What Will He Do with It? — Volume 03

Sophy glanced from the Mayor to her grandfather, and back again to the Mayor, shook her curls from her eyes, and looked seriously inquisitive.

The Mayor, observing her quietly, stole her hand into his own, feeling the pulse as if merely caressing the slender wrist. Then he began to describe his bailiff's cottage, with woodbine round the porch, the farm- yard, the bee-hives, the pretty duck-pond with an osier island, and the great China gander who had a pompous strut, which made him the droll est creature possible. And Sophy should go there in a day or two, and be as happy as one of the bees, but not so busy. Sophy listened very earnestly, very gravely, and then sliding her hand from the Mayor, caught hold of her grandfather's arm firmly, and said, "And you, Grandy, —will you like it? won't it be dull for you, Grandy dear?"

"Why, my darling," said Waife, "I and Sir Isaac will go and take a stroll about the country for a few weeks, and—"

SOPHY (passionately).—"I thought so; I thought he meant that. I tried not to believe it; go away,—you? and who's to take care of you? who'll understand you? I want care! I! I! No, no, it is you,—you who want care. I shall be well to-morrow,—quite well, don't fear. He shall not be sent away from me; he shall not, sir. Oh, Grandfather, Grandfather, how could you?" She flung herself on his breast, clinging there,— clinging as if infancy and age were but parts of the same whole.

"But," said the Mayor, "it is not as if you were going to school, my dear; you are going for a holiday. And your grandfather must leave you, —must travel about; 'tis his calling. If you fell ill and were with him, think how much you would be in his way. Do you know," he added, smiling, "I shall begin to fear that you are selfish."

"Selfish!" exclaimed Waife, angrily.

"Selfish!" echoed Sophy, with a melancholy scorn that came from a sentiment so deep that mortal eye could scarce fathom it. "Oh, no, sir! can you say it is for his good, not for what he supposes mine that you want us to part? The pretty cottage, and all for me; and what for him? —tramp, tramp along the hot dusty roads. Do you see that he is lame? Oh, Sir, I know him; you don't. Selfish! he would have no merry ways that make you laugh without me; would you, Grandy dear? Go away, you are a naughty man,—go, or I shall hate you as much as that dreadful Mr. Rugge."

"Rugge,—who is he?" said the Mayor, curiously, catching at any clew.

"Hush, my darling!—hush!" said Waife, fondling her on his breast.

"Hush! What is to be done, sir?"

Hartopp made a sly sign to him to say no more before Sophy, and then replied, addressing himself to her, "What is to be done? Nothing shall be done, my dear child, that you dislike. I don't wish to part you two. Don't hate me; lie down again; that's a dear. There, I have smoothed your pillow for you. Oh, here's your pretty doll again." Sophy snatched at the doll petulantly, and made what the French call a moue at the good man as she suffered her grandfather to replace her on the sofa.

"She has a strong temper of her own," muttered the Mayor; "so has Anna Maria a strong temper!"

Now, if I were anyway master of my own pen, and could write as I pleased, without being hurried along helter-skelter by the tyrannical exactions of that "young Rapid" in buskins and chiton called "THE HISTORIC MUSE," I would break off this chapter, open my window, rest my eyes on the green lawn without, and indulge in a rhapsodical digression upon that beautifier of the moral life which is called "Good Temper." Ha! the Historic Muse is dozing. By her leave!—Softly.

CHAPTER XXI

Being an essay on temper in general, and a hazardous experiment on the reader's in particular.

There, the window is open! how instinctively the eye rests upon the green! How the calm colour lures and soothes it! But is there to the green only a single hue? See how infinite the variety of its tints! What sombre gravity in yon cedar, yon motionless pine-tree! What lively but unvarying laugh in yon glossy laurels! Do those tints charm us like the play in the young leaves of the lilac,—lighter here, darker there, as the breeze (and so slight the breeze!) stirs them into checker,—into ripple? Oh, sweet green, to the world what sweet temper is to man's life! Who would reduce into one dye all thy lovely varieties? who exclude the dark steadfast verdure that lives on through the winter day; or the mutinous caprice of the gentler, younger tint that came fresh through the tears of April, and will shadow with sportive tremor the blooms of luxuriant June?

Happy the man on whose marriage-hearth temper smiles kind from the eyes of woman! "No deity present," saith the heathen proverb, "where absent Prudence;" no joy long a guest where Peace is not a dweller,—peace, so like Faith that they may be taken for each other, and poets have clad them with the same veil. But in childhood, in early youth, expect not the changeless green of the cedar. Wouldst thou distinguish fine temper from spiritless dulness, from cold simulation,—ask less what the temper than what the disposition.

Is the nature sweet and trustful; is it free from the morbid self-love which calls itself "sensitive feeling" and frets at imaginary offences; is the tendency to be grateful for kindness, yet take kindness meekly, and accept as a benefit what the vain call a due? From dispositions thus blessed, sweet temper will come forth to gladden thee, spontaneous and free. Quick with some, with some slow, word and look emerge out of the heart. Be thy first question, "Is the heart itself generous and tender?" If it be so, self-control comes with deepening affection. Call not that a good heart which, hastening to sting if a fibre be ruffled, cries, "I am no hypocrite." Accept that excuse, and revenge becomes virtue. But where the heart, if it give the offence, pines till it win back the pardon; if offended itself, bounds forth to forgive, ever longing to soothe, ever grieved if it wound; then be sure that its nobleness will need but few trials of pain in each outbreak to refine and chastise its expression. Fear not then; be but noble thyself, thou art safe!

Yet what in childhood is often called, rebukingly, "temper" is but the cordial and puissant vitality which contains all the elements that make temper the sweetest at last. Who amongst us, how wise soever, can construe a child's heart? who conjecture all the springs that secretly vibrate within, to a touch on the surface of feeling? Each child, but especially the girl-child, would task the whole lore of a sage deep as Shakspeare to distinguish those subtle emotions which we grown folks have outlived.

"She has a strong temper," said the Mayor, when Soppy snatched the doll from his hand a second time, and pouted at him, spoiled child, looking so divinely cross, so petulantly pretty! And how on earth could the Mayor know what associations with that stupid doll made her think it profaned by the touch of a stranger? Was it to her eyes as to his,—mere waxwork and frippery; or a symbol of holy remembrances, of gleams into a fairer world, of "devotion to something afar from the sphere of her sorrow?" Was not the evidence of "strong temper" the very sign of affectionate depth of heart? Poor little Sophy! Hide it again,—safe out of sight, close, inscrutable, unguessed, as childhood's first treasures of sentiment ever are!

CHAPTER XXII

The object of civilization being always to settle people one way or the other, the Mayor of Gatesboro' entertains a statesmanlike ambition to settle Gentleman Waife; no doubt a wise conception, and in accordance with the genius of the Nation. Every session of Parliament England is employed in settling folks, whether at home or at the Antipodes, who ignorantly object to be settled in her way; in short, "I'll settle them," has become a vulgar idiom, tantamount to a threat of uttermost extermination or smash; therefore the Mayor of Gatesboro' harbouring that benignant idea with reference to "Gentleman Waife," all kindly readers will exclaim, "Dii meliora! What will he do with it?"

The doll once more safe behind the pillow, Sophy's face gradually softened; she bent forward, touched the Mayor's hand timidly, and looked at him with pleading, penitent eyes, still wet with tears,—eyes that said, though the lips were silent, "I'll not hate you. I was ungrateful and peevish; may I beg pardon?"

"I forgive you with all my heart," cried the Mayor, interpreting the look aright. "And now try and compose yourself and sleep while I talk with your grandpapa below."

"I don't see how it is possible that I can leave her," said Waife, when the two men had adjourned to the sitting-room. "I am sure," quoth the Mayor, seriously, "that it is the best thing for her: her pulse has much nervous excitability; she wants a complete rest; she ought not to move about with you on any account. But come: though I must not know, it seems, who and what you are, Mr. Chapman, I don't think you will run off with my cow; and if you like to stay at the bailiff's cottage for a week or two with your grandchild, you shall be left in peace, and asked no questions. I will own to you a weakness of mine: I value myself on being seldom or never taken in. I don't think I could forgive the man who did take me in. But taken in I certainly shall be, if, despite all your mystery, you are not as honest a fellow as ever stood upon shoe-leather! So come to the cottage."

Waife was very much affected by this confiding kindness; but he shook his head despondently, and that same abject, almost cringing humility of mien and manner which had pained at times Lionel and Vance crept over the whole man, so that he seemed to cower and shrink as a Pariah before a Brahmin. "No, sir; thank you most humbly. No, sir; that must not be. I must work for my daily bread; if what a poor vagabond like me may do can be called work. I have made it a rule for years not to force myself to the hearth and home of any kind man, who, not knowing my past, has a right to suspect me. Where I lodge, I pay as a lodger; or whatever favour shown me spares my purse, I try to return in some useful humble way. Why, sir, how could I make free and easy with another man's board and roof-tree for days or weeks together, when I would not even come to your hearthstone for a cup of tea?" The Mayor remembered, and was startled. Waife hurried on. "But for my poor child I have no such scruples,—no shame, no false pride. I take what you offer her gratefully,—gratefully. Ah, sir, she is not in her right place with me; but there's no use kicking against the pricks. Where was I? Oh! well, I tell you what we will do, sir. I will take her to the cottage in a day or two,—as soon as she is well enough to go,—and spend the day with her, and deceive her, sir! yes, deceive, cheat her, sir! I am a cheat, a player, and she'll think I'm going to stay with her; and at night, when she's asleep, I'll creep off, I and the other dog. But I'll leave a letter for her: it will soothe her, and she'll be patient and wait. I will come back again to see her in a week, and once every week, till she's well again."

"And what will you do?"

"I don't know; but," said the actor, forcing a laugh, "I 'm not a man likely to starve. Oh, never fear, sir."

So the Mayor went away, and strolled across the fields to his bailiff's cottage, to prepare for the guest it would receive. "It is all very well that the poor man should be away for some days," thought Mr. Hartopp. "Before he comes again, I shall have hit on some plan to serve him; and I can learn more about him from the child in his absence, and see what he is really fit for. There's a schoolmaster wanted in Morley's village. Old Morley wrote to me to recommend him one. Good salary,—pretty house. But it would be wrong to set over young children—recommend to a respectable proprietor and his parson—a man whom I know nothing about. Impossible! that will not do. If there was any place of light service which did not require trust or responsibility,—but there is no such place in Great Britain. Suppose I were to set him up in some easy way of business,—a little shop, eh? I don't know. What would Williams say? If, indeed, I were taken in! if the man I am thus credulously trusting turned out a rogue,"—the Mayor paused and actually shivered at that thought,—"why then, I should be fallen indeed. My wife would not let me have half-a-crown in my pockets; and I could, not walk a hundred yards but Williams would be at my heels to protect me from being stolen by gypsies. Taken in by him! No, impossible! But if it turn out as I suspect,—that, contrary to vulgar prudence, I am divining a really great and good man in difficulties, aha, what a triumph I shall then gain over them all! How Williams will revere me!" The good man laughed aloud at that thought, and walked on with a prouder step.

CHAPTER, XXIII

A pretty trifle in its way, no doubt, is the love between youth and youth,—gay varieties of the bauble spread the counter of the great toy-shop; but thou, courteous dame Nature, raise thine arm to yon shelf, somewhat out of every-day reach, and bring me down that obsolete, neglected, unconsidered thing, the love between age and childhood.

The next day Sophy was better; the day after, improvement was more visible; and on the third day Waife paid his bill, and conducted her to the rural abode to which, credulous at last of his promises to share it with her for a time, he enticed her fated steps. It was little more than a mile beyond the suburbs of the town; and, though the walk tired her, she concealed fatigue, and would not suffer him to carry her. The cottage now smiled out before them,—thatched gable roof, with fancy barge board; half Swiss, half what is called Elizabethan; all the fences and sheds round it, as only your rich traders, condescending to turn farmers, construct and maintain,—sheds and fences, trim and neat, as if models in waxwork. The breezy air came fresh from the new haystacks; from the woodbine round the porch; from the breath of the lazy kine, as they stood knee-deep in the pool, that, belted with weeds and broad- leaved water-lilies, lay calm and gleaming amidst level pastures.

