angel will find her alone with God.”