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Heriot's Choice

<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2> <h3>THREE YEARS AFTERWARDS—A RETROSPECT</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> 'And still I changed—I was a boy no more; My heart was large enough to hold my kind, And all the world. As hath been apt before With youth, I sought, but I could never find Work hard enough to quiet my self-strife, And the strength of action craving life. She, too, was changed.'—Jean Ingelow. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> In the histories of most families there are long even pauses during which life flows smoothly in uneventful channels, when there are few breaks and fewer incidents to chronicle; times when the silent ingathering of individual interests deepens and widens imperceptibly into an under-current of strength ready for the crises of emergency. Times of peace alternating with the petty warfare which is the prerogative of kinsmanship, a blessed routine of daily duty misnamed by the young monotony, but which in reality is to train them for the rank and file in the great human army hereafter; quiescent times during which the memory of past troubles is mercifully obliterated by present ease, and 'the cloud no bigger than a man's hand' does not as yet obscure the soft breadth of heaven's blue. Such a time had come to the Lamberts. The three years that followed Olive's illness and tardy convalescence were quite uneventful ones, marked with few incidents worthy of note; outwardly things had seemed unchanged, but how deep and strong was the under-current of each young individual life; what rapid developments, what unfolding of fresh life and interests in the budding manhood and womanhood within the old vicarage walls. Such thoughts as these came tranquilly to Mildred as she sat alone one July day in the same room where, three years before, the Angels of Life and Death had wrestled over one frail girl, in the room where she had so patiently and tenderly nursed Olive's sick body and mind back to health. For once in her life busy Mildred was idle, the work lay unfolded beside her, while her eyes wandered dreamily over the fair expanse of sunny green dotted with browsing sheep and tuneful with the plaintive bleating of lambs; there was a crisp crunching of cattle hoofs on the beck gravel below, a light wind touched the elms and thorns and woke a soft soughing, the tall poplar swayed drowsily with a flicker of shaking leaves; beyond the sunshine lay the blue dusk of the circling hills, prospect fit to inspire a daydream, even in a nature more prosaic than Mildred Lambert's. It was Mildred's birthday; she was thirty to-day, and she was smiling to herself at the thoughts that she felt younger and brighter and happier than she had three years before. They had been such peaceful years, full of congenial work and blessed with sympathetic fellowship; she had sown so poorly, she thought, and had reaped such rich harvests of requited love; she had come amongst them a stranger three years ago, and now she could number friends by the score; even her poorer neighbours loved and trusted her, their northern reserve quite broken down by her tender womanly graces. 'There are two people in Kirkby Stephen that would be sorely missed,' a respectable tradesman once said to Miss Trelawny, 'and they are Miss Lambert and Dr. Heriot, and I don't know which is the greater favourite. I should have lost my wife last year but for her; she sat up with her three nights running when that fever got hold of her.' And an old woman in the workhouse said once to Dr. Heriot when he wished her to see the vicar: 'Nae thanks to ye, doctor; ye needn't bother yersel' about minister, Miss Lambert has sense enough. I wudn't git mair gude words nir she gi'es; she's terrible gude, bless her;' and many would have echoed old Sally Bates's opinion. Mildred's downright simplicity and unselfishness were winning all hearts. 'Aunt Milly has such a trustworthy face, people are obliged to tell their troubles when they look at her,' Polly said once, and perhaps the girl held the right clue to the secret of Mildred Lambert's influence. Real sympathy, that spontaneity of vigorous warm feeling emanating from the sight of others' pain, is rarer than we imagine. Without exactly giving expression to conventional forms of condolence, Mildred conveyed the most delicate sympathy in every look and word; by a rapid transit of emotion, she seemed to place herself in the position of the bereaved; to feel as they felt—the sacred silence of sorrow; her few words never grazed the outer edge of that bitter irritability that trenches on great pain, and so her mere presence seemed to soothe them. Her perfect unconsciousness added to this feeling; there were times when Mildred's sympathy was so intense that she absolutely lost herself. 'What have I done that you should thank me?' was a common speech with her; in her own opinion she had done absolutely nothing; she had so merged her own individual feelings into the case before her that gratitude was a literal shock to her, and this same simplicity kept her quiet and humble under the growing idolatry of her nephews and nieces. 'My dear Miss Lambert, how they all love you,' Mrs. Delaware said to her once; 'even that fine grown young man Richard seems to lay himself out to please you.' 