第 八 章 · Chapter VIII

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What name doth Joy most borrow

When life is fair?

“To-morrow.”

What name doth best fit Sorrow

In young despair?

“To-morrow.”

There was a much more lasting trouble at the rectory. Rex arrived there

only to throw himself on his bed in a state of apparent apathy,

unbroken till the next day, when it began to be interrupted by more

positive signs of illness. Nothing could be said about his going to

Southampton: instead of that, the chief thought of his mother and Anna

was how to tend this patient who did not want to be well, and from

being the brightest, most grateful spirit in the household, was

metamorphosed into an irresponsive, dull-eyed creature who met all

affectionate attempts with a murmur of “Let me alone.” His father

looked beyond the crisis, and believed it to be the shortest way out of

an unlucky affair; but he was sorry for the inevitable suffering, and

went now and then to sit by him in silence for a few minutes, parting

with a gentle pressure of his hand on Rex’s blank brow, and a “God

bless you, my boy.” Warham and the younger children used to peep round

the edge of the door to see this incredible thing of their lively

brother being laid low; but fingers were immediately shaken at them to

drive them back. The guardian who was always there was Anna, and her

little hand was allowed to rest within her brother’s, though he never

gave it a welcoming pressure. Her soul was divided between anguish for

Rex and reproach of Gwendolen.

“Perhaps it is wicked of me, but I think I never _can_ love her again,”

came as the recurrent burden of poor little Anna’s inward monody. And

even Mrs. Gascoigne had an angry feeling toward her niece which she

could not refrain from expressing (apologetically) to her husband.

“I know of course it is better, and we ought to be thankful that she is

not in love with the poor boy; but really. Henry, I think she is hard;

she has the heart of a coquette. I can not help thinking that she must

have made him believe something, or the disappointment would not have

taken hold of him in that way. And some blame attaches to poor Fanny;

she is quite blind about that girl.”

Mr. Gascoigne answered imperatively: “The less said on that point the

better, Nancy. I ought to have been more awake myself. As to the boy,

be thankful if nothing worse ever happens to him. Let the thing die out

as quickly as possible; and especially with regard to Gwendolen—let it

be as if it had never been.”

The rector’s dominant feeling was that there had been a great escape.

Gwendolen in love with Rex in return would have made a much harder

problem, the solution of which might have been taken out of his hands.

But he had to go through some further difficulty.

One fine morning Rex asked for his bath, and made his toilet as usual.

Anna, full of excitement at this change, could do nothing but listen

for his coming down, and at last hearing his step, ran to the foot of

the stairs to meet him. For the first time he gave her a faint smile,

but it looked so melancholy on his pale face that she could hardly help

crying.

“Nannie!” he said gently, taking her hand and leading her slowly along

with him to the drawing-room. His mother was there, and when she came

to kiss him, he said: “What a plague I am!”

Then he sat still and looked out of the bow-window on the lawn and

shrubs covered with hoar-frost, across which the sun was sending faint

occasional gleams:—something like that sad smile on Rex’s face, Anna

thought. He felt as if he had had a resurrection into a new world, and

did not know what to do with himself there, the old interests being

left behind. Anna sat near him, pretending to work, but really watching

him with yearning looks. Beyond the garden hedge there was a road where

wagons and carts sometimes went on field-work: a railed opening was

made in the hedge, because the upland with its bordering wood and clump

of ash-trees against the sky was a pretty sight. Presently there came

along a wagon laden with timber; the horses were straining their grand

muscles, and the driver having cracked his whip, ran along anxiously to

guide the leader’s head, fearing a swerve. Rex seemed to be shaken into

attention, rose and looked till the last quivering trunk of the timber

had disappeared, and then walked once or twice along the room. Mrs.

Gascoigne was no longer there, and when he came to sit down again,

Anna, seeing a return of speech in her brother’s eyes, could not resist

the impulse to bring a little stool and seat herself against his knee,

looking up at him with an expression which seemed to say, “Do speak to

me.” And he spoke.

“I’ll tell you what I’m thinking of, Nannie. I will go to Canada, or

somewhere of that sort.” (Rex had not studied the character of our

colonial possessions.)

“Oh, Rex, not for always!”

“Yes, to get my bread there. I should like to build a hut, and work

hard at clearing, and have everything wild about me, and a great wide

quiet.”

“And not take me with you?” said Anna, the big tears coming fast.

“How could I?”

“I should like it better than anything; and settlers go with their

families. I would sooner go there than stay here in England. I could

make the fires, and mend the clothes, and cook the food; and I could

learn how to make the bread before we went. It would be nicer than

anything—like playing at life over again, as we used to do when we

made our tent with the drugget, and had our little plates and dishes.”

“Father and mother would not let you go.”

“Yes, I think they would, when I explained everything. It would save

money; and papa would have more to bring up the boys with.”

There was further talk of the same practical kind at intervals, and it

ended in Rex’s being obliged to consent that Anna should go with him

when he spoke to his father on the subject.

Of course it was when the rector was alone in his study. Their mother

would become reconciled to whatever he decided on, but mentioned to her

first, the question would have distressed her.

“Well, my children!” said Mr. Gascoigne, cheerfully, as they entered.

It was a comfort to see Rex about again.

“May we sit down with you a little, papa?” said Anna. “Rex has

something to say.”

“With all my heart.”

