Читать книгу: «The Measure of a Man», страница 10

John entered fully into his delight and added, "Why, Ramsby told me that there were some fine old carpets yet on the floors and Genoese velvet window-curtains lined with rose-colored satin which were not yet past use."

"Oh, delightful!" cried Harry. "We will blend Lucy's white lace ones with them. John, I am coming into the dream of my life."

"I know it, Harry. The farm is small but it will be enough. You will soon have it like a garden. Harry, you were born to live on the land and by the land, and when you get to Yoden your feverish dream of cities and their fame and fortune will pass, even from your memory. Lucy and you are going to be so busy and happy, happier than you ever were before!"

It was however several days before the change could be properly entered upon. There were points of law to settle and the packing and removal to arrange for, and though John was anxious and unhappy he could not leave Harry and Lucy until they thoroughly understood what was to be done. But how they enjoyed the old place in anticipation! John smiled to see Harry from morning to night in deshabille as workmanlike as possible, with a foot rule or hammer constantly in his hand.

Yes, the London house was all in confusion, but Oh, what a happy confusion! Lucy was so busy, she hardly knew what to do first, but her comfortable good-temper suffused the homeliest duties of life with the sacred glow of unselfish love, and John, watching her sunny cheerfulness, said to himself,

"Surely God smiled upon her soul before it came to this earth."

In a short time Lucy had got right under the situation. She knew exactly what ought to be done and did it, being quite satisfied that Harry should spend his time in measuring accurately and packing with extremest care his pictures and curios and all the small things so large and important to himself. And it was not to Harry but to Lucy that John gave all important instructions, for he soon perceived that it was Harry's way to rush into the middle of things but never to overtake himself.

At length after ten days of unwearying superintendence, John felt that Lucy and Harry could be left to manage their own affairs. Now, we like the people we help and bless, and John during his care for his brother's family had become much attached to every member of it, for even little Agnes could now hold out her arms to him and lisp his name. So his last duty in London was to visit Harry's house and bid them all a short farewell. He found Harry measuring with his foot rule a box for one of his finest paintings. It had to be precisely of the size Harry had decided on and he was as bent on this result as if it was a matter of great importance.

"You see, John," he said, "it is a very hard thing to make the box fit the picture. It is really a difficult thing to do."

John smiled and then asked, "Why should you do it, Harry? It would be so easy not to do it, or to have a man who makes a business of the work do it for you." And Harry shook his head and began the measurement of box and picture over again.

"The little chappies are asleep, John, I wouldn't disturb them. Lucy is in the nursery. You had better tell her anything that ought to be done. I shall be sure to forget with these measurements to carry in my head."

"Put them on paper, Harry."

"The paper might get lost."

And John smiled and answered, "So it might."

So John went to the nursery and first of all to the boys' bed. Very quietly they slipped their little hands into his and told him in whispers, "Mamma is singing Agnes to sleep, and we must not make any noise." So very quiet good-bye kisses full of sweet promises were given and John turned towards Lucy. She sat in her low nursing-chair slowly rocking to-and-fro the baby in her arms. Her face was bent and smiling above it and she was singing sweet and singing low a strain from a pretty lullaby,

 
"O rock the sweet carnation red,
And rock the silver lining,
And rock my baby softly, too,
With skein of silk entwining.
Come, O Sleep, from Chio's Isle!
And take my little one awhile!"
 

She had lost all her anxious expression. She was rosy and smiling, and looked as if she liked the nursery rhyme as well as Agnes did and that Agnes liked it was shown by the little starts with which she roused herself if she felt the song slipping away from her.

"Let me kiss the little one," said John, "and then I must bid you good-bye. We shall soon meet again, Lucy, and I am glad to leave you looking so much better."

Lucy not only looked much better, she was exceedingly beautiful. For her nature reached down to the perennial, and she had kept a child's capacity to be happy in small, everyday pleasures. It was always such an easy thing to please her and so difficult for little frets to annoy her. Harry's inconsequent, thoughtless ways would have worried and tried some women to the uttermost, for he was frequently less thoughtful and less helpful than he should have been. But Lucy was slow to notice or to believe any wrong of her husband and even if it was made evident to her she was ready to forgive it, ready to throw over his little tempers, his hasty rudenesses, and his never-absent selfishness, the cloak of her merciful manifest love.