'How can they help loving me,' returned Mildred, with that shy soft smile of hers, 'when I love them so dearly, and they see it? Of course I do not deserve it; but it is the old story, love begets love;' and the glad, steady light in her eyes spoke of her deep content. Yes, Mildred was happy; the quiet woman joyed in her life with an intense appreciation that Olive would have envied. Mildred never guessed that there were secret springs to this fountain of gladness, that the strongly-cemented friendship between herself and Dr. Heriot added a fresh charm to her life, investing it with the atmosphere of unknown vigour and strength. Mildred had always been proud of her brother's intellect and goodness, but she had never learnt to rely so entirely on his sagacity as she now did on Dr. Heriot. If any one had questioned her feelings with respect to the vicarage Mentor, Mildred would have assured them with her sweet honesty that her brother's friend was hers also, that she did full justice to his merits, and was ready to own that his absence would leave a terrible gap in their circle; but even Mildred did not know how much she had learnt to depend on the sympathy that never failed her and the quick appreciation that was almost intuitive. Mildred knew that Dr. Heriot liked her; he had found her trustworthy in time of need, and he showed his gratitude by making fresh demands on her time and patience most unblushingly: in his intercourse with her there had always been a curious mixture of reverence and tenderness which was far removed from any warmer feeling, though in one sense it might be called brotherly. Perhaps Mildred was to blame for this; in spite of her appreciation of Dr. Heriot, she had never broken through her habit of shy reserve, which was a second nature with her—the old girlish Mildred was hidden out of sight. Dr. Heriot only saw in his friend's sister a gentle, soft-eyed woman, seeming older than she really was, and with tender, old-fashioned ways, always habited in sober grays and with a certain staidness of mien and quiet precision of speech, which, with all its restfulness, took away the impression of youth. Yes, good and womanly as he thought her, Dr. Heriot was ignorant of the real Mildred. Aunt Milly alone with her boys, blushing and dimpling under their saucy praise, would have shattered all his ideas of primness; just as those fits of wise eloquence, while Olive and Polly lingered near her in the dark, the sweet impulse of words that stirred them to their hearts' core, would have roused his latent enthusiasm to the utmost. Dr. Heriot's true ideal of womanly beauty and goodness passed his door daily, disguised in Quaker grays and the large shady black hat that was for use and not for ornament, but he did not know it; when he looked out it was to note how fresh and piquant Polly looked in her white dress and blue ribbons as she tripped beside Mildred, or how the Spanish hat with its long black feather suited Olive's sombre complexion. Olive had greatly improved since her illness; she was still irredeemably plain in her own eyes, but few were ready to endorse this opinion; her figure had rounded and filled out into almost majestic proportions, her shoulders had lost their ungainly stoop, and her slow movements were not without grace. Her complexion would always be sallow, but the dark abundant hair was now arranged to some advantage, and the large earnest eyes were her redeeming features, while a settled but soft seriousness had replaced the old absorbing melancholy. Olive would never look on the brighter side of life as a happier and more sanguine temperament would; she still took life seriously, almost solemnly, though she had ceased to repine that length of days had been given her; with her, conscientiousness was still a fault, and she would ever be given to weigh herself carefully and be found wanting; but there were times when even Olive owned herself happy, when the grave face would relax into smiles and the dark eyes grow bright and soft. And there were reasons for this; Olive no longer suffered the pangs of passionate and unrequited love, and her heart was at rest concerning Richard. For two years the sad groping after truth, the mute search for vocation, the conflict between duty and inclination, had continued, and still the grave, stern face, kindly but impressive, has given no clue to his future plans. 'I will tell you when I know myself, father,' was his parting speech more than once. 'I trust you, Cardie, and I am content to wait,' was ever his father's answer. But deliverance came at last, when the fetters fell off the noble young soul, when every word in the letter that reached Mr. Lambert spoke of the new-born gladness that filled his son's heart; there was no reticence. 'You trusted me and you were content to wait then; how often I have repeated these words to myself, dear father; you have waited, and now your patience shall be rewarded. 'Father, at last I know myself and my own mind; the last wave of doubt and fear has rolled off me; I can see it all now, I feel sure. I write it tremblingly. I feel sure that it is all true. 'Oh, how good God has been to me! I feel almost like the prodigal; only no husks could have satisfied me for a moment; it was only the truth I wanted—truth literal and divine; and, father, you have no reason to think sadly of me any longer, for "before eventide my light has come."' 