CHAPTER I.
He left me when the down upon his lip Lay like the shadow of a hovering kiss. "Beautiful mother, do not grieve," he said; "I will be great, and build our fortunes high. And you shall wear the longest train at court, And look so queenly, all the lords shall say, 'She is a royal changeling: there is some crown Lacks the right head, since hers wears naught but braids.'" O, he is coming now--but I am gray: And he----
On the first of September, in the memorable year 1832, some one wasexpected at Transome Court. As early as two o'clock in the afternoon theaged lodge-keeper had opened the heavy gate, green as the tree trunkswere green with nature's powdery paint, deposited year after year.Already in the village of Little Treby, which lay on the side of a steephill not far off the lodge-gates, the elder matrons sat in their bestgowns at the few cottage doors bordering the road, that they might beready to get up and make their courtesy when a travelling carriageshould come in sight; and beyond the village several small boys werestationed on the look-out, intending to run a race to the barn-like oldchurch, where the sexton waited in the belfry ready to set the one bellin joyful agitation just at the right moment.
The old lodge-keeper had opened the gate and left it in the charge ofhis lame wife, because he was wanted at the Court to sweep away theleaves, and perhaps to help in the stables. For though Transome Courtwas a large mansion, built in the fashion of Queen Anne's time, with apark and grounds as fine as any to be seen in Loamshire, there were veryfew servants about it. Especially, it seemed, there must be a lack ofgardeners; for, except on the terrace surrounded with a stone parapet infront of the house, where there was a parterre, kept with some neatness,grass had spread itself over the gravel walks, and over all the lowmounds once carefully cut as black beds for the shrubs and largerplants. Many of the windows had the shutters closed, and under the grandScotch fir that stooped toward one corner, the brown fir-needles of manyyears lay in a small stone balcony in front of two such darkenedwindows. All round, both near and far, there were grand trees,motionless in the still sunshine, and, like all large motionless things,seemed to add to the stillness. Here and there a leaf fluttered down;petals fell in a silent shower; a heavy moth fluttered by, and, when itsettled, seemed to fall wearily; the tiny birds alighted on the walks,and hopped about in perfect tranquillity; even a stray rabbit satnibbling a leaf that was to its liking, in the middle of a grassy space,with an air that seemed quite impudent in so timid a creature. No soundwas to be heard louder than a sleepy hum, and the soft monotony ofrunning water hurrying on to the river that divided the park. Standingon the south or east side of the house, you would never have guessedthat an arrival was expected.
But on the west side, where the carriage entrance was, the gates underthe stone archway were thrown open; and so was the double door of theentrance-hall, letting in the warm light on the scagliola pillars, themarble statues, and the broad stone staircase, with its matting worninto large holes. And, stronger sign of expectation than all, from oneof the doors that surrounded the entrance-hall, there came forth fromtime to time a lady, who walked lightly over the polished stone floor,and stood on the door-steps and watched and listened. She walkedlightly, for her figure was slim and finely formed, though she wasbetween fifty and sixty. She was a tall, proud-looking woman, withabundant gray hair, dark eyes and eyebrows, and a somewhat eagle-likeyet not unfeminine face. Her tight-fitting black dress was much worn;the fine lace of her cuffs and collar, and of the small veil that fellbackward over her high comb, was visibly mended; but rare jewels flashedon her hands, which lay on her folded black-clad arms like finely-cutonyx cameos.
Meantime Mrs. Transome went to the door-steps, watching and listening invain. Each time she returned to the same room; it was a moderate-sizedcomfortable room, with low ebony bookshelves round it, and it formed anante-room to a large library, of which a glimpse could be seen throughan open doorway, partly obstructed by a heavy tapestry curtain drawn onone side. There was a great deal of tarnished gilding and dinginess onthe walls and furniture of this smaller room, but the pictures above thebookcases were all of a cheerful kind: portraits in pastel ofpearly-skinned ladies with hair-powder, blue ribbons, and low bodices; asplendid portrait in oils of a Transome in the gorgeous dress of theRestoration another of a Transome in his boyhood, with his hand on theneck of a small pony; and a large Flemish battle-piece, where war seemedonly a picturesque blue-and-red accident in a vast sunny expanse ofplain and sky. Probably such cheerful pictures had been chosen becausethis was Mrs. Transome's usual sitting-room: it was certainly for thisreason that, near the chair in which she seated herself each time shere-entered, there hung a picture of a youthful face which bore a strongresemblance to her own: a beardless but masculine face, with rich brownhair hanging low on the forehead, and undulating beside each cheek downto the loose white cravat. Near this same chair were her writing table,with vellum-covered account-books on it, the cabinet in which she kepther neatly-arranged drugs, her basket for her embroidery, a folio volumeof architectural engravings from which she took her embroidery-patterns,a number of the "North Loamshire Herald," and the cushion for her fatBlenheim, which was too old and sleepy to notice its mistress'srestlessness. For, just now, Mrs. Transome could not abridge the sunnytedium of the day by the feeble interest of her usual indooroccupations. Her consciousness was absorbed by memories and prospects,and except that she walked to the entrance-door to look out, she satmotionless with folded arms, involuntarily from time to time turningtoward the portrait close by her, and as often, when its young browneyes met hers, turning away again with self-checking resolution.
At last, prompted by some sudden thought or by some sound, she rose andwent hastily beyond the tapestry curtain into the library. She pausednear the door without speaking: apparently she only wished to see thatno harm was being done. A man nearer seventy than sixty was in the actof ranging on a large library-table a series of shallow drawers, some ofthem containing dried insects, others mineralogical specimens. His palemild eyes, receding lower jaw, and slight frame, could never haveexpressed much vigor, either bodily or mental; but he had now theunevenness of gait and feebleness of gesture which tell of a pastparalytic seizure. His threadbare clothes were thoroughly brushed: hissoft white hair was carefully parted and arranged: he was not aneglected-looking old man; and at his side a fine black retriever, alsoold, sat on its haunches, and watched him as he went to and fro. Butwhen Mrs. Transome appeared within the doorway, her husband paused inhis work and shrank like a timid animal looked at in a cage where flightwas impossible. He was conscious of a troublesome intention, for whichhe had been rebuked before--that of disturbing all his specimens with aview to a new arrangement.
After an interval, in which his wife stood perfectly still, observinghim, he began to put back the drawers in their places in the row ofcabinets which extended under the bookshelves at one end of thelibrary. When they were all put back and closed, Mrs. Transome turnedaway, and the frightened old man seated himself with Nimrod theretriever on an ottoman. Peeping at him again, a few minutes after, shesaw that he had his arm round Nimrod's neck, and was uttering histhoughts to the dog in a loud whisper, as little children do to anyobject near them when they believe themselves unwatched.
At last the sound of the church-bell reached Mrs. Transome's ear, andshe knew that before long the sound of wheels must be within hearing;but she did not at once start up and walk to the entrance-door. She satstill, quivering and listening; her lips became pale, her hands werecold and trembling. Was her son really coming? She was far beyond fifty;and since her early gladness in this best-loved boy, the harvest of herlife had been scanty. Could it be that now--when her hair was gray, whensight had become one of the day's fatigues, when her youngaccomplishments seemed almost ludicrous, like the tone of her firstharpsichord and the words of the song long browned with age--she wasgoing to reap an assured joy? to feel that the doubtful deeds of herlife were justified by the result, since a kind Providence hadsanctioned the
m?--to be no longer tacitly pitied by her neighbors forher lack of money, her imbecile husband, her graceless eldest-born, andthe loneliness of her life; but to have at her side a rich, clever,possibly a tender, son? Yes; but there were the fifteen years ofseparation, and all that had happened in that long time to throw herinto the background of her son's memory and affection. And yet--did notmen sometimes become more filial in their feeling when experience hadmellowed them, and they had themselves become fathers? Still, if Mrs.Transome had expected only her son, she would have trembled less; sheexpected a little grandson also: and there were reasons why she had notbeen enraptured when her son had written to her only when he was on theeve of returning that he already had an heir born to him.
But the facts must be accepted as they stood, and, after all, the chiefthing was to have her son back again. Such pride, such affection, suchhopes as she cherished in this fifty-sixth year of her life, must findtheir gratification in him--or nowhere. Once more she glanced at theportrait. The young brown eyes seemed to dwell on her pleasantly; but,turning from it with a sort of impatience, and saying aloud, "Of coursehe will be altered!" she rose almost with difficulty, and walked moreslowly than before across the hall to the entrance-door.
Already the sound of wheels was loud upon the gravel. The momentarysurprise of seeing that it was only a post-chaise, without a servant ormuch luggage, that was passing under the stone archway and then wheelinground against the flight of stone steps, was at once merged in the sensethat there was a dark face under a red travelling-cap looking at herfrom the window. She saw nothing else; she was not even conscious thatthe small group of her own servants had mustered, or that old Hickes thebutler had come forward to open the chaise door. She heard herselfcalled "Mother!" and felt a light kiss on each cheek; but stronger thanall that sensation was the consciousness which no previous thought couldprepare her for, that this son who had come back to her was a stranger.Three minutes before, she had fancied that, in spite of all changeswrought by fifteen years of separation, she should clasp her son againas she had done at their parting; but in the moment when their eyes met,the sense of strangeness came upon her like a terror. It was not hard tounderstand that she was agitated, and the son led her across the hall tothe sitting-room, closing the door behind them. Then he turned towardher and said, smiling--
"You would not have known me, eh, mother?"
It was perhaps the truth. If she had seen him in a crowd, she might havelooked at him without recognition--not, however, without startledwonder; for though the likeness to herself was no longer striking, theyears had overlaid it with another likeness which would have arrestedher. Before she answered him, his eyes, with a keen restlessness, asunlike as possible to the lingering gaze of the portrait, had travelledquickly over the room, alighting on her as she said--
"Everything is changed, Harold. I am an old woman, you see."
"But straighter and more upright than some of the young ones!" saidHarold; inwardly, however, feeling that age had made his mother's facevery anxious and eager. "The old women at Smyrna are like sacks. You'venot got clumsy and shapeless. How is it I have the trick of gettingfat?" (Here Harold lifted his arm and spread out his plump hand.) "Iremember my father was as thin as a herring. How is my father? Where ishe?"
Mrs. Transome just pointed to the curtained doorway, and let her sonpass through it alone. She was not given to tears: but now, under thepressure of emotion that could find no other vent, they burst forth. Shetook care that they should be silent tears, and before Harold came outof the library again they were dried. Mrs. Transome had not the femininetendency to seek influence through pathos; she had been used to rule invirtue of acknowledged superiority. The consciousness that she had tomake her son's acquaintance, and that her knowledge of the youth ofnineteen might help her little in interpreting the man of thirty-four,had fallen like lead on her soul; but in this new acquaintance of theirsshe cared especially that her son, who had seen a strange world, shouldfeel that he was come home to a mother who was to be consulted on allthings, and who could supply his lack of the local experience necessaryto an English landholder. Her part in life had been that of the cleversinner, and she was equipped with the views, the reasons, and the habitswhich belonged to that character; life would have little meaning for herif she were to be gently thrust aside as a harmless elderly woman. Andbesides, there were secrets which her son must never know. So, by thetime Harold came from the library again, the traces of tears were notdiscernible, except to a very careful observer. And he did not observehis mother carefully; his eyes only glanced at her on their way to the_North Loamshire Herald_, lying on the table near her, which he took upwith his left hand, as he said--
"Gad! what a wreck poor father is! Paralysis, eh? Terribly shrunk andshaken--crawls about among his books and beetles as usual, though. Well,it's a slow and easy death. But he's not much over sixty-five, is he?"
"Sixty-seven, counting by birthdays; but your father was born old, Ithink," said Mrs. Transome, a little flushed with the determination notto show any unasked for feeling. Her son did not notice her. All thetime he had been speaking his eyes had been running down the columns ofthe newspaper.
"But your little boy, Harold--where is he? How is it he has not comewith you?"
"Oh, I left him behind, in town," said Harold, still looking at thepaper. "My man Dominic will bring him, with the rest of the luggage. Ah,I see it is young Debarry, and not my old friend Sir Maximus, who isoffering himself as candidate for North Loamshire."
"Yes. You did not answer me when I wrote to you to London about yourstanding. There is no other Tory candidate spoken of, and you wouldhave all the Debarry interest."
"I hardly think that," said Harold, significantly.
"Why? Jermyn says a Tory candidate can never be got in without it."
"But I shall not be a Tory candidate."
Mrs. Transome felt something like an electric shock.
"What then?" she said, almost sharply. "You will not call yourself aWhig?"
"God forbid! I'm a Radical."
Mrs. Transome's limbs tottered; she sank into a chair. Here was adistinct confirmation of the vague but strong feeling that her son was astranger to her. Here was a revelation to which it seemed almost asimpossible to adjust her hopes and notions of a dignified life as if herson had said that he had been converted to Mahometanism at Smyrna, andhad four wives, instead of one son, shortly to arrive under the care ofDominic. For the moment she had a sickening feeling that it was of nouse that the long-delayed good fortune had come at last--all of no usethough the unloved Durfey was dead and buried, and though Harold hadcome home with plenty of money. There were rich Radicals, she was aware,as there were rich Jews and Dissenters, but she had never thought ofthem as county people. Sir Francis Burdett had been generally regardedas a madman. It was better to ask no questions, but silently to prepareherself for anything else there might be to come.
"Will you go to your rooms, Harold, and see if there is anything youwould like to have altered?"
"Yes, let us go," said Harold, throwing down the newspaper, in which hehad been rapidly reading almost every advertisement while his mother hadbeen going through her sharp inward struggle. "Uncle Lingon is on thebench still, I see," he went on, as he followed her across the hall; "ishe at home--will he be here this evening?"
"He says you must go to the rectory when you want to see him. You mustremember you have come back to a family with old-fashioned notions. Youruncle thought I ought to have you to myself in the first hour or two. Heremembered that I had not seen my son for fifteen years."
"Ah, by Jove! fifteen years--so it is!" said Harold, taking his mother'shand and drawing it under his arm; for he had perceived that her wordswere charged with an intention. "And you are as straight as an arrowstill; you will carry the shawls I have brought you as well as ever."
They walked up the broad stone steps together in silence. Under theshock of discovering her son's Radicalism, Mrs. Transome had no impulseto say one thi
ng rather than another; as in a man who had just beenbranded on the forehead all wonted motives would be uprooted. Harold, onhis side, had no wish opposed to filial kindness, but his busy thoughtswere determined by habits which had no reference to any woman'sfeelings; and even if he could have conceived what his mother's feelingwas, his mind, after that momentary arrest, would have darted forward onits usual course.
"I have given you the south rooms, Harold," said Mrs. Transome, as theypassed along a corridor lit from above and lined with old familypictures. "I thought they would suit you best, as they all open intoeach other, and this middle one will make a pleasant sitting-room foryou."
"Gad! the furniture is in a bad state," said Harold, glancing around atthe middle room which they had just entered; "the moths seem to have gotinto the carpets and hangings."
"I had no choice except moths or tenants who would pay rent," said Mrs.Transome. "We have been too poor to keep servants for uninhabitedrooms."
"What! you've been rather pinched, eh?"
"You find us living as we have been living these twelve years."
"Ah, you've had Durfey's debts as well as the lawsuits--confound them!It will make a hole in sixty thousand pounds to pay off the mortgages.However, he's gone now, poor fellow; and I suppose I should have spentmore in buying an English estate some time or other. I always meant tobe an Englishman, and thrash a lord or two who thrashed me at Eton."
"I hardly thought you could have meant that, Harold, when I found youhad married a foreign wife."
"Would you have had me wait for a consumptive lackadaisicalEnglishwoman, who would have hung all her relations around my neck? Ihate English wives; they want to give their opinion about everything.They interfere with a man's life. I shall not marry again."
Mrs. Transome bit her lip, and turned away to draw up a blind. She wouldnot reply to words which showed how completely any conception of herselfand her feelings was excluded from her son's inward world.
As she turned round again she said, "I suppose you have been used togreat luxury; these rooms look miserable to you, but you can soon makeany alterations you like."
"Oh, I must have a private sitting-room fitted up for myselfdown-stairs. And the rest are bedrooms, I suppose," he went on, openinga side-door. "Ah, I can sleep here a night or two. But there's a bedroomdown-stairs, with an ante-room, I remember, that would do for my manDominic and the little boy. I should like to have that."
"Your father has slept there for years. He will be like a distractedinsect, and never know where to go, if you alter the track he has towalk in."
"That's a pity. I hate going up-stairs."
"There is the steward's room: it is not used, and might be turned into abedroom. I can't offer you my room, for I sleep up-stairs." (Mrs.Transome's tongue could be a whip upon occasion, but the lash had notfallen on a sensitive spot.)
"No; I'm determined not to sleep up-stairs. We'll see about thesteward's room to-morrow, and I dare say I shall find a closet of somesort for Dominic. It's a nuisance he had to stay behind, for I shallhave nobody to cook for me. Ah, there's the old river I used to fish in.I often thought, when I was at Smyrna, that I would buy a park with ariver through it as much like the Lapp as possible. Gad, what fine oaksthose are opposite! Some of them must come down, though."
"I've held every tree sacred on the demesne, as I told you, Harold. Itrusted to your getting the estate some time, and releasing it; and Idetermined to keep it worth releasing. A park without fine timber is nobetter than a beauty without teeth and hair."
"Bravo, mother!" said Harold, putting his hand on her shoulder. "Ah,you've had to worry yourself about things that don't properly belong toa woman--my father being weakly. We'll set all that right. You shallhave nothing to do now but to be grandmamma on satin cushions."
"You must excuse me from the satin cushions. That is a part of the oldwoman's duty I am not prepared for. I am used to be chief bailiff, andto sit in the saddle two or three hours every day. There are two farmson our hands besides the Home Farm."
"Phew-ew! Jermyn manages the estate badly, then. That will not lastunder _my_ reign," said Harold, turning on his heel and feeling in hispockets for the keys of his portmanteaus, which had been brought up.
"Perhaps when you've been in England a little longer," said Mrs.Transome, coloring as if she had been a girl, "you will understandbetter the difficulty there is in letting farms these times."
"I understand the difficulty perfectly, mother. To let farms, a man musthave the sense to see what will make them inviting to farmers, and toget sense supplied on demand is just the most difficult transaction Iknow of. I suppose if I ring there's some fellow who can act as valetand learn to attend to my hookah?"
"There is Hickes the butler, and there is Jabez the footman; those areall the men in the house. They were here when you left."
"Oh, I remember Jabez--he was a dolt. I'll have old Hickes. He was aneat little machine of a butler; his words used to come like the clicksof an engine. He must be an old machine now, though."
"You seem to remember some things about home wonderfully well, Harold."
"Never forget places and people--how they look and what can be done withthem. All the country round here lies like a map in my brain. A deucedpretty country too; but the people were a stupid set of old Whigs andTories. I suppose they are much as they were."
"I am, at least, Harold. You are the first of your family that evertalked of being a Radical. I did not think I was taking care of our oldoaks for that. I always thought Radicals' houses stood staring abovepoor sticks of young trees and iron hurdles."
"Yes, but the Radical sticks are growing, mother, and half the Tory oaksare rotting," said Harold, with gay carelessness. "You've arranged forJermyn to be early to-morrow?"
"He will be here to breakfast at nine. But I leave you to Hickes now; wedine in an hour."
Mrs. Transome went away and shut herself in her own dressing-room. Ithad come to pass now--this meeting with the son who had been the objectof so much longing; whom she had longed for before he was born, for whomshe had sinned, from whom she had wrenched herself with pain at theirparting, and whose coming again had been the one great hope of heryears. The moment was gone by; there had been no ecstasy, no gladnesseven; hardly half an hour had passed, and few words had been spoken,yet with that quickness in weaving new futures which belongs to womenwhose actions have kept them in habitual fear of consequences, Mrs.Transome thought she saw with all the clearness of demonstration thather son's return had not been a good for her in the sense of making herany happier.
She stood before a tall mirror, going close to it and looking at herface with hard scrutiny, as if it were unrelated to herself. No elderlyface can be handsome, looked at in that way; every little detail isstartlingly prominent, and the effect of the whole is lost. She saw thedried-up complexion, and the deep lines of bitter discontent about themouth.
"I am a hag!" she said to herself (she was accustomed to give herthoughts a very sharp outline), "an ugly old woman who happens to be hismother. That is what he sees in me, as I see a stranger in him. I shallcount for nothing. I was foolish to expect anything else."
She turned away from the mirror and walked up and down her room.
"What a likeness!" she said, in a loud whisper; "yet, perhaps, no onewill see it besides me."
She threw herself into a chair, and sat with a fixed look, seeingnothing that was actually present, but inwardly seeing with painfulvividness what had been present with her a little more than thirty yearsago--the little round-limbed creature that had been leaning against herknees, and stamping tiny feet, and looking up at her with gurglinglaughter. She had thought that the possession of this child would giveunity to her life, and make some gladness through the changing yearsthat would grow as fruit out of these early maternal caresses. Butnothing had come just as she had wished. The mother's early raptures hadlasted but a short time, and even while they lasted there had grown upin the midst of them a hungry desire, like a black
poisonous plantfeeding in the sunlight,--the desire that her first, rickety, ugly,imbecile child should die, and leave room for her darling, of whom shecould be proud. Such desires make life a hideous lottery, where everydaymay turn up a blank; where men and women who have the softest beds andthe most delicate eating, who have a very large share of that sky andearth which some are born to have no more of than the fraction to be gotin a crowded entry, yet grow haggard, fevered, and restless, like thosewho watch in other lotteries. Day after day, year after year, hadyielded blanks; new cares had come, bringing other desires for resultsquite beyond her grasp, which must also be watched for in the lottery;and all the while the round-limbed pet had been growing into a strongyouth, who liked many things better than his mother's caresses, and whohad a much keener consciousness of his independent existence than of hisrelation to her: the lizard's egg, that white rounded passiveprettiness, had become a brown, darting, determined lizard. The mother'slove is at first an absorbing delight, blunting all other sensibilities;it is an expansion of the animal existence; it enlarges the imaginedrange for self to move in: but in after years it can only continue to bejoy on the same terms as other long-lived love--that is, by muchsuppression of self, and power of living in the experience of another.Mrs. Transome had darkly felt the pressure of that unchangeable fact.Yet she had clung to the belief that somehow the possession of this sonwas the best thing she lived for; to believe otherwise would have madeher memory too ghastly a companion. Some time or other, by some means,the estate she was struggling to save from the grasp of the law would beHarold's. Somehow the hated Durfey, the imbecile eldest, who seemed tohave become tenacious of a despicable squandering life, would be got ridof; vice might kill him. Meanwhile the estate was burdened: there was nogood prospect for any heir. Harold must go and make a career for himselfand this was what he was bent on, with a precocious clearness ofperception as to the conditions on which he could hope for anyadvantages in life. Like most energetic natures, he had a strong faithin his luck; he had been gay at their parting, and had promised to makehis fortune; and in spite of past disappointments, Harold's possiblefortune still made some ground for his mother to plant her hopes in. Hisluck had not failed him; yet nothing had turned out according to herexpectations. Her life had been like a spoiled shabby pleasure-day, inwhich the music and the processions are all missed, and nothing is leftat evening but the weariness of striving after what has been failed of.Harold had gone with the Embassy to Constantinople, under the patronageof a high relative, his mother's cousin; he was to be diplomatist, andwork his way upward in public life. But his luck had taken anothershape: he had saved the life of an Armenian banker, who in gratitude hadoffered him a prospect which his practical mind had preferred to theproblematic promises of diplomacy and high-born cousinship. Harold hadbecome a merchant and banker at Smyrna; and let the years pass withoutcaring to find the possibility of visiting his early home, and had shownno eagerness to make his life at all familiar to his mother, asking forletters about England, but writing scantily about himself. Mrs. Transomehad kept up the habit of writing to her son, but gradually theunfruitful years had dulled her hopes and yearnings; increasinganxieties about money had worried her, and she was more sure of beingfretted by bad news about her dissolute eldest son than of hearinganything to cheer her from Harold. She had begun to live merely in smallimmediate cares and occupations, and like all eager-minded women whoadvance in life without any activity of tenderness or any largesympathy, she had contracted small rigid habits of thinking and acting,she had her "ways" which must not be crossed, and had learned to fill upthe great void of life with giving small orders to tenants, insisting onmedicines for infirm cottagers, winning small triumphs in bargains andpersonal economies, and parrying ill-natured remarks of Lady Debarry'sby lancet-edged epigrams. So her life had gone on till more than a yearago, when that desire which had been so hungry when she was a bloomingyoung mother, was at last fulfilled--at last, when her hair was gray,and her face looked bitter, restless, and unenjoying, like her life. Thenews came from Jersey that Durfey, the imbecile son, was dead. _Now_Harold was heir to the estate; now the wealth he had gained couldrelease the land from its burdens; now he would think it worth while toreturn home. A change had come over her life, and the sunlight breakingthe clouds at evening was pleasant, though the sun must sink beforelong. Hopes, affections, the sweeter part of her memories, started fromtheir wintry sleep, and it once more seemed a great good to have had asecond son who in some ways had cost her dearly. But again there wereconditions she had not reckoned on. When the good tidings had been sentto Harold, and he had announced that he would return so soon as he couldwind up his affairs, he had for the first time informed his mother thathe had been married, that his Greek wife was no longer living, but thathe should bring home a little boy, the finest and most desirable ofheirs and grandsons. Harold seated in his distant Smyrna home consideredthat he was taking a rational view of what things must have become bythis time at the old place in England, when he figured his mother as agood elderly lady, who would necessarily be delighted with thepossession on any terms of a healthy grandchild, and would not mindmuch about the particulars of a long-concealed marriage.
Mrs. Transome had torn up that letter in a rage. But in the months whichhad elapsed before Harold could actually arrive, she had preparedherself as well as she could to suppress all reproaches or queries whichher son might resent, and to acquiesce in his evident wishes. The returnwas still looked for with longing; affection and satisfied pride wouldagain warm her later years. She was ignorant what sort of man Harold hadbecome now, and of course he must be changed in many ways; but thoughshe told herself this, still the image that she knew, the image fondnessclung to, necessarily prevailed over the negatives insisted on by herreason.
And so it was, that when she had moved to the door to meet him, she hadbeen sure that she should clasp her son again, and feel that he was thesame who had been her boy, her little one, the loved child of herpassionate youth. An hour seemed to have changed everything for her. Awoman's hopes are woven of sunbeams; a shadow annihilates them. Theshadow which had fallen over Mrs. Transome in this first interview withher son was the presentiment of her powerlessness. If things went wrong,if Harold got unpleasantly disposed in a certain direction where herchief dread had always lain, she seemed to foresee that her words wouldbe of no avail. The keenness of her anxiety in this matter had served asinsight; and Harold's rapidity, decision, and indifference to anyimpressions in others, which did not further or impede his own purposes,had made themselves felt by her as much as she would have felt theunmanageable strength of a great bird which had alighted near her, andallowed her to stroke its wing for a moment because food lay near her.
Under the cold weight of these thoughts Mrs. Transome shivered. Thatphysical reaction roused her from her reverie, and she could now hearthe gentle knocking at the door to which she had been deaf before.Notwithstanding her activity and the fewness of her servants, she hadnever dressed herself without aid; nor would that small, neat,exquisitely clean old woman who now presented herself have wished thather labor should be saved at the expense of such a sacrifice on herlady's part. The small old woman was Mrs. Hickes, the butler's wife, whoacted as housekeeper, lady's-maid, and superintendent of thekitchen--the large stony scene of inconsiderable cooking. Forty yearsago she had entered Mrs. Transome's service, when that lady wasbeautiful Miss Lingon, and her mistress still called her Denner, as shehad done in the old days.
"The bell has rung, then, Denner, without my hearing it?" said Mrs.Transome, rising.
"Yes, madam," said Denner, reaching from a wardrobe an old black velvetdress trimmed with much-mended point, in which Mrs. Transome was wont tolook queenly of an evening.
Denner had still strong eyes of that short-sighted kind which seesthrough the narrowest chink between the eyelashes. The physical contrastbetween the tall, eagle-faced, dark-eyed lady, and the little peeringwaiting woman, who had been round-featured and of pale mealy complexionfrom h
er youth up, had doubtless had a strong influence in determiningDenner's feeling toward her mistress, which was of that worshipful sortpaid to a goddess in ages when it was not thought necessary or likelythat a goddess should be very moral. There were different orders ofbeings--so ran Denner's creed--and she belonged to another order thanthat to which her mistress belonged. She had a mind as sharp as aneedle, and would have seen through and through the ridiculouspretensions of a born servant who did not submissively accept the rigidfate which had given her born superiors. She would have called suchpretensions the wrigglings of a worm that tried to walk on its tail.There was a tacit understanding that Denner knew all her mistress'ssecrets, and her speech was plain and unflattering; yet with wonderfulsubtlety of instinct she never said anything which Mrs. Transome couldfeel humiliated by, as by familiarity from a servant who knew too much.Denner identified her own dignity with that of her mistress. She was ahard-headed godless little woman, but with a character to be reckoned onas you reckon on the qualities of iron.
Peering into Mrs. Transome's face she saw clearly that the meeting withthe son had been a disappointment in some way. She spoke with a refinedaccent, in a low quick, monotonous tone--
"Mr. Harold is dressed; he shook me by the hand in the corridor, and wasvery pleasant."
"What an alteration, Denner! No likeness to me now."
"Handsome, though, spite of his being so browned and stout. There's afine presence about Mr. Harold. I remember you used to say, madam, therewere some people you would always know were in the room though theystood round a corner, and others you might never see till you ranagainst them. That's as true as truth. And as for likenesses,thirty-five and sixty are not much alike, only to people's memories."
Mrs. Transome knew perfectly that Denner had divined her thoughts.
"I don't know how things will go on now, but it seems something too goodto happen that they will go on well. I am afraid of ever expectinganything good again."
"That's weakness, madam. Things don't happen because they're bad orgood, else all eggs would be addled or none at all, and at the most itis but six to the dozen. There's good chances and bad chances, andnobody's luck is pulled only by one string."
"What a woman you are, Denner! You talk like a French infidel. It seemsto me you are afraid of nothing. I have been full of fears all mylife--always seeing something or other hanging over me that I couldn'tbear to happen."
"Well, madam, put a good face on it, and don't seem to be on the look-outfor crows, else you'll set other people watching. Here you have a richson come home, and the debts will all be paid, and you have your healthand can ride about, and you've such a face and figure, and will have ifyou live to be eighty, that everybody is cap in hand to you before theyknow you who are; let me fasten up your veil a little higher: there's agood deal of pleasure in life for you yet."
"Nonsense! there's no pleasure for old women, unless they get it out oftormenting other people. What are your pleasures, Denner--besides beinga slave to me?"
"Oh, there's pleasure in knowing one's not a fool, like half the peopleone sees about. And managing one's husband is some pleasure; and doingall one's business well. Why, if I've only got some orange flowers tocandy, I shouldn't like to die till I see them all right. Then there'sthe sunshine now and then; I like that as the cats do. I look upon it,life is like our game at whist, when Banks and his wife come to thestill-room of an evening. I don't enjoy the game much, but I like toplay my cards well, and see what will be the end of it; and I want tosee you make the best of your hand, madam, for your luck has been minethese forty years now. But I must go and see how Kitty dishes up thedinner, unless you have any more commands."
"No, Denner; I am going down immediately."
As Mrs. Transome descended the stone staircase in her old black velvetand point, her appearance justified Denner's personal compliment. Shehad that high-born, imperious air which would have marked her as anobject of hatred and reviling by a revolutionary mob. Her person was tootypical of social distinctions to be passed by with indifference by anyone: it would have fitted an empress in her own right, who had had torule in spite of faction, to dare the violation of treaties and dreadretributive invasions, to grasp after new territories, to be defiant indesperate circumstances, and to feel a woman's hunger of the heartforever unsatisfied. Yet Mrs. Transome's cares and occupations had notbeen at all of an imperial sort. For thirty years she had led themonotonous, narrowing life which used to be the lot of our poorergentry; who never went to town, and were probably not on speaking termswith two out of the five families whose parks lay within the distance ofa drive. When she was young she had been thought wonderfully clever andaccomplished, and had been rather ambitious of intellectualsuperiority--had secretly picked out for private reading the higherparts of dangerous French authors--and in company had been able to talkof Mr. Burke's style, or of Chateaubriand's eloquence--had laughed atthe Lyrical Ballads, and admired Mr. Southey's Thalaba. She alwaysthought that the dangerous French writers were wicked and that herreading of them was a sin; but many sinful things were highly agreeableto her, and many things which she did not doubt to be good and true weredull and meaningless. She found ridicule of Biblical characters veryamusing, and she was interested in stories of illicit passion but shebelieved all the while that truth and safety lay in due attendance onprayers and sermons, in the admirable doctrines and ritual of the Churchof England, equally remote from Puritanism and Popery; in fact, in sucha view of this world and the next as would preserve the existingarrangements of English society quite unshaken, keeping down theobtrusiveness of the vulgar and the discontent of the poor. The historyof the Jews, she knew, ought to be preferred to any profane history; thePagans, of course, were vicious, and their religions quite nonsensical,considered as religions--but classical learning came from the Pagans;the Greeks were famous for sculpture; the Italians for painting; themiddle ages were dark and Papistical; but now Christianity went hand inhand with civilization, and the providential government of the world,though a little confused and entangled in foreign countries, in ourfavored land was clearly seen to be carried forward on Tory and Churchof England principles, sustained by the succession of the House ofBrunswick, and by sound English divines. For Miss Lingon had had asuperior governess, who held that a woman should be able to write a goodletter, and to express herself with propriety on general subjects. Andit is astonishing how effective this education appeared in a handsomegirl, who sat supremely well on horseback, sang and played a little,painted small figures in water-colors, had a naughty sparkle in her eyeswhen she made a daring quotation, and an air of serious dignity when sherecited something from her store of correct opinions. But however such astock of ideas may be made to tell in elegant society, and during a fewseasons in town, no amount of bloom and beauty can make them a perennialsource of interest in things not personal; and the notion that what istrue and, in general, good for mankind, is stupid and drug-like, is nota safe theoretic basis in circumstances of temptation and difficulty.Mrs. Transome had been in her bloom before this century began, and inthe long painful years since then, what she had once regarded as herknowledge and accomplishments had become as valueless as old-fashionedstucco ornaments, of which the substance was never worth anything, whilethe form is no longer to the taste of any living mortal. Crosses,mortifications, money-cares, conscious blame-worthiness, had changed theaspect of the world for her; there was anxiety in the morning sunlight;there was unkind triumph or disapproving pity in the glances of greetingneighbors; there was advancing age, and a contracting prospect in thechanging seasons as they came and went. And what could then sweeten thedays to a hungry, much-exacting self like Mrs. Transome's? Underprotracted ill every living creature will find something that makes acomparative ease, and even when life seems woven of pain, will convertthe fainter pang into a desire. Mrs. Transome, whose imperious will hadavailed little to ward off the great evils of her life, found the opiatefor her discontent in the exertion of her will about smaller things. Shewas
not cruel, and could not enjoy thoroughly what she called the oldwoman's pleasure of tormenting; but she liked every little sign of powerher lot had left her. She liked that a tenant should stand bareheadedbelow her as she sat on horseback. She liked to insist that work donewithout her orders should be undone from beginning to end. She liked tobe courtesied and bowed to by all the congregation as she walked up thelittle barn of a church. She liked to change a laborer's medicinefetched from the doctor, and substitute a prescription of her own. Ifshe had only been more haggard and less majestic, those who had glimpsesof her outward life might have said she was a tyrannical, gripingharridan, with a tongue like a razor. No one said exactly that; but theynever said anything like the full truth about her, or divined what washidden under that outward life--a woman's keen sensibility and dread,which lay screened behind all her petty habits and narrow notions, assome quivering thing with eyes and throbbing heart may lie crouchingbehind withered rubbish. The sensibility and dread had palpitated allthe faster in the prospect of her son's return; and now that she hadseen him, she said to herself, in her bitter way, "It is a lucky eelthat escapes skinning. The best happiness I shall ever know, will be toescape the worst misery."