"What a loving little woman she is!" thought John, but really what affected him most was her constant cheerfulness. No fear could make her doubt and she welcomed the first gleam of hope with smiles that filled the house with the sunshine of her sure and fortunate expectations. How did she do it? Then there flashed across John's mind the words of the prophet Isaiah, "Thou meetest him that rejoiceth, and worketh righteousness." God does not go to meet the complaining and the doubting and the inefficient. He goes to meet the cheerful, the courageous and the good worker; that is, God helps those who help themselves. And God's help is not a peradventure; it is potential and mighty to save; "for our Redeemer is strong. He shall thoroughly plead our cause," in every emergency of Life.

Very early next morning John turned a happy face homeward. The hero of today has generally the ball of skepticism attached to his foot, but between John Hatton and the God he loved there was not one shadow of doubt. John knew and was sure that everything, no matter how evil it looked, would work together for good.

It was a day of misty radiance until the sun rose high and paved the clouds with fire. Then the earth was glad. The birds were singing as if they never would grow old, and, Oh, the miles and miles of green, green meadows, far, far greener than the youngest leaves on the trees! There were no secrets and no nests in the trees yet, but John knew they were coming. He could have told what kind of trees his favorite birds would choose and how they would build their nests among the branches.

Towards noon he caught the electric atmosphere pouring down the northern mountains. He saw the old pines clambering up their bulwarks, and the streams glancing and dancing down their rocky sides and over the brown plowed fields below great flocks of crows flying heavily. Then he knew that he was coming nigh to Hatton-in-Elmete and at last he saw the great elm-trees that still distinguished his native locality. Then his heart beat with a warmer, quicker tide. They blended inextricably with his thoughts of mother and wife, child and home, and he felt strongly that mystical communion between Man and Nature given to those

 
Whose ears have heard
The Ancient Word,
Who walked among the silent trees.
 

Not that Nature in any form or any measure had supplanted his thoughts of Jane. She had been the dominant note in every reflection during all the journey. Mountain and stream, birds and trees and shifting clouds had only served as the beautiful background against which he set her in unfading beauty and tenderness. For he was sure that she loved him and he believed that Love would yet redeem the past.

During his absence she had written him the most affectionate and charming letters and when the train reached Hatton-in-Elmete, she was waiting to receive him. He had a very pardonable pride in her appearance and the attention she attracted pleased him. In his heart he was far prouder of being Jane's husband than of being master of Hatton. She had driven down to the train in her victoria, and he took his seat proudly at her side and let his heart fully enjoy the happy ride home in the sunshine of her love.

A delightful lunch followed and John was glad that the presence of servants prevented the discussion of any subject having power to disturb this heavenly interlude. He talked of the approaching war, but as yet there was no tone of fear in his speculations about its effects. He told her of his visits to her uncle, and of the evenings they had spent together at Lord Harlow's club; or he spoke in a casual way of Harry's coming to Yoden and of little external matters connected with the change.

But as soon as they were alone Jane showed her disapproval of this movement. "Whatever is bringing your brother back to the North?" she asked. "I thought he objected both to the people and the climate."

"I advised him to take Ramsby's offer for Yoden. The children needed the country and Harry was not as I like to see him. I think they will be very happy at Yoden. Harry always liked living on the land. He was made to live on it."

"I thought he was made to fiddle and sing," said Jane with a little scornful laugh.

"He does both to perfection, but a man's likes and dislikes change, as the years go by."

"Yes, plenty of women find that out."

Her tone and manner was doubtful and unpleasant, the atmosphere of the room was chilled, and John said in a tentative manner, "I will now ride to Hatton Hall. Mother is expecting me, I know. Come with me, Jane, and I will order the victoria. It is a lovely afternoon for a drive."

"I would rather you went alone, John."

"Why, my dear?"

"It will spare me telling you some things I do not care to speak about."