It was a noticeable group that these three creatures made, each of them

with a face of the same structural type—the straight brow, the nose

suddenly straightened from an intention of being aquiline, the short

upper lip, the short but strong and well-hung chin: there was even the

same tone of complexion and set of the eye. The gray-haired father was

at once massive and keen-looking; there was a perpendicular line in his

brow which when he spoke with any force of interest deepened; and the

habit of ruling gave him an air of reserved authoritativeness. Rex

would have seemed a vision of his father’s youth, if it had been

possible to imagine Mr. Gascoigne without distinct plans and without

command, smitten with a heart sorrow, and having no more notion of

concealment than a sick animal; and Anna was a tiny copy of Rex, with

hair drawn back and knotted, her face following his in its changes of

expression, as if they had one soul between them.

“You know all about what has upset me, father,” Rex began, and Mr.

Gascoigne nodded.

“I am quite done up for life in this part of the world. I am sure it

will be no use my going back to Oxford. I couldn’t do any reading. I

should fail, and cause you expense for nothing. I want to have your

consent to take another course, sir.”

Mr. Gascoigne nodded more slowly, the perpendicular line on his brow

deepened, and Anna’s trembling increased.

“If you would allow me a small outfit, I should like to go to the

colonies and work on the land there.” Rex thought the vagueness of the

phrase prudential; “the colonies” necessarily embracing more

advantages, and being less capable of being rebutted on a single ground

than any particular settlement.

“Oh, and with me, papa,” said Anna, not bearing to be left out from the

proposal even temporarily. “Rex would want some one to take care of

him, you know—some one to keep house. And we shall never, either of

us, be married. And I should cost nothing, and I should be so happy. I

know it would be hard to leave you and mamma; but there are all the

others to bring up, and we two should be no trouble to you any more.”

Anna had risen from her seat, and used the feminine argument of going

closer to her papa as she spoke. He did not smile, but he drew her on

his knee and held her there, as if to put her gently out of the

question while he spoke to Rex.

“You will admit that my experience gives me some power of judging for

you, and that I can probably guide you in practical matters better than

you can guide yourself?”

Rex was obliged to say, “Yes, sir.”

“And perhaps you will admit—though I don’t wish to press that

point—that you are bound in duty to consider my judgment and wishes?”

“I have never yet placed myself in opposition to you, sir.” Rex in his

secret soul could not feel that he was bound not to go to the colonies,

but to go to Oxford again—which was the point in question.

“But you will do so if you persist in setting your mind toward a rash

and foolish procedure, and deafening yourself to considerations which

my experience of life assures me of. You think, I suppose, that you

have had a shock which has changed all your inclinations, stupefied

your brains, unfitted you for anything but manual labor, and given you

a dislike to society? Is that what you believe?”

“Something like that. I shall never be up to the sort of work I must do

to live in this part of the world. I have not the spirit for it. I

shall never be the same again. And without any disrespect to you,

father, I think a young fellow should be allowed to choose his way of

life, if he does nobody any harm. There are plenty to stay at home, and

those who like might be allowed to go where there are empty places.”

“But suppose I am convinced on good evidence—as I am—that this state

of mind of yours is transient, and that if you went off as you propose,

you would by-and-by repent, and feel that you had let yourself slip

back from the point you have been gaining by your education till now?

Have you not strength of mind enough to see that you had better act on

my assurance for a time, and test it? In my opinion, so far from

agreeing with you that you should be free to turn yourself into a

colonist and work in your shirt-sleeves with spade and hatchet—in my

opinion you have no right whatever to expatriate yourself until you

have honestly endeavored to turn to account the education you have

received here. I say nothing of the grief to your mother and me.”

“I’m very sorry; but what can I do? I can’t study—that’s certain,”

said Rex.

“Not just now, perhaps. You will have to miss a term. I have made

arrangements for you—how you are to spend the next two months. But I

confess I am disappointed in you, Rex. I thought you had more sense

than to take up such ideas—to suppose that because you have fallen

into a very common trouble, such as most men have to go through, you

are loosened from all bonds of duty—just as if your brain had softened

and you were no longer a responsible being.”

What could Rex say? Inwardly he was in a state of rebellion, but he had

no arguments to meet his father’s; and while he was feeling, in spite

of any thing that might be said, that he should like to go off to “the

colonies” to-morrow, it lay in a deep fold of his consciousness that he

ought to feel—if he had been a better fellow he would have felt—more

about his old ties. This is the sort of faith we live by in our soul

sicknesses.

Rex got up from his seat, as if he held the conference to be at an end.

“You assent to my arrangement, then?” said Mr. Gascoigne, with that

distinct resolution of tone which seems to hold one in a vise.

There was a little pause before Rex answered, “I’ll try what I can do,

sir. I can’t promise.” His thought was, that trying would be of no use.

Her father kept Anna, holding her fast, though she wanted to follow

Rex. “Oh, papa,” she said, the tears coming with her words when the

door had closed; “it is very hard for him. Doesn’t he look ill?”

“Yes, but he will soon be better; it will all blow over. And now, Anna,

be as quiet as a mouse about it all. Never let it be mentioned when he

is gone.”

“No, papa. But I would not be like Gwendolen for any thing—to have

people fall in love with me so. It is very dreadful.”

Anna dared not say that she was disappointed at not being allowed to go

to the colonies with Rex; but that was her secret feeling, and she

often afterward went inwardly over the whole affair, saying to herself,

“I should have done with going out, and gloves, and crinoline, and

having to talk when I am taken to dinner—and all that!”

I like to mark the time, and connect the course of individual lives

with the historic stream, for all classes of thinkers. This was the

period when the broadening of gauge in crinolines seemed to demand an

agitation for the general enlargement of churches, ball-rooms, and

vehicles. But Anna Gascoigne’s figure would only allow the size of

skirt manufactured for young ladies of fourteen.