At His Gates. Volume 3

Back again – just once more, once more – to have a last look. He would never see her again, most likely. As far away as if she were a star in heaven would she be henceforward. He would pass a little more slowly this time; there was no one about to see him. The road was quieter than usual; no one in sight; and with his hat so over his eyes, who could recognise him? He went very softly, lingering over every step. She was still there, looking out, and in the dark with no one near her! Oh, Norah! If she could but know how his heart was pulling at him, forcing him towards that door!

He thought he heard some sound in the silence as of an exclamation, and the face disappeared from the window. A moment after the door opened suddenly, and a little figure rushed out.

'Ned!' it said, 'Ned! Is it possible? Can it be you? And, oh, what do you mean walking about outside like that, as if you knew nobody here?'

'Oh, Norah! I did not know if I might come,' said abject Ned.

'Of course you may come. Why shouldn't you come? Oh, Ned, I was so lonely! I am so glad to see you! I did not know what to do with myself. Susan would not bring in the lamp, and I am so afraid of this room when it is dark!'

'How you once frightened me about it!' he said, as he went in with her.

His heart felt so much lighter, he could not tell how. Insensibly his spirits rose, and with a sense of infinite refreshment, and even of having escaped from something, he went back to the recollections of his youth. Such an innocent, simple recollection, belonging to the time when all was pleasure, when there was no pain.

'Did I? But never mind. Oh, Ned! poor Ned! have they brought you here because of all this trouble? I have so much to say to you. My heart is breaking for you. Oh, you poor, poor, dear boy!'

This was not how he had expected to be spoken to. He could scarcely see her face, it was so dark, what with the curtains at the windows and the shadows of the lime leaves; but she had put her hand into his to comfort him. He did not know what to say; his heart was torn in twain, between misery and joy. It was so hard to let any gleam of light into that desperate darkness; and yet it was so hard to keep his heart from dancing at the sound of her soft, tender voice.

'Norah,' he said, 'oh, Norah! it will not be so very bad if you are sorry for me. You would not speak to me last time. I thought I might, perhaps, never see you again.'

'Oh, Ned! I was only a child. How foolish I was! I hoped you would look back; but you never looked back; and we who have been brought up together, who have always been – fond of each other!'

'Do you? do you? Oh, Norah! not just because you are sorry? Do you care – a little for me? Speak the truth.'

'Ned, Ned! – I care for you more than anybody – except mamma.'

There was a little silence after this. They were like two children in the simplicity of their youth; their hearts beat together, their burdens – and both the young shoulders were weighed down by premature burdens – were somehow lightened, they could not tell how.

After a while, Norah, nestling like a little bird in the dark, said softly, 'Do you mind sitting without the lamp?' and Ned answered, 'No.' They sat down together, holding each other's hands; they were not afraid of the dark. They poured out their hearts to each other. All his sorrows, all his difficulties, Ned poured into Norah's sympathetic bosom; and she cried, and he consoled her; and she patted his hand or his sleeve, and said, 'Poor boy! Poor, dear Ned!' It was not much. She had no advice to give him, not many words of wisdom; but what she did say was as healing as the leaves of that tree in Paradise. Her touch stanched all his wounds.

'I have something to tell you too,' she said, trembling a little, when all his tale had been told. 'Ned, you have heard of poor papa, my father, who died before we came here? Oh, Ned! listen. Stoop down, and let me whisper. Ned, he did not die – '

'Norah!'

'Hush. Yes; it is quite true. Oh, don't be frightened. I can't help being frightened staying here alone. Mamma went to him yesterday. Oh, Ned! after seven years! Was there ever anything so strange?'

'Poor Mrs Drummond!' said Ned. 'Oh, Norah, thank God; my father has not done so much harm as I thought. Are you all alone, my own darling? I suppose she was happy to go.'

He said this with a strange accent of blame in his voice. 'For her own selfish happiness she could leave Norah – my Norah – all alone!' This was what the young man, in his haste, thought.

'I think she was frightened too,' said Norah, under her breath. 'She did not understand it. It is as if he had been really dead, and come alive again. Mamma did not say anything; but I know she was frightened too.'

'Norah, most likely he hates us. If he should try to keep you from me – '

'Oh, Ned, do you mean that this means anything? Do you think it is right? We are all in such trouble, not knowing what may happen. Do you mean,' said Norah, faltering and trembling, 'do you mean that this means – Is it – being engaged?'

'Doesn't it, dear? Oh, Norah, what could it mean else? You would never have the heart to cast me off now?'

'Cast you off! Oh, no, Ned! Oh, never, Ned! But then that is different. We are so dreadfully young. We have no money. We are in such trouble. Oh! do you think it is right?'

'It can't be wrong to be fond of each other, Norah; and you said you were – a little.'

'Yes; oh, yes! Oh, Ned! do be satisfied. Isn't it enough for us to care for each other – to be the very best, dearest friends?'

'It is not enough for me,' he said, turning his head aside, and speaking sternly in the dark.

'Isn't it, Ned?' said Norah timidly. 'Ned, I wish I could see your face. You are not angry? You poor, dear boy! Oh! you don't think I could have the heart to cross you? and you in such trouble. Ned, what must we do?'

'You must promise me, Norah, on your true and faithful word, that you will marry me as soon as we can, whatever anybody may say.'

Norah in her alarm seized at the saving clause which staved off all immediate terrors.

'When we can, Ned.'

'Yes, my own darling. You promise? I shall not mind what happens if I have your promise – your faithful promise, Norah.'

'I promise you faithfully, Ned – faithfully, dear Ned! – when we can – if it should not be for years.'

'But it shall be!' he cried; and then they kissed each other, poor children! and Norah was sitting by herself crying when Susan brought in the lamp.

CHAPTER XI

Mrs Burton took her new problem away with her into the quiet of her room. It was a question which had never occurred to her before. Some few first principles even an inquiring mind like hers must take for granted, and this had been one of them. She had no love for money, and no contempt for it – it was a mere commonplace necessity, not a thing to be discussed; and though she had a high natural sense of honour and honesty, in her own person, it had not occurred to her to consider that in such a matter she had anything to do but to accept the arrangement which was according to law and common custom, an arrangement which, of course, had been made (theoretically) in view of a calamity such as had just happened. It was the intention of her settlement, and of all settlements, she said to herself, to secure a woman against the chances of her husband's ruin. She, in most cases, was entirely irresponsible for that ruin. She had nothing to do with it, and was unable to prevent it. She had married with the belief that she herself and her children would be provided for, and the first duty of her friends was to make sure that it should be so. Up to this point there was no flaw in the argument. Mrs Burton knew that she had brought her husband a good fortune; and her future had been secured as an equivalent. It was like buying a commission – it was like making an investment. She had put in so much, she had a right to secure to herself absolutely the power of taking it out again, or recovering what had been hers. Mr Burton had not incurred his liabilities with her knowledge or consent; he had never consulted her on the matter. He had never said or even hinted to her that her expenditure was too great, that he could not afford it. True it was possible that fastidious persons might blame her for proceeding so long on her splendid course, after hints and rumours had reached her about her husband's position; but these were nothing more than rumours. She had no sort of official information, nothing really to justify her in making a sudden change in her household, which probably would have affected Mr Burton's credit more than her extravagance. She was in no way responsible. She had even protested against the re-introduction of Golden into his affairs. She could not blame herself for anything she had done; she had always been ready to hear, always willing to give him her advice, to second him in any scheme he propounded to her. She put herself at the bar, and produced all the evidence she knew of, on both sides of the question, and acquitted herself. The money she could have saved by economy was not worth considering in the magnitude of Mr Burton's affairs. She had done nothing which she could feel had made her his accomplice in his wrong-doing.

And she had no right to balk her father in his care for her – to establish a bad precedent in regard to the security of marriage settlements – to put it in the power of any set of creditors to upbraid some other woman whose view of her duty might be different. She had no right to do it. She had to think not of herself only, but of all the married women who slept serenely in the assurance that, whatever happened, their children's bread was secure. She reflected that such a step would put an end to all security – that no woman would venture to marry, that no father would venture to give his child to a man in business, if this safeguard were broken down. It would be impossible. It would be a blow aimed at the constitution of the country – at the best bulwark of families; it would be an injustice. Of all a commercial man's creditors, surely his wife was the one claimant who had most right to come first. Others might be partially involved; she had put everything in his hands. Without this safeguard she would not have married him, she would not have been permitted to marry him. Going over the question carefully, Mrs Burton felt, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she had right on her side.

She had right on her side – but she had not Ned. This was a very different matter – an argument such as she had scarcely ever taken into consideration before. Mrs Burton did not disdain the personal argument. She knew that in the confused state of human affairs, in the intricate range of human thoughts, it was often impossible to go upon pure reason, and that personal pleas had to be admitted. But she had never consciously done this before. She was almost scornful of her own weakness now. But she could not help herself. She had to suffer the entrance of this great personal argument, if with a mental pang yet without resistance. She loved her son. All that reason could do for her, all the approbation of her own judgment, the sense of right, the feeling that her position was logically unassailable, would not be enough to console her for the illogical, unreasoning disapproval of her boy. For the first time in her life, with a great surprise, this certainty seized upon her. Up to this time she had gone her own way, she had satisfied herself that she was right according to her own standard, and she had not cared what any one said or thought. But now all at once, with wonder, almost with shame, she found that she had descended from this high eminence. A whole host of foolish, childish, unreasonable principles of action, inconsequences, and stupidities were suddenly imported into her mental world by this apparition of Ned. Not the most certain sense of right that reasoning creature ever had, would neutralise, she felt, that pained and wondering look in her son's eyes. If he disapproved it would be a cold comfort to her that reason was on her side. If this indignant, impatient, foolish young soul protested against her that what she did would not bear comparing with some fantastic visionary standard which he called honour, what would it avail her that by her own just standard of weight and measure she was not found wanting? Thus all Mrs Burton's principles and habits, her ways of thinking, the long-exercised solitary irresponsible power of her intelligence, which had guided her through life for forty years, were all at once brought to a sudden stand-still by the touch, by the breath of that thing called Love, which, she knew not how, had suddenly come in upon her like a giant. This new influence paralysed the fine, delicate, exquisite machinery, by which hitherto all her problems had been worked out. She tried to struggle against it, but the struggle was ineffectual. It was the first time she had felt herself, acknowledged herself, to be acting like a fool! What then? She could not help it. Even in the clear, cold daylight of her mind the entrance of this new force, all shadowy, mysterious, wonderful, could not be contested. She threw down her arms once more. She had been beaten terribly, miserably in the battle of her life – she was beaten sweetly, wonderfully now, in a way which melted her hardness and made the disused heart beat and tremble strangely within her, in the other world where reason hitherto had reigned supreme.

But nothing more was said on the subject for some time. Next morning brought letters, which roused the little party once more into excitement. There was one from Mr Burton, informing his wife that he had got safely to France by a way little used, and was now in the small seaport of St Servan, awaiting letters from his family, and their advice as to what was best. He had not meant to go there, but a chance encounter with Golden at the station had driven him to take the down-train instead of the up-train. He would remain there if he could, he added, until he heard from home; but if any alarm came would hasten across the country to Brest, from whence he could get off to America. Mr Burton did not say a word of apology or explanation, but he begged to have news 'of all,' to be told 'how people were taking it,' and to have the newspapers sent him. He added in a P.S. the following question: 'By the way, what could Golden be doing at Turley Station, seven miles from Dura, at four o'clock in the morning? And who could the lady be who was with him? If you hear anything on this subject, let me know.'

Clara's letter was from Windermere. It was full of effusiveness and enthusiasm, hoping that dearest mamma would forgive them. Papa, Charles had told her, was not likely to be in a position to forgive any one, but would want it himself, which was very dreadful; but was it not beautiful of Charles, and showed how generous and true he was, that papa's ruin made no difference to his feelings? This reflection, Clara said, made her so happy, that she felt as if she could even forgive papa – for if he had not been so rash and so wicked she never would have known how much her dear Charles loved her. They were coming back to London in a fortnight from this heavenly lake, and would start then on a roundabout journey to Charles's delightful 'place' on the Mediterranean. And, oh! Clara hoped with effusion, dearest mamma would see them, and forgive them, and believe that she never had been so happy in her life as when she signed herself dear mamma's ever affectionate Clara Golden. These were the letters that came to the little party at Dura on the morning after Ned's arrival. They were received with very different feelings by the three. Mr Baldwin, on the whole, was pleased. He was pleased with the 'love to grandpapa,' with which Clara wound up her letter; and he was glad the child was happy at least. 'What is done cannot be undone,' he said; 'and that is quite true about there being nothing mercenary in it, you know.' Mrs Burton gave a faint smile as she laid the letters down one after another. They were just such letters as she expected. Had she been alone, perhaps, she would have tossed them from her in scorn, as she had done with the previous notes; but that had been in a moment of strong excitement, when she was not full mistress of herself; and what was the good, Mrs Burton thought, of quarrelling with your own whom you cannot alter; or of expecting sense and good taste where such qualities did not exist? From these two, her husband and her daughter, she did not expect any more.

But poor Ned was utterly cast down by these epistles. He asked himself, as Norah had done when Mr Rivers left her at the door of the Academy's Exhibition, was this natural? was this the way of the world? and, like Norah, felt his own distress doubled by the horrible thought that to think of your own comfort first and above all, and to be utterly unmoved by the reflection that you have caused untold misery to others, is the natural impulse of humanity. He was so sad, and looked so humbled, that his mother's heart was penetrated in her new enlightenment by a strange perception of how he was feeling. She was not so feeling herself. The sight of selfishness, even on so grand a scale, did not surprise nor shock her; but she felt what he was feeling, which was as strange to her as a new revelation. The family at Dura during these days were like a beleaguered city – they lived encircled in a close round, if not of enemies, yet of observant, watchful spectators, who might become enemies at any moment, who might note even the postmark on their letters, and use that against them. Whenever a step was heard approaching the door, a little thrill went through them. It might be some one coming to announce deeper misfortune still. It might be some one who dared to be insolent, some one who had a right to curse and denounce. The tension of their nerves was terrible, the strain of watchfulness, and the pain of standing secretly and always on their defence.

'Let us go, let us go, Clara, I cannot stay here any longer; now that we know where to write to them, let us go,' cried Mr Baldwin after the letters had been read and discussed; and then the old man went out to take a melancholy walk, and ponder what it would be best to do. Should they go back to Clapham? or should he take his poor child away somewhere for 'change of air'? If ever any one wanted change of air surely Clara must.

'Ned, come here,' said Mrs Burton, when they were left alone. He went and sat down by her, listless, with his hands in his pockets. Notwithstanding the joy of last night, the letters, the shame and ruin and misery, had overwhelmed Ned.

'I have been thinking over what you said yesterday about my settlement,' said his mother. 'Ned, in one way your grandfather was right. It is the equivalent to my fortune. It was the foundation of our family life – without that I should not have been permitted to marry; I should not probably have chosen to marry. To give up that is to make an end of all the securities of life – I speak as arguing the question.'

'How can we argue the question?' cried Ned. 'What have the securities of life mattered to the others, who had no connection with – with my father? He was nothing to them but a man of business. They trusted him, and they have nothing left.'

'Yes, Ned; but if one of them had been a secured creditor, as it is called, you would not have expected him to give up his security, in order to place himself on an equal level with the others. The most visionary standard of honour would never demand that.'

'We are not secured creditors. We are part of him, sharing his responsibility,' cried Ned bitterly, 'sharing his shame.'

'But we are the first of all his creditors, all the same, in justice; and our debt is secured. Ned, I do not say this is what I am going to do; but I think, according to my judgment, your grandfather is right.'

'Then, mother – ' He had risen up, his face had grown very pale, his nostrils dilated, his eyes shining. She who had never been afraid for anything in her life was afraid of her son – of his indignation, of his wrath. She put out her hand, half appealing, half commanding, to stop him. She caught at him, as it were, before he could say another word.