CHAPTER XVIII.

FALSE MOTHER.

SUCH is the balance of human events—if the phrase be held admissible—that the moment any member of our race is likely to strike the stars with his head sublime, he receives a hard thump upon that protuberance, and comes down with a crown—but a cracked one. As for myself—an unpretentious fellow, and of very simple intellect, though not quite such a fool as the world considered me in my later troubles,—desiring always to tell the truth, I will not deny that I walked on air, when I found myself gifted with my Kitty’s love, and her large-hearted father’s assent to it. It had been arranged that I must wait, and keep my bliss inside my waistcoat, until such time as slower prudence and clearer foresight might prescribe. But all I thought of were the glorious facts that Kitty loved me as I loved her, and that her father, who alone could enter sound denial, would not deny. “What do I care for that old stepmother?” I said to myself, as I buttoned my coat.

That coat was henceforth sacred to me. There may have been smarter and grander coats, coats with more tone of high art about them, and of sleeker and richer substance. But this coat was enriched for ever with at least three tears from Kitty’s eyes, Kitty’s lovely hair had fallen like a vernal shower upon it, and her true heart had quivered to it, when she owned whose heart it was. I knew that it might be my duty now to start a new coat of loftier order, to keep me abreast of my rise in the world, as the son of a celebrated man; nevertheless this would be the coat to look back upon and look up to, as it hung upon a holy peg, with the pockets full of lavender.

I had said farewell to my dear love, and was just beginning to think how I would come it over Uncle Corny, telling him a bit, and then another bit, and leading him on to laugh at me, until I should come out with news which would make him snap his favourite pipe—when suddenly, near the Captain’s gate, I felt a sharp tug from behind. The dusk was gathering, and I meant to put my best foot foremost, and walk all the way to Sunbury, scarcely feeling the road beneath my feet.

“What do you want, little chap?” I asked, for it was not in my power then to speak rudely to any living creature, although I was vexed at losing time.

“If you please, young man, my lady says that you are to come back and speak to her. You are to come with me to the door over there. And you must be careful how you scrape your boots.”

I looked at the boy, and felt inclined to laugh. He was dressed in green from head to foot, and two or three dozen gilt buttons shone in a double row down the front of him. For a moment I doubted about obeying, until it occurred to me that if I refused, my sin might be visited upon another. So I turned and followed the page, who seemed to think disobedience impossible. He led me to a door at the west end of the house, and then up a little staircase to a fine broad passage, with statues and pictures looking very grand indeed. Before I could take half of it into my mind, he opened a door with carved work upon it, and showed me into the grandest room I had ever entered, except in show places, such as Hampton Court, or Windsor Castle. All this part of the house was so different from the other end that I was amazed, when I came to think of it.

But I could not think now of floors and ceilings, or even chairs and tables, as I walked with my best hat in my hand, towards a tall lady very richly dressed, who stood by the mantelpiece, almost like a figure carved upon it. Her thick and strong hair seemed as black as a coal, until one came to look into it; and then it showed an undercast of red, such as I never saw in any other person. Her form was large and robust and full, and as powerful as that of any ordinary man; but the chief thing to notice was her face and eyes. Her face was like those we see cut in shell, to represent some ancient goddess, such as I read of at Hampton School—Juno, or Pallas, or it may have been Proserpine, my memory is not clear upon those little points—but although I remember a god with two faces, and a dog with three heads, I cannot call to mind any goddess among them endowed with three chins. “My lady,” as the boy in green had called her, certainly did own three fine chins, as well as a mouth which was too large for the shells, and contemptuous nostrils that seemed to sift the air, and bright eyes with very thick lids for their sheath—and they wanted a sheath, I can tell you—and a forehead which looked as if it could roll, instead of only wrinkling, when the storm of passion swept it.

As yet I was too young to understand that justice and kindness are the only qualities entitling our poor fellow-mortals to respect. I had passed through no tribulation yet, and coped with none of the sorrows, which enlarge, when they do not embitter, the heart. Therefore I was much impressed by this lady’s grandeur and fine presence, and made her a clumsy bow, as if I had scarcely a right to exist before her. She saw it, and scorned me, and took the wrong course, as we mostly do when we despise another.