'I am writing now to tell you that it is my firm and unalterable intention to carry out your and my mother's wishes with respect to my profession; will you ask my friends not to seek to dissuade me, especially my friends at Kirkleatham? You know how sorely inclination has already tempted me; believe me, I have counted the cost and weighed the whole matter calmly and dispassionately. I have much to relinquish—many favourite pursuits, many secret ambitions—but shall I give what costs me nothing? and after all I am only thankful that I am not considered too unworthy for the work.' It was this letter, so humble and so manly, that filled Olive's brown eyes with light and lifted the weight from her heart. Cardie had not disappointed her; he had been true to himself and his own convictions. Mildred alone had her misgivings; when she next saw Richard, she thought that he looked worn and pale, and even fancied his cheerfulness was a little forced; and his admission that he had slept badly for two or three nights so filled her with alarm that she determined to speak to him at all costs. His composed and devout demeanour at service next morning, however, a little comforted her, and she was hesitating whether the change in him might be her own fancy, when Richard himself broke the ice by an abrupt question as they were walking towards Musgrave that same afternoon. 'What is all this about Ethel Trelawny, Aunt Milly?' And Mildred absolutely started at his tone, it was suppressed and yet so eager. 'She will not return to Kirkleatham for some weeks, Richard; she and her father are visiting in Scotland.' Richard turned very pale. 'It is true, then, Aunt Milly?' 'What is true?' 'That she is engaged to that man?' 'To Sir Robert Ferrers? What! have you heard of that? No, indeed, Richard, she has refused him most decidedly; why he is old enough to be her father!' 'That is no objection with some women. Are you sure? They are not in Renfrewshire, then?' 'They have never been there; they are staying with friends near Ballater. Why, Richard, what is this?' as Richard stopped as though he were giddy and covered his face with his hands. 'I never meant you or any one to know,' he gasped at length, while Mildred watched his varying colour with alarm; 'but I have not been able to sleep since I heard, and the suddenness of the relief—oh! are you quite sure, Aunt Milly?' with a painful eagerness in his tone very strange to hear in grave, self-contained Richard. 'Dear Cardie, let there be full confidence between us; you see you have unwittingly betrayed yourself.' 'Yes, I have betrayed myself,' he muttered with increasing agitation; 'what a fool you must think me, Aunt Milly, and all because I could not put a question quietly; but I was not prepared for your answer; what a consummate——' 'Hush, don't call yourself names. I knew your secret long ago, Cardie. I knew what friends you and Ethel Trelawny were.' A boyish flush suffused his face. 'Ethel is very fond of her old playmate.' He winced as though with sudden pain. 'Ah, that is just it, Aunt Milly; she is fond of me and nothing else.' 'I like her name for you, C&oelig;ur-de-Lion, it sounds so musical from her lips; you are her friend, Richard; she trusts you implicitly.' 'I believe—I hope she does;' but drawing his hand again before his eyes, 'I am too young, Aunt Milly. I was only one-and-twenty last month.' 'True, and Sir Robert was nearly fifty; she refused a fine estate there.' 'Was her father angry with her?' 'Not so terribly incensed as he was about Mr. Cathcart the year before. Mr. Cathcart had double his fortune and was a young, good-looking man. I was almost afraid that in her misery she should be driven to marry him.' 'He has no right to persecute her so; why should he be so anxious to get rid of his only child?' 'That is what we all say. Poor Ethel, hers is no light cross. I am thankful she is beginning to take it patiently; the loss of a father's love must be dreadful, and hers is a proud spirit.' 'But not now; you said yourself, Aunt Milly, how nobly she behaved in that last affair.' 'True,' continued Mildred in a sorrowful tone; 'all the more that she was inclined to succumb to a momentary fascination; but I am certain that with all his intellect Mr. Cathcart would have been a most undesirable husband for her; Sir Robert Ferrers is far preferable.' 'Aunt Milly!' 'Yes, Richard, and I told her so; but her only answer was that she would not marry where she could not love. I am afraid this will widen the breach between her and her father; her last letter was very sad.' 'It is tyranny, downright persecution; how dares he. Oh, Aunt Milly!' in a tone of deep despondency, 'if I were only ten years older.' 'I am afraid you are very young, Cardie. I wish you had not set your heart on this.' 'Yes, we are too much of an age; but she need not fear, I am older in everything than she; there is nothing boyish about me, is there, Aunt Milly?' 'Not in your love for Ethel, I am afraid; but, Cardie, what would her father say if he knew it?' 'He will know it some day. Look here, Aunt Milly, I am one-and-twenty now, and I have loved Ethel, Miss Trelawny I mean, since I was a boy of twelve; people may laugh, but I felt for my old playmate something of what I feel now. She was always different from any one else in my eyes. I remember telling my mother when I was only ten that Ethel should be my wife.' 