There & Back

“Allow me, lady Ann, to take the lesson you have given me, and answer, that is my affair.”

She saw she had made a mistake.

“For my part,” she returned, “I should not object to remaining in the house, were I but assured that my daughters should be in no danger of meeting improper persons.”

“It would be no pleasure, lady Ann, to either of us to be so near the other. Our ways of thinking are too much opposed. I venture to suggest that you should occupy your jointure-house.”

“I will do as I see fit.”

“You must find another home.” Lady Ann left the room, and the next week the house, betaking herself to her own, which was not far off, in the park at Cinqmer, the smaller of the two estates.

The week following, Richard went to see Arthur.

“Now, Arthur!” he said, “let us be frank with each other! I am not your enemy. I am bound to do the best I can for you all.”

“When you thought the land was yours, I had a trade to fall back upon. Now that the land proves mine, you have no trade, or other means of making a livelihood. If you will be a brother, you will accept what I offer: I will make over to you for your life-time, but without power to devise it, this estate of Cinqmer, burdened with the payment of five hundred a year to your sister Theodora till her marriage.”

Arthur was glad of the gift, yet did not accept it graciously. The disposition is no rare one that not only gives grudgingly, but receives grudgingly. The man imagines he shields his independence by not seeming pleased. To show yourself pleased is to confess obligation! Do not manifest pleasure, do not acknowledge favour, and you keep your freedom like a man!

“I cannot see,” said Arthur, “—of course it is very kind of you, and all that! you wouldn’t have compliments bandied between brothers!—but I should like to know why the land should not be mine to leave. I might have children, you know!”

“And I might have more children!” laughed Richard. “But that has nothing to do with it. The thing is this: the land itself I could give out and out, but the land has the people. God did not give us the land for our own sakes only, but for theirs too. The men and women upon it are my brothers and sisters, and I have to see to them. Now I know that you are liked by our people, and that you have claims to be liked by them, and therefore believe you will consider them as well as yourself or the land—though at the same time I shall protect them with the terms of the deed. But suppose at your death it should go to Percy! Should I not then feel that I had betrayed my people, a very Judas of landlords? Never fellow-creature of mine will I put in the danger of a scoundrel like him!”

“He is my brother!”

“And mine. I know him; I was at Oxford with him! Not one foothold shall he ever have on land of mine! When he wants to work, let him come to me—not till then!”

“You will not say that to my mother!”

“I will say nothing to your mother.—Do you accept my offer?”

“I will think over it.”

“Do,” said Richard, and turned to go.

“Will you not settle something on Victoria?” said Arthur.

“We shall see what she turns out by the time she is of age! I don’t want to waste money!”

“What do you mean by wasting money?”

“Giving it where it will do no good.”

“God gives to the bad as well as the good?”

“It is one thing to give to the bad, and another to give where it will do no good. God knows the endless result; I should know but the first link of its chain. I must act by the knowledge granted me. God may give money in punishment: should I dare do that?”

“Well, you’re quite beyond me!”

“Never mind, then. What you and I have to do is to be friends, and work together. You will find I mean well!”

“I believe you do, Richard; but we don’t somehow seem to be in the same world.”

“If we are true, that will not keep us apart. If we both work for the good of the people, we must come together.”

“To tell you the truth, Richard, knowing you had given me the land, I could not put up with interference. I am afraid we should quarrel, and then I should seem ungrateful.”

“What would you say to our managing the estates together for a year or two? Would not that be the way to understand each other?”

“Perhaps. I must think about it.”

“That is right. Only don’t let us begin with suspicion. You did me more than one kindness not knowing I was your brother! And you sent back Miss Brown.”

“That was mere honesty.”

“Strictly considered, it was more. My father had a right to take the mare from me, and at his death she came into your possession. I thank you for sending her to Barbara.”

Arthur turned away.

“My dear fellow,” said Richard, “Barbara loved me when I was a bookbinder, and promised to marry me thinking me base-born. I am sorry, but there is no blame to either of us. I had my bad time then, and your good time is, I trust, coming. I did nothing to bring about the change. I did think once whether I had not better leave all to you, and keep to my trade; but I saw that I had no right to do so, because duties attended the property which I was better able for than you.”

“I believe every word you say, Richard! You are nobler than I.”

CHAPTER LXVI. BARBARA’S DREAM

Mr. Wylder could not well object to sir Richard Lestrange on the ground that his daughter had loved him before she or her father knew his position the same he was coveting for her; and within two months they were married. Lady Ann was invited but did not go to the wedding; Arthur, Theodora, and Victoria did; Percy was not invited.

Neither bride nor bridegroom seeing any sense in setting out on a journey the moment they were free to be at home together, they went straight from the church to Mortgrange.

When they entered the hall which had so moved Richard’s admiration the first time he saw it, he stood for a moment lost in thought. When he came to himself, Barbara had left him; but ere he had time to wonder, such a burst of organ music filled the place as might have welcomed one that had overcome the world. He stood entranced for a minute, then hastened to the gallery, where he found Barbara at the instrument.

“What!” he cried in astonishment; “you, Barbara! you play like that!”

“I wanted to be worth something to you, Richard.”

“Oh Barbara, you are a queen at giving! I was well named, for you were coming! I am Richard indeed!—oh, so rich!”

In the evening they went out into the park. The moon was rising. The sunlight was not quite gone. Her light mingled with the light that gave it her. “Do you know that lovely passage in the Book of Baruch?” asked Richard.

“What book is that?” returned Barbara. “It can’t be in the Bible, surely?”

“It is in the Apocrypha—which is to me very much in the Bible! I think I can repeat it. I haven’t a good memory, but some things stick fast.”

But in the process of recalling it, Richard’s thoughts wandered, and Baruch was forgotten.

“This dying of Apollo in the arms of Luna,” he said, “this melting of the radiant god into his own pale shadow, always reminds me of the poverty-stricken, wasted and sad, yet lovely Elysium of the pagans: so little consolation did they gather from the thought of it, that they longed to lay their bodies, not in the deep, cool, far-off shadow of grove or cave, but by the ringing roadside, where live feet, in two meeting, mingling, parting tides, ever came and went; where chariots rushed past in hot haste, or moved stately by in jubilant procession; where at night lonely forms would steal through the city of the silent, with but the moon to see them go, bent on ghastly conference with witch or enchanter; and—”

“Where are you going, Richard? Please take me with you. I feel as if I were lost in a wood!”