“Do I know your name, young man?” she asked, as if it were very doubtful whether I possessed any name at all. “I seem to have heard of you, but cannot say where.”

“In that case,” I said, with my spirit returning at the insolent disdain of her eyes and voice, “the boy who came to fetch me has made some mistake. No doubt you wished to see some other person. I beg you to make no apologies.”

With another low bow, I began my retreat, and was very near securing it; for she became too furious to condescend to speak. But two young ladies, whom I had scarcely noticed, jumped up from their chairs, and intercepted me.

“Mamma forgets names so,” said one of them, a little plain thing with a mass of curly hair; “but you are Mr. Orchardson, I think, of Sunbury. If so, it is you that mamma wants to speak to.”

“I am not Mr. Orchardson of Sunbury,” I answered; “my Uncle Cornelius is the gentleman so known. I am Christopher Orchardson, who only helps him in his business.”

“Then, Christopher Orchardson,” resumed their mother, as I came back and looked at her quietly, “you seem to have very little knowledge of good manners. Allow me to ask you what you are doing in this house?”

“I understood that I was sent for, ma’am; and I am waiting to know what your pleasure is.” I saw the girls giggle, and glance at one another, as I delivered this statement.

“None of your trifling with me, young man. What I insist upon knowing is this. What right had you to enter my house, some hours ago, without my knowledge, and to remain in it, without my permission? Don’t fence with the question, but answer it.”

“That is easy enough,” I replied with my eyes full on hers, which vainly strove to look down mine; “I came to this house, without asking whose it was, to see Captain Fairthorn, with a little sketch of something in which he had taken interest. The servant, or housekeeper, told me to wait, while she went to look for her mistress. Then I met Miss Fairthorn, whom I have had the pleasure of meeting several times before; and she most kindly showed me to her father’s room. And I was very glad to find him in good health. After a very pleasant time with him, I was leaving the garden on my way home, when I was told that you wished to see me. I was not rude enough to refuse, and that is why I am in this house again.”

“You have made a fine tale of it, but not told the truth. Did you come to my house to see the Professor? Or did you come rather to see his daughter?”

“I came to this house to see Captain Fairthorn. But I hoped that I might perhaps have the pleasure of seeing Miss Fairthorn also.”

“And what was your motive in wishing to see her? I have a right to ask, as she is in my charge. I stand in the place of a mother to her, whether she is grateful, or whether she is otherwise. What did you wish to see her for?”

I was greatly at a loss to answer this. Not from any shame at the affection, which was the honour and glory of my being, but from dread of the consequences to my precious darling. She saw my hesitation, and burst forth,—

“Do you think that I do not know all about it? You have had the gross insolence to lift your eyes to a young lady far above you in every way. You fancy that because she has no mother, and her father is a man of no worldly wisdom, and of extravagant sentiments, a kind of philosopher in short, you will be permitted to reduce her to your inferior rank in life. What are you?—a small market-gardener, or something of that kind, I believe.”

“You were kind enough to say just now,” I answered, “that you did not know anything about me. Even my name was strange to you. I am not ashamed of my business; and I lay no traps for any one.”

“Have you the insolence to refer to me?” Her guilty conscience caught her here, and under its sting she grew so wild that I thought she would have flown at me, though no thought of her had been in my words. “But you are below my contempt, and I wonder that I even deign to speak to you. And I will make short work of it. Go back to your spade, or your heap of manure, or whatever it is you live in, and never dare to think again of Miss Kitty Fairthorn. She is engaged to a gentleman of family, and title, and large property; and I mean to have her married to him very shortly. Go back to your manure-heap; I have done with you.”

“Not quite so easily as you think.” To her great amazement I approached her, not only without terror, but with calm contempt. “You have a foul scheme in hand, as is widely known, for selling a poor girl, whom you have vilely misused, and starved for some years, and made her life a misery; and you think you will be allowed to sell her to a reprobate old man, who has not even gold enough to cover the blackness of his character. As a girl she has borne your blows, as a woman she would have to bear those of a cowardly and godless scoundrel. You like plain speaking, and there it is for you. Do you think that God will allow such crimes? I tell you, poor tyrant, that the right will conquer. Miss Fairthorn shall have a happy home, with the affection and kindness of which you have robbed her; and you—you shall suffer the misery you have inflicted.”