"What is wrong at Hatton Hall?"

"Only Mrs. John Hatton."

Then John was much troubled. The light went out of his eyes and the smile faded from his face and he stood up as he answered,

"You have misunderstood something that mother has said."

"Why do you talk of things impossible, John?" Jane asked. "Mrs. Stephen Hatton speaks too plainly to be misunderstood. Indeed her words enter the ears like darts."

"Yes, she strips them to the naked truth. If it be a fault, it is one easy to excuse."

"I do not find it so."

"I am sorry you will not go with me, for I shall have to give a good deal of this evening to Greenwood."

"I expected that."

"Go with me this afternoon, do, my dear! We can ride on to Harlow also."

"I spent all yesterday with my mother."

"Then, good-bye! I will be home in an hour."

John found it very pleasant to ride through the village and up Hatton Hill again. He thought the very trees bent their branches to greet him and that the linnets and thrushes sang together about his return. Then he smiled at his foolish thought, yet instantly wondered if it might not be true, and thus fantastically reasoning, he came to the big gates of the Hall, and saw his mother watching for his arrival.

He took her hands and kissed her tenderly. "O mother! Mother!" he cried. "How glad I am to see you!"

"To be sure, my dear lad. But if I had not got your note this morning, I would have known by the sound of your horse's feet he was bringing John home, for your riding was like that of Jehu, the son of Nimshi. But there! Come thy ways in, and tell me what has happened thee, here and there."

They talked first of the coming war, and John advised his mother to prepare for it. "It will be a war between two rich and stubborn factions," he said. "It is likely enough to last for years. I may have to shut Hatton mill."

"Shut it while you have a bit of money behind it, John. I heard Arkroyd had told his hands he would lock his gates at the end of the month."

"I shall keep Hatton mill going, mother, as long as I have money enough to buy a bale of cotton at any price."

"I know you will. But there! What is the good of talking about maybe's? At every turn and corner of life, there is sure to stand a maybe. I wait until we meet and I generally find them more friendly than otherwise."

"I wanted Jane to come with me this afternoon, and she would not do so."

"She is right. I don't think I expect her to come. She didn't like what I said to her the last time she favored me with a visit."

"What did you say to her, mother?"

"I will not tell thee. I hev told her to her face and I will not be a backbiter. Not I! Ask thy wife what I said to her and why I said it and the example I set before her. She can tell thee."

"Whatever is the matter with the women of these days, mother?"

"I'm sure I cannot tell. If they had a thimbleful of sense, they would know that the denial of the family tie is sure to weaken the marriage tie. One thing I know is that society has put motherhood out of fashion. It considers the nursery a place of punishment instead of a place of pleasure. Young Mrs. Wrathall was here yesterday all in a twitter of pleasure, because her husband is letting her take lessons in music and drawing."

"Why, mother, she must be thirty years old. What did you say to her?"

"I reminded her that she had four little children and the world could get along without water-color sketches and amateur music, but that it could not possibly get along without wives and mothers."

"You might have also told her, mother, that if the Progressive Club would read history, they might find out that those times in any nation when wives were ornaments and not mothers were always periods of national decadence and moral failures."

"Well, John, you won't get women to search history for results that wouldn't please them; and to expect a certain kind of frivolous, selfish woman to look beyond her own pleasure is to expect the great miracle that will never come. You can't expect it."

"But Jane is neither frivolous nor selfish."

"I am glad to hear it."

"Is that all you can say, mother?"

"All. Every word. Between you and her I will not stand. I have given her my mind. It is all I have to give her at present. I want to hear something about Harry. Whatever is he coming to Yoden for? Yoden will take a goodish bit of money to run it and if he hasn't a capable wife, he had better move out as soon as he moves in."

Then John told her the whole truth about Harry's position—his weariness of his profession, his indifference to business, and his temptation to gamble.

"The poor lad! The poor lad!" she cried. "He began all wrong. He has just been seeking his right place all these years."

"Well, mother, we cannot get over the stile until we come to it. I think Harry has crossed it now. And there could not be a better wife and mother than Lucy Hatton. You will help and advise her, mother? I am sure you will."