'But, Richard——' 'I know what you are going to say—that it is all hopeless moonshine, that a curate with four or five hundred a year has no right to presume to Mr. Trelawny's heiress; that is what he and the world will tell me; but how am I to help loving her?' 'What am I to say to you, Cardie? Long before you are your father's curate Ethel may have met the man she can love.' 'Then I shall bear my trouble, I hope, manfully. Don't you think this is my one dread, that and being so young in her eyes? How little she knew how she tempted me when she told me I ought to distinguish myself at the Bar; I felt as though it were giving her up when I decided on taking orders.' 'She would call you a veritable C&oelig;ur-de-Lion if she knew. Oh! my poor boy, how hardly this has gone with you,' as Richard's face whitened again with emotion. 'It has been terribly hard,' he returned, almost inaudibly; 'it was not so much at last reluctance and fear of the work as the horrible dread of losing her by my own act. I thought—it was foolish and young of me, I daresay—but I thought that as people spoke of my capabilities I might in time win a position that should be worthy even of her. Oh, Aunt Milly! what a fool you must think me.' Richard's clear glance was overcast with pain as he spoke, but Mildred's affectionate smile spoke volumes. 'I think I never loved you so well, Cardie, now I know how nobly you have acted. Have you told your father of this?' 'No, but I am sure he knows; you have no idea how much he notices; he said something to me once that showed me he was aware of my feelings; we have no secrets now; that is your doing, Aunt Milly.' Mildred shook her head. 'Ah, but it was; you were the first to break down my reserve; what a churl I must have been in those days. You all think too well of me as it is. Livy especially puts me in a bad humour with myself.' 'I wanted to speak to you of Olive, Richard; are you not thankful that she has found her vocation at last?' 'Indeed I am. I wrote my congratulations by return of post. Fancy Kirke and Steadman undertaking to publish those poems, and Livy only eighteen!' 'Dr. Heriot always told us she had genius. Some of them are really very beautiful. Dear Olive, you should have seen her face when the letter came.' 'I know; I would have given anything to be there.' 'She looked quite radiant, and yet so touchingly humble when she held it out to her father, and then without waiting for us to read it she left the room. I know she was thanking God for it on her knees, Richard, while we were all gossiping to Dr. Heriot on Livy's good fortune.' Richard looked touched. 'What an example she is to us all; if she would only believe half the good of herself that we do, Aunt Milly.' 'Then she would lose all her childlike humility. I think she gets less morbidly self-conscious year by year; there is no denying she is brighter.' 'She could not help it, brought into contact with such a nature as Marsden's; that fellow gives one the impression of perfect mental and bodily health. Dr. John told me it was quite refreshing to look at him.' 'Chriss amuses me, she will have it he is so noisy.' 'He has a loud laugh certainly, and his voice is not exactly low-pitched, but he is a splendid fellow. Roy keeps up a steady correspondence with him. By the bye, I have not shown you my last letter from Rome;' and Richard, who had regained his tranquillity and ordinary manner, pulled the thin, foreign-looking envelope from his breast-pocket and entertained Mildred for the remainder of the way with an amusing account of some of Roy's Roman adventures. That night, as Richard sat alone with his father in the study, Mr. Lambert placed his hand affectionately on his son's broad shoulder with a look that was rather more scrutinising than usual. 'So the last cloud has cleared away; that is right, Cardie.' 'I do not understand you, father;' but the young man faltered a little under his father's quiet glance. 'Nay, it is for you to explain; only last night you seemed as though you had some trouble on your mind, you were anxious and absorbed, and this evening the oppression seems removed.' For a moment Richard hesitated, and the old boyish flush came to his face, and then his determination was taken. 'Father,' he said, speaking in a quick, resolute tone, and tossing back his wave of dark hair as he spoke, always a trick of his when agitated, 'there shall be no half-confidence between us; yesterday I was heavy at heart because I thought Ethel Trelawny would marry Sir Robert Ferrers; to-day I hear she has refused him and the weight is gone.' Mr. Lambert gave a low, dismayed exclamation, and his hand dropped from his son's shoulder. 'Ah, is it so, my poor boy?' he said at last, and there was no mistaking the sorrowful tone. 'Yes, it is so, father,' he returned firmly; 'you may call me a fool for my pains—I do not know, perhaps I am one—but it is too late to help it now; the mischief is of too long standing.' In spite of his very real sympathy a smile crossed his father's lips, and yet as he looked at Richard it somehow died away. Youthful as he was, barely one-and-twenty, there was a set determination, a staid manliness, in his whole mien that added five years at least to his age. Even to a disinterested eye he seemed a son of whom any father might be proud; not tall—the massive, thick-set figure seemed made for strength more than grace—but the face was pre-eminently handsome, the dark eyes beamed with intelligence, the forehead was broad and benevolent, the lips still closed with the old inflexibility, but the hard lines had relaxed: firm and dominant, yet ruled by the single eye of integral principle; there was no fear that Richard Lambert would ever overstep the boundaries of a clearly-defined right. 