Now I had not meant to say a single word of this, and was thoroughly astonished at my own strong language. Bitterly angry with myself as well, for what I felt to be unmanly conduct (even under fiercest provocation), when I saw the effect upon this haughty lady. It must have been many years now, since any one had dared to show her thus what she was like; for her strong will had swept black and white into one—the one she chose to make of them. Weak indolence, and cowardice, a thousandfold more common than the resolute will, had got out of her way, until her way turned to a resistless rush.

She looked at me now, as if utterly unable to believe that her ears could be true to her. Then glancing at one of her daughters, she said, “Geraldine, this young man does not mean it. He has no idea what he is talking about. Take him away, my dear; I feel unwell. I shall be able to think of things, by-and-by. Euphrasia, run for the sal volatile, or the Cognac in the square decanter. And then he may come back, and tell me what he means.”

This strange turn of mind puzzled me, as much as my straightforward speech had puzzled her. Dr. Sippets—our great man at Sunbury—said, when I spoke of it many years afterwards, that he quite understood, and could easily explain it. To wit, that with people of choleric habit, the vessels of the brain become so charged up to a certain tension, that if anything more—but I had better not try to put his hundred-tun words into my pint pot. He is a choleric man himself; and his vessels might become so charged as to vent themselves in a heavy charge to me. It is enough to say, that when the lady sank, with a face as white as death, upon the sofa, proper feeling told me to depart.

This I was doing, in a sad haze of mind; doubting whether duty did not require that I should halt on the premises, until I had learned how the sufferer passed through her trial. But now another strange thing happened to me, and perhaps the very last I should have dreamed of. I was lingering uneasily near the door, with many pricks of self-reproach and even shame, when a slim figure glided out and came to me. Although the night had quite fallen now, I could see that it was not my Kitty who came out, but some one much shorter, and smaller altogether. With great anxiety I went to meet her, fearing almost to hear fatal tidings; for who can tell in such a case what may be the end of it?

“You need not be alarmed, Mr. Orchardson,” said a voice which I recognized as that of Miss Jerry; “my mother is all right again, and quite ready to have another turn at you, if you are anxious to come back.”

“The Lord forbid!” I replied devoutly. “I would run into the hottest of the brick-kilns yonder, rather than meet the good lady again. But I am delighted that it is no worse. It was very kind of you to come and tell me. My best thanks to you, Miss Geraldine.”

“It was not that at all,” she said with some hesitation; “I did not come to set your mind at ease, though I thought that possibly you might be waiting here; which is very good of you. But I came to say how grateful I am for your behaviour. You have done a lot of good; I cannot tell you half of it. Nobody ever dares to contradict mamma; that is what makes her so much what she is. She is very kind and pleasant at the bottom, I am sure. But she has such a very strong will of her own; as a clever man said, when he tried to comfort my dear father many years ago, such a ‘very powerful identity,’ that every one has always given way before her, until she—until she thinks all the world is bound to do it. You spoke very harshly to her, I know. Perhaps a real gentleman would not have done it; and for the moment I hated you. But she is so delightful to us ever since! We shall have a sweet time of it, for at least a week. But won’t Miss Kitty catch it?”

Those last words gave me a bitter pang. This odd girl, who seemed to have some good in her, spoke them, as I thought, with exultation, or at any rate without any sign of sorrow. Her justice, like her mother’s, stopped at home.

“If I have done you any good,” I said, with faint hopes of getting some little myself, “do promise me one thing; I am sure you will. Try to be kind to Miss Fairthorn, and lighten some little of the burden she has to bear.”

“Oh, you don’t know her,” she answered, with a laugh. “You think she is wonderful, I dare say. I can tell you Miss Kitty has a temper of her own. She is awfully provoking, and she won’t be pitied. I believe she hates Frizzy and me, just because we are our mother’s daughters. If you ever marry her, you had better look out. However, I will bear with her, as far as human nature can. And now I will say ‘Good-night.’”

She gave me her hand, which I did not expect; and I saw that she was rather a pretty girl which I had not noticed in the room. She had fine dark eyes, and her voice was much softer than that of her sister; and, it seemed to me that she might come to good, if she got among good people, and away from her terrible mother.