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At His Gates. Volume 1
CHAPTER XIV
Mr Burton was a man who was accustomed in his own house to have, in a great degree, his own way; but this was not because his wife was disinclined to hold, or incapable of forming, an opinion of her own. On the contrary, it was because he was rather afraid of her than otherwise, and thought twice before he promulgated any sentiments or started any plan which was likely to be in opposition to hers. But he had neither consulted her, nor, indeed, thought much of what she would say, in the sudden proposal he had made to the Haldanes. He was not a hasty man; but Dr Maurice's indignation had made an impression upon him, and he had felt all at once that in going to the Haldanes and to Helen, he must not, if he would preserve his own character, go with merely empty sympathy, but must show practically his pity for them. It was perhaps the only time in his life that he had acted upon a hasty idea without taking time to consider; and a chill doubt, as to what Clara would say, was in his mind as he turned his face homewards. Dura was about twenty miles from town, in the heart of one of the leafiest of English counties; the station was a mile and a half from the great house, half of which distance, however, was avenue; and Mr Burton's phaeton, with the two greys – horses which matched to a hair, and were not equalled in the stables of any potentate in the county – was waiting for him when the train arrived. He liked to drive home in this glorious way, rousing the village folks and acting as a timepiece for them, just as he liked the great dinner-bell, which the old Harcourts sounded only on great occasions, to be rung every day, letting the whole neighbourhood know that their local lord, their superior, the master of the great house, was going to dinner. He liked the thought that his return was an event in the place almost justifying the erection of a standard, as it was erected in a royal castle not very far off, when the sovereign went and came. Our rich man had not gone so far as yet, but he would have liked it, and felt it natural. The village of Dura was like a collection of beads threaded on the long white thread of road which ran from the station to the house – and occupied the greater part of the space, with single houses straggling at either end, and a cluster in the middle. The straggling houses at the end next the station were white villas, built for people whose business was in town, and who came home to dinner by the same train which brought Mr Burton, though their arrival was less imposing; but where the clump of dwelling-places thickened, the houses toned down into old-fashioned, deeply-lichened brick, with here and there a thatched roof to deepen, or a white-washed gable to relieve, the composition. At the end nearest the great house the village made a respectful pause, and turned off along a slanting path, which showed the tower of the church behind over the trees. The rectory, however, a pretty house buried in shrubberies, fronted the high road with modest confidence; and opposite it was another dwelling-place, in front of which Mr Burton drew up his horses for a moment, inspecting it with a careful and anxious eye. His heart beat a little quicker as he looked. His own gate was in sight, and these were the very grounds of Dura House, into which the large walled garden of this one intruded like a square wedge. In front there were no shrubberies, no garden, nothing to divide it from the road. A double row of pollard limes – one on the edge of the foot-path, one close to the house – indicated and shaded, but did not separate it from the common way. The second row of limes was level with the fence of the Dura grounds, and one row of white flagstones lay between them and the two white steps, the green door, and shining brass knocker of the Gatehouse. It was a house which had been built in the reign of the first George, of red brick, with a great many windows, three-storied, and crowned by a pediment, with that curious mixture of the useful and (supposed) ornamental, which by this time has come to look almost picturesque by reason of age. It had been built for the mother of one of the old Harcourts, a good woman who had been born the Rector's daughter of the place, and loved it and its vicinity, and the sight of its comings and goings. This was the origin of the Gatehouse; but since the days of Mrs Dunstable Harcourt it had rarely been inhabited by any of the family, and had been a trouble more than an advantage to them. It was too near the hall to be inhabited by strangers, and people do not always like to establish their own poor relations and dependents at their very gates. As the Harcourts dwindled and money became important to them, they let it at a small rate to a maiden household, two or three old ladies of limited means, and blood as blue as their own. And when Dura ceased, except on county maps, to be Harcourt-Dura, and passed into the hands of the rich merchant, he, too, found the Gatehouse a nuisance. There had been talk of pulling it down, but that would have been waste; and there had been attempts made to let it to 'a suitable tenant,' but no suitable tenant had been found. Genteel old ladies of blue blood had not found the vicinity of the Burtons a comfort to them as they did that of the Harcourts. And there it stood empty, echoing, void, a place where the homeless might be sheltered. Did Mr Burton's heart glow with benevolent warmth as he paused, drawing up his greys, and looked at it, with all its windows twinkling in the sun? To one of these windows a woman came forward at the sound of his pause, and, putting her face close to the small pane, looked out at him wondering. He gave her a nod, and sighed; and then flourished his whip, and the greys flew on. In another moment they had turned into the avenue and went dashing up the gentle ascent. It was a pretty avenue, though the trees were not so old as most of the Dura trees. The sunset gleamed through it, slanting down under the lowest branches, scattering the brown mossy undergrowth with lumps of gold. A little pleasant tricksy wind shook the branches and dashed little mimic showers of rain in the master's face: for it had been raining in the afternoon, and the air was fresh and full of a hundred nameless odours; but Mr Burton gave forth another big sigh before he reached the house. He was a little afraid of what his wife would say, and he was afraid of what he had done.
He did not say anything about it, however, till dinner was over. The most propitious moment seemed that gentle hour of dessert, when the inner man is strengthened and comforted, and there is time to dally over the poetic part of the meal – not that either of the Burtons were poetical. They were alone, not even the children being with them, for Mrs Burton disapproved of children coming to dessert; but all the same, she was beautifully dressed; he liked it, and so did she. She made very little difference in this particular between her most imposing dinner parties and those evenings which she spent tête-à-tête with her husband. When her aunts, who had old-fashioned ideas about extravagance, remonstrated with her, she defended herself, saying she could afford it, and he liked to see her well dressed. Mr Burton hated to have any scrap of capital unemployed; and the only interest you could get from your jewels was the pleasure of wearing them, and seeing them worn, he said. So Mrs Burton dined with her husband in a costume which a French lady of fashion would have considered appropriate to a ball or royal reception, with naked shoulders and arms, and lace and ornaments. Madame la Duchesse might have thought it much too fine, but Mrs Burton did not. She was a pale little woman, small and thin, but not without beauty. Her hair was not very abundant, but it was exquisitely smooth and neat. Her uncovered shoulders were white, and her arms round and well-formed; and she had clear blue eyes, so much brighter than anybody expected, that they took the world by surprise: they were cold in their expression, but they were full of intelligence, and a hundred times more vivid and striking than anything else about her, so that everybody observed and admired Mrs Burton's eyes.
'What has been going on to-day? What have you been doing?' she asked, when the servants went away. The question sounded affectionate, and showed at least that there was confidence between the husband and wife.
'Very much as usual,' Mr Burton said, with colloquial ease; and then he stopped and cleared his throat. 'But for my own part I have done something rather foolish,' he said, with an almost imperceptible tremor in his voice.
'Indeed?' She gave a quick glance up at him; but she was not excited, and went on calmly eating her strawberries. He was not the kind of man of whose foolish actions a wife is afraid.
'I have been to see the Haldanes to-day,' he said, once more clearing his throat; 'and I have been to Helen Drummond's, but did not see her. The one, of course, I did out of regard for your father; the other – I was so distressed by the sight of that poor fellow in his helplessness, that I acted on impulse, Clara. I know it's a foolish thing to do. I said to myself, here are two families cast out of house and home, and there is the Gatehouse – '
'The Gatehouse!'
'Yes, I was afraid you would be startled; but reflect a moment: it is of no use to us. We have got nobody to occupy it. You know, indeed, how alarmed you were when your aunt Louisa took a fancy to it; and I have tried for a tenant in vain. Then, on the other hand, one cannot but be sorry for these poor people. Helen is my cousin; she has no nearer friend than I am. And your father is so much interested in the Haldanes – '
'I don't quite understand,' said Mrs Burton, with undisturbed composure; 'my father's interest in the Haldanes has nothing to do with the Gatehouse. Are they to live there?'
'That was what I thought,' said her husband, 'but not, of course, if you have any serious dislike to it – not if you decidedly object – '
'Why should I decidedly object?' she said. 'I should if you were bringing them to live with me; but otherwise – It is not at all suitable – they will not be happy there. It will be a great nuisance to us. As it is, strangers rather admire it – it looks old-fashioned and pleasant; but if they made a squalid place of it, dirty windows, and cooking all over the house – '
'So far as my cousin is concerned, you could have nothing of that kind to fear,' said Mr Burton, ceasing to be apologetic. He put a slight emphasis on the word my; perhaps upon this point he would not have been sorry to provoke his wife, but Clara Burton would not gratify her husband by any show of jealousy. She was not jealous, she was thinking solely of appearances, and of the possible decadence of the Gatehouse.