'That is my brave boy,' murmured his father at last, watching him with a sort of wistful pain; 'but, Cardie, I cannot but feel grieved that you have set your heart on this girl.' 'What! do you doubt the wisdom or the fitness of my choice?' demanded the young man hotly. 'Both, Cardie; the girl is everything that one could wish; dear to me almost as a daughter of my own, but Trelawny—ah, my poor boy, do you dream that you can satisfy her father's ambition?' 'I shall not try to do so,' returned Richard, speaking with set lips; 'I know him too well; he would sell her to the highest bidder, sell his own flesh and blood; but she is too noble for his corrupting influence.' 'You speak bitterly, Cardie.' 'I speak as I feel. Look here, father, foolishly or wisely, it does not matter now, I have set my heart on this thing; I have grown up with this one idea before me, the hope of one day, however distant, calling Ethel Trelawny my wife. I do not think I am one to change.' Mr. Lambert shook his head. 'I fear not, Cardie.' 'I am as sure of the faithfulness of my own heart as I am that I am standing here; young as I am, I know I love her as you loved my mother.' His father covered his face with his hand. 'No, no; do not say that, Cardie.' 'I must say what is true; you would not have me lie to you.' 'Surely not; but, my boy, this is a hard hearing.' 'You are thinking of Mr. Trelawny,' returned Richard, quietly; 'that is not my worst fear; my chief obstacle is Ethel herself.' 'What! you doubt her returning your affection?' asked his father. 'Yes, I doubt it,' was the truthful answer; but it was made with quivering lips. 'I dread lest I should not satisfy her exacting fastidiousness; but all the same I mean to try; you will bid me Godspeed, father?' 'Yes, yes; but, Cardie, be prudent, remember how little you have to offer—a few hundreds a year where she has thousands, not even a curacy!' 'You think I ought to wait a little; another year—two perhaps?' 'That is my opinion, certainly.' Richard crossed the room once or twice with a rapid, disordered stride, and then he returned to his father's side. 'You are right; I must not do anything rashly or impulsively just because I fear to lose her. I ought not to speak even to her until I have taken orders; and yet if I could only make her understand how it is without speaking.' 'You must be very prudent, Cardie; remember my son has no right to aspire to an heiress.' Richard's face clouded. 'That dreadful money! There is one comfort—I believe she hates it as much as I do; but it is not entailed property—he can leave it all away from her.' 'Yes, if she displeases him. Mildred tells me he holds this threat perpetually over her; poor girl, he makes her a bad father.' 'His conduct is unjustifiable in every way,' returned Richard in a stifled voice; 'any one less noble would be tempted to make their escape at all hazards, but she endures her wretchedness so patiently. Sometimes I fancy, father, that when she can bear her loneliness no longer my time for speaking will come, and then——' But Richard had no time to finish his sentence, for just then Dr. Heriot's knock sounded at the door, and with a mute hand-shake of perfect confidence the father and son separated for the night. This conversation had taken place nearly a year before, but from that time it had never been resumed; sacredly did Mr. Lambert guard his boy's confidence, and save that there was a deferential tenderness in his manner to Ethel Trelawny and a wistful pain in his eyes when he saw Richard beside her, no one would have guessed how heavily his son's future weighed on his heart. Richard's manner remained unchanged; it was a little graver, perhaps, and indicative of greater thoughtfulness, but there was nothing lover-like in his demeanour, nothing that would check or repel the warm sisterly affection that Ethel evidently cherished for him; only at times Ethel wondered why it was that Richard's opinions seemed to influence her more than they used, and to marvel at her vivid remembrance of past looks and speeches. Somehow every time she saw him he seemed less like her old playmate, C&oelig;ur-de-Lion, and transformed into an older and graver Richard; perhaps it might be that the halo of the future priesthood already surrounded him; but for whatever reason it might be, Ethel was certainly less dictatorial and argumentative in her demeanour towards him, and that a very real friendship seemed growing up between them. Richard was more than two-and-twenty now, and Roy just a year younger; in another eight months he would be ordained deacon; as yet he had made no sign, but as Mildred sat pondering over the retrospect of the three last years in the golden and dreamy afternoon, she was driven to confess that her boys were now men, doing men's work in the world, and to wonder, with womanly shrinkings of heart, what the future might hold out to them of good and evil. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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