"I will do what I can, John. She ought to have called the little girl after me. I can scarce frame myself to love her under Agnes. However, it is English enough to stick in my memory and maybe it may find the way to my heart. As to Harry, he is my boy, and I will stand by him everywhere and in every way I can. He is sweet and true-hearted, and clever on all sides—the dangerous ten talents, John! We ought to pity and help him, for their general heritage is

 
"The ears to hear,
The eyes to see,
And the hands
That let all go."
 

CHAPTER X
AT HER GATES

 
We shape ourselves the joy or tear,
Of which the coming life is made;
And fill our future atmosphere
With sunshine or with shade.
 

It was just at the edge of the dark when John left his mother. He had perhaps been strengthened by her counsel, but he had not been comforted. In Hatton market-place he saw a large gathering of men and women and heard Greenwood in a passionate tone talking to them. Very soon a voice, almost equally powerful, started what appeared to be a hymn, and John rode closer to the crowd and listened.

 
"The Day of the Lord is at hand, at hand,
His storms roll up the sky;
The nations sleep starving on heaps of gold,
The dreamers toss and sigh.
The night is darkest before the morn,
When the pain is sorest the child is born,
And the Day of the Lord is at hand.
 
 
"Gather you, gather you, hounds of hell,
Famine, and Plague, and War,
Idleness, Bigotry, Cant and Misrule,
Gather, and fall in the snare.
Hireling and Mammonite, Bigot and Knave,
Crawl to the battlefield, sneak to your grave,
In the Day of the Lord at hand."
 

John did not hear Greenwood's voice among the singers, but at the close of the second verse it rose above all others. "Lads and lasses of the chapel singing-pew," he cried, "we will better that kind of stuff. Sing up to the tune of Olivet," and to this majestic melody he started in a clarion-like voice Toplady's splendid hymn,

 
"Lo! He comes with clouds descending,
Once for favored sinners slain,
Thousand, thousand saints attending,
Swell the triumph of his train.
Hallelujah!
God appears on earth to reign."
 

The words were as familiar as their mother tongue, and Greenwood's authoritative voice in chapel, mill, and trade meetings, was quite as intimate and potential. They answered his request almost as automatically as the looms answered the signal for their movement or stoppage; for music quickly fires a Yorkshire heart and a hymn led by Jonathan Greenwood was a temptation no man or woman present could resist. Very soon he gave them the word "Home," and they scattered in every direction, singing the last verse. Then Greenwood's voice rose higher and higher, jubilant, triumphant in its closing lines,

 
"Yea, amen! Let all adore Thee,
High on thy eternal throne;
Saviour, take the power and glory,
Claim the kingdom for thine own.
Jah Jehovah!
Everlasting God come down."
 

Greenwood's joyful enthusiasm was more than John could encounter at that hour. He did not stop to speak with him, but rode swiftly home. He saw and felt the brooding trouble and knew the question of more wage and shorter hours, though now a smoldering one, might at any hour become a burning one, only there was the coming war. If the men went on strike, he could then reasonably lock his factory gates. No, he could not. The inner John Hatton would not permit the outer man to do such a thing. His looms must work while he had a pound of cotton to feed them.

This resolution, warm and strong in his heart, cheered him, and he hastened home. Then he wondered how it would be with him there, and a feeling of unhappiness conquered for a moment. But John's mental bravery was the salt to all his other virtues, and mental bravery does not quail before an uncertainty.

He hoped that Jane would, as was her usual custom, meet him at the door, that she would hear his step and answer the call of it. But she did not. Then he remembered that the night had turned chilly and that it was near to dinner-time. She was probably in her dressing-room, but this uncertainty was not cheerful. Yet he sang as he prepared himself for dinner. He did not know why he sang for the song was not in his heart—he only felt it to be an act of relief and encouragement.