Involuntarily they arrested their steps, to gaze on the cheerful landscape and inhale the balmy air. Meanwhile the Mayor came out from the cottage porch, his wife leaning on his arm, and two of his younger children bounding on before, with joyous faces, giving chase to a gaudy butterfly which they had started from the woodbine.

Mrs. Hartopp had conceived a lively curiosity to see and judge for herself of the objects of her liege lord's benevolent interest. She shared, of course, the anxiety which formed the standing excitement of all those who lived but for one godlike purpose, that of preserving Josiah Hartopp from being taken in. But whenever the Mayor specially wished to secure his wife's countenance to any pet project of his own, and convince her either that he was not taken in, or that to be discreetly taken in is in this world a very popular and sure mode of getting up, he never failed to attain his end. That man was the cunningest creature! As full of wiles and stratagems in order to get his own way—in benevolent objects—as men who set up to be clever are for selfish ones. Mrs. Hartopp was certainly a good woman, but a made good woman. Married to another man, I suspect that she would have been a shrew. Petruchio would never have tamed her, I'll swear. But she, poor lady, had been gradually, but completely, subdued, subjugated, absolutely cowed beneath the weight of her spouse's despotic mildness; for in Hartopp there was a weight of soft quietude, of placid oppression, wholly irresistible. It would have buried a Titaness under a Pelion of moral feather-beds. Mass upon mass of downy influence descended upon you, seemingly yielding as it fell, enveloping, overbearing, stifling you; not presenting a single hard point of contact; giving in as you pushed against it; supplying itself seductively round you, softer and softer, heavier and heavier,—till, I assure you, ma'am, no matter how high your natural wifely spirit, you would have had it smothered out of you, your last rebellious murmur dying languidly away under the descending fleeces.

"So kind in you to come with me, Mary," said Hartopp. "I could not have been happy without your approval: look at the child; something about her like Mary Anne, and Mary Anne is the picture of you!"

Waife advanced, uncovering; the two children, having lost trace of the butterfly, had run up towards Sophy. But her shy look made themselves shy,—shyness is so contagious, and they stood a little aloof, gazing at her. Sir Isaac stalked direct to the Mayor, sniffed at him, and wagged his tail.

Mrs. Hartopp now bent over Sophy, and acknowledging that the face was singularly pretty, glanced graciously towards the husband, and said, "I see the likeness!" then to Sophy, "I fear you are tired, my dear: you must not overfatigue yourself; and you must take milk fresh from the cow every morning." And now the bailiff's wife came briskly out, a tidy, fresh-coloured, kind-faced woman, fond of children; the more so because she had none of her own.

So they entered the farm-yard, Mrs. Hartopp being the chief talker; and she, having pointed out to Sophy the cows and the turkeys, the hen-coops, and the great China gander, led her by the one hand—while Sophy's other hand clung firmly to Waife's'—across the little garden, with its patent bee-hives, into the house, took off her bonnet, and kissed her. "Very like Mary Anne!—Mary Anne, dear." One of the two children owning that name approached,—snub-nosed, black-eyed, with cheeks like peonies. "This little girl, my Mary Anne, was as pale as you,—over-study; and now, my dear child, you must try and steal a little of her colour. Don't you think my Mary Anne is like her papa, Mr. Chapman?"

"Like me!" exclaimed the Mayor, whispering Waife, "image of her mother! the same intellectual look!"

Said the artful actor, "Indeed, ma'am, the young lady has her father's mouth and eyebrows, but that acute, sensible expression is yours,—quite yours. Sir Isaac, make a bow to the young lady, and then, sir, go through the sword exercise!"

The dog, put upon his tricks, delighted the children; and the poor actor, though his heart lay in his breast like lead, did his best to repay benevolence by mirth. Finally, much pleased, Mrs. Hartopp took her husband's arm to depart. The children, on being separated from Sir Isaac, began to cry. The Mayor interrupted his wife,—who, if left to herself, would have scolded them into worse crying,—told Mary Anne that he relied on her strong intellect to console her brother Tom; observed to Tom that it was not like his manly nature to set an example of weeping to his sister; and contrived thus to flatter their tears away in a trice, and sent them forward in a race to the turnstile.

Waife and Sophy were alone in the cottage parlour, Mrs. Gooch, the bailiff's wife, walking part of the way back with the good couple, in order to show the Mayor a heifer who had lost appetite and taken to moping. "Let us steal out into the back garden, my darling," said Waife. "I see an arbour there, where I will compose myself with a pipe,—a liberty I should not like to take indoors." They stepped across the threshold, and gained the arbour, which stood at the extreme end of the small kitchen-garden, and commanded a pleasant view of pastures and cornfields, backed by the blue outline of distant hills. Afar were faintly heard the laugh of the Mayor's happy children, now and then a tinkling sheep-bell, or the tap of the woodpecker, unrepressed by the hush of the. Midmost summer, which stills the more tuneful choristers amidst their coverts. Waife lighted his pipe, and smoked silently; Sophy, resting her head on his bosom, silent also. She was exquisitely sensitive to nature: the quiet beauty of all round her was soothing a spirit lately troubled, and health came stealing gently back through frame and through heart. At length she said softly, "We could be so happy here, Grandfather! It cannot last, can it?"

"It is no use in this life, my dear," returned Waife, philosophizing, "no use at all disturbing present happiness by asking, 'Can it last?' To-day is man's, to-morrow his Maker's. But tell me frankly, do you really dislike so much the idea of exhibiting? I don't mean as we did in Mr. Rugge's show. I know you hate that; but in a genteel private way, as the other night. You sigh! Out with it."

"I like what you like, Grandy."

"That's not true. I like to smoke; you don't. Come, you do dislike acting? Why? you do it so well,—wonderfully. Generally speaking, people like what they do well."

"It is not the acting itself, Grandy dear, that I don't like. When I am in some part, I am carried away; I am not myself. I am some one else!"

"And the applause?"

"I don't feel it. I dare say I should miss it if it did not come; but it does not seem to me as if I were applauded. If I felt that, I should stop short, and get frightened. It is as if that somebody else into whom I was changed was making friends with the audience; and all my feeling is for that somebody,—just as, Grandy dear, when it is over, and we two are alone together, all my feeling is for you,—at least (hanging her head) it used to be; but lately, somehow, I am ashamed to think how I have been feeling for myself more than for you. Is it—is it that I am growing selfish? as Mr. Mayor said. Oh, no! Now we are here,—not in those noisy towns,—not in the inns and on the highways; now here, here, I do feel again for you,—all for you!"

"You are my little angel, you are," said Waife, tremulously. "Selfish! you! a good joke that! Now you see, I am not what is called Demonstrative,—a long word, Sophy, which means, that I don't show to you always how fond I am of you; and, indeed," he added ingenuously, "I am not al ways aware of it myself. I like acting,—I like the applause, and the lights, and the excitement, and the illusion,—the make-belief of the whole thing: it takes me out of memory and thought; it is a world that has neither past, present, nor future, an interlude in time,-an escape from space. I suppose it is the same with poets when they are making verses. Yes, I like all this; and, when I think of it, I forget you too much. And I never observed, Heaven forgive me! that you were pale and drooping till it was pointed out to me. Well, take away your arms. Let us consult! As soon as you get quite, quite well, how shall we live? what shall we do? You are as wise as a little woman, and such a careful, prudent housekeeper; and I'm such a harumscarum old fellow, without a sound idea in my head. What shall we do if we give up acting altogether?"

"Give up acting altogether, when you like it so! No, no. I will like it too, Grandy. But—but—" she stopped short, afraid to imply blame or to give pain.