'Besides, Susan must stay,' he continued, after a pause; 'she must remain in charge; the house must be kept as it ought to be. If that is your only objection, Clara – '
'I have made no objection at all,' said Mrs Burton; and then she broke into a dry little laugh. 'What a curious establishment it will be – an old broken-down nurserymaid, a Dissenting minister, and your cousin! Mr Burton, will she like it? I cannot say that I should feel proud if it were offered to me.'
His face flushed a little. He was not anxious himself to spare Helen's feelings. If he had found an opportunity, it would have been agreeable to him to remind her that she had made a mistake; but she was his own relation, and instinct prompted him to protect her from his wife.
'Helen is too poor to allow herself to think whether she likes it or not,' he said.
His wife gave a sharp glance at him across the table. What did he mean? Did he intend to be kind, or to insult the desolate woman? Clara asked herself the question as a philosophical question, not because she cared.
'And is your cousin willing to accept it from you, after – that story?' she said.
'What story? You mean about her husband. It is not my story. I have nothing to do with it; and even if I had, surely it is the man who does wrong, not the man who tells it, that should have the blame; besides, she does not know.'
'Ah, that is the safest,' said Clara. 'I think it is a very strange story, Mr Burton. It may be true, but it is not like the truth.'
'I have nothing to do with it,' he exclaimed. He spoke hotly, with a swelling of the veins on his temples. 'There are points of view in which his death was very providential,' he said.
And once more Clara gave him a sharp glance.
'It was the angel who watches over Mr Golden that provided the boat, no doubt,' she answered, with a contraction of her lips; then fell back into the former topic with perfect calm. 'I should insist upon the house being kept clean and nice,' she said, as she rose to go away.
'Surely – surely; and you may tell your father when you write, that poor Haldane is so far provided for.' He got up to open the door for her, and, detaining her for a moment, stooped down and kissed her forehead. 'I am so much obliged to you, Clara, for consenting so kindly,' he said.
A faint little cold smile came upon her face. She had been his wife for a dozen years; but in her heart she was contemptuous of the kiss which he gave her, as if she had been a child, as a reward for her acquiescence. It is to be supposed that she loved him after her fashion. She had married him of her free will, and had never quarrelled with him once in all their married life. But yet had he known how his kiss was received, the sting would have penetrated even through the tough covering which protected Reginald Burton's amour propre, if not his heart. Mrs Burton went away into the great drawing-room, where her children, dressed like little princes in a comedy, were waiting for her. The Harcourts in the old days, had made a much smaller room their family centre; but the Burtons always used the great drawing-room, and lived, as it were, in state from one year's end to another. Here Clara Burton dwelt – a little anonymous spirit, known to none even of her nearest friends. They were all puzzled by her 'ways,' and by the blank many-sided surface like a prism which she presented to them, refusing to be influenced by any. She did not know any more about herself than the others did. Outside she was all glitter and splendour; nobody dressed so well, nobody had such jewels, or such carriages, or such horses in all the county. She used every day, and in her homeliest moments, things which even princes reserve for their best. Mrs Burton made it a boast that she had no best things; she was the same always, herself – and not her guests or anything apart from herself – being the centre of life in her house and in all her arrangements. The dinner which the husband and wife had just eaten had been as varied and as dainty, as if twenty people had sat down to it. It was her principle throughout her life. And yet within herself the woman cared for none of these things. Another woman's dress or jewels was nothing to her. She was totally indifferent to the external advantages which everybody else believed her to be absorbed in. Clara was very worldly, her aunts said, holding up their hands aghast at her extravagance and costly habits; but the fact was, that Clara made all her splendours common, not out of love for them, but contempt for them: a thing which nobody suspected. It is only a cynical soul that could feel thus, and Mrs Burton's cynicism went very deep. She thought meanly of human nature, and did not believe much in goodness; but she seldom disapproved, and never condemned. She would smile and cast about in her mind (unawares) for the motive of any doubtful action, and generally ended by finding out that it was 'very natural,' a sentence which procured her credit for large toleration and a most amiable disposition, but which sprang really from the cynical character of her mind. It did not seem to her worth while to censure or to sermonize. She did not believe in reformation; and incredulity was in her the twin-brother of despair; but not a tragical despair. She took it all very calmly, not feeling that it was worth while to be disturbed by it; and went on unconsciously tracking out the mean motives, the poor pretensions, the veiled selfishness of all around her. And she was not aware that she herself was any better, nor did she claim superiority – nay, she would even track her own impulses back to their root, and smile at them, though with a certain bitterness. But all this was so properly cloaked over that nobody suspected it. People gave her credit for wisdom because she generally believed the worst, and was so very often right; and they thought her tolerant because she would take pains to show how it was nature that was in fault, and not the culprit. No one suspected the terrible little cynic, pitiless and hopeless that she was in her heart.
And yet this woman was the mother of children, and had taught them their prayers, and was capable at that or any other moment of giving herself to be torn in pieces for them, as a matter of course, a thing which would not admit a possibility of doubt. She had thought of that in her many thinkings, had attempted to analyze her own love, and to fathom how much it was capable of. 'As much as a tiger or a bear would do for her cubs,' she had said to herself, with her usual smile. The strangest woman to sit veiled by Reginald Burton's fireside, and take the head of his table, and go to church with him in the richest, daintiest garments which money and skill could get for her! She was herself to some degree behind the scenes of her own nature; but even she could not always discriminate, down among the foundations of her being, which was false and which was true.
She went into the drawing-room, where her little Clara and Ned were waiting. Ned was thirteen, a year older than Norah Drummond. Mr Burton had determined that he would not be behind the cousin who refused him, nor allow her to suppose that he was pining for her love, so that his marriage had taken place earlier than Helen's. Ned was a big boy, very active, and not given to book-learning; but Clara, who was a year younger, was a meditative creature like her mother. The boy was standing outside the open window, throwing stones at the birds in the distant trees. Little Clara stood within watching him, and making her comments on the sport.
'Suppose you were to kill a poor little bird. Suppose one of the young ones – one of the baby ones – were to try and fly a little bit, and you were to hit it. Suppose the poor papa when he comes home – '
'Oh, that's enough of your supposes,' said the big boy. 'Suppose I were to eat you? But I don't want to. I don't think you would be nice.'
'Ned!' said a voice from behind Clara, which thrilled him through and through, and made the stones fall from his hands as if they had been suddenly paralyzed, and were unable to grasp anything. 'I know it is natural to boys to be cruel, but I had rather not have it under my own eyes.'
'Cruel!' cried Ned, with some discontent. 'A parcel of wretched sparrows and things that can't sing a note. They have no business in our trees. They ought to know what they would get.'
'Are boys always cruel, mamma?' said little Clara, laying hold upon her mother's dress. She was like a little princess herself, all lace and embroidery and blue ribbons and beautifulness. Mrs Burton made no answer. She did not even wait to see that her boy took no more shots at the birds. She drew a chair close to the window, and sat down; and as she took her seat she gave vent to a little fretful sigh. She was thinking of Helen, and was annoyed that she had actually no means of judging what were the motives that would move her should she come to Dura. It was difficult for her to understand simple ignorance and unsuspiciousness, or to give them their proper place among the springs of human action. Her worst fault philosophically was that of ignoring these commonest influences of all.
'Mamma, you are thinking of something,' said little Clara. 'Why do you sigh, and why do you shake your head?'
'I have been trying to put together a puzzle,' said her mother, 'as you do sometimes; and I can't make it out.'
'Ah, a puzzle,' said Ned, coming in; 'they are not at all fun, mamma. That beastly dissected map Aunt Louisa gave me – by Jove! I should like to take the little pieces and shy them at the birds.'
'But, mamma,' said Clara, 'are you sure it is only that? I never saw you playing with toys.'
'I wonder if I ever did?' said Mrs Burton, with a little gleam of surprise. 'Do you remember going to London once, Clara, and seeing your cousin, Norah Drummond? Should you like to have her here?'
'She was littler than me,' said Clara, promptly, 'though she was older. Papa told me. They lived in a funny little poky house. They had no carriages nor anything. She had never even tried to ride; fancy, mamma! When I told her I had a pony all to myself, she only stared. How different she would think it if she came here!'
Her mother looked at the child with a curious light in her cold blue eyes. She gave a little harsh laugh.
'If it were not that it is natural, and you cannot help it,' she said, 'I should like to whip you, my dear!'