When he went to the dining-room Jane was there. She roused herself with a sleepy languor and stretched out her arms to him with welcoming smiles. For a moment he stood motionless and silent. She had dressed herself wonderfully in a long, graceful robe of white broadcloth, rich and soft and shining as the white satin which lay in folds about the bosom and sleeves and encircled her waist in a broad belt. Her hair, freed of puffs and braids, showed all its beauty in glossy smoothness and light coils, and in its meshes was one large red rose, the fellow of which was partly hidden among the laces at her bosom. Half-asleep she went to meet him, and his first feeling was a kind of awe at the sight of her. He had not dreamed she was so beautiful. Without a word he took her hands and hiding his emotion in some commonplace remark, drew her to his side.

"You are lovelier than on your bridal morning, most sweet Jane," he whispered. "What have you been doing to yourself?"

"Well, John," she laughed, "Mrs. Tracy sent me word she was going to call between four and five to give me a few points about the girls' sewing-class, and I thought I would at the same time give her a few points about dressing herself. You know she is usually a fright."

"I thought—perhaps—you had dressed yourself to please me."

"You are quite right, John. Your pleasure is always the first motive for anything I do or wear."

The dinner hour passed to such pleasant platitudes as John's description of the manner in which Greenwood broke up the radical meeting in the market-place; but in both hearts and below all the sweet intercourse there lay a sense of tragedy that nothing could propitiate or avert.

The subject, however, was not named till they were quite alone and the very house in its intense stillness appeared to be waiting and listening for the words to be spoken. John was about to speak them, but Jane rose suddenly to her feet and looking steadily at him said,

"John, what did your mother say about me this afternoon? I expect you to tell me every word."

"She would not talk about you in any way. She said she had given you her whole mind straight to your face and would do no backbiting. That is, as you know, mother's way."

"Well, John, I would rather have the backbiting. I like to be treated decently to my face. People are welcome to say whatever they like when I am not present to be annoyed by their evil suspicions."

"She told me to ask you what was said and I trust you will tell me."

"I will. You remember that I had a whole society of women in the parlors and I could only give you a short farewell; but I was much grieved to send you away with such a brooding sorrow in your heart. The next day I was putting the house in order and writing to you and I did not go out. But on the morning of the third day I determined to visit my mother and to call at Hatton Hall as I returned home.

"I did not have a pleasant visit at Harlow. Since mother has begun to save money, she has lost all interest in any other subject. I told her how affairs were between us, and though she had hitherto been rabidly in favor of no children she appeared that morning indifferent to everything but the loss of a brood of young chickens which some animal had eaten or carried off. On this subject she was passionately in earnest; she knew to a farthing the amount of her loss, and when I persisted in telling her how you and I had parted, she only reiterated in a more angry manner her former directions and assurances on this subject.

"After a very spare dinner she was more attentive to my trouble. She said it had become a serious question in nearly all married lives—"

"I deny that, Jane. The large majority of women, I am sure, when they marry do not hold themselves outraged and degraded by the consequences, nor do they consider natural functions less honorable than social ones. Money can release a woman from work, but it cannot release her from any service of love."

"Men forget very easily the physical sufferings of wives. I love our little Martha as well as, perhaps better than, you do, but I remember clearly that for nearly a whole year I endured the solitude, sickness, and acute suffering of maternity. And whatever else you do, you will never persuade me to like having children. And pray what kind of children will women bear when they don't want them?"

"Well, Jane, your question would stagger me, if I did not know that Nature often skips a generation, and produces some older and finer type."

"Highly civilized men don't want children. Lady Harlow told me so, John."

"Well then, Jane, highly civilized men are in no danger. They need not fear what women can do to them. They will only find women pleasant to meet and easy to leave. I saw many, many women in the London parks and shopping district so perverted as to be on friendly terms with dogs, and in their homes, with cats and cockatoos, and who had no affection for children—women who could try to understand the screams of a parrot, the barking of a dog, but who would not tolerate the lovely patois of the nursery. Jane, the salvation of society depends on good mothers, and if women decline to be mothers at all, it is a shameful and dangerous situation."

"Oh, no! Why should I, for instance, undertake the reformation of society? I wish rather to educate and reform myself."

"All right! No education is too wide or too high for a mother. She has to educate heroes, saints, and good workers. There would have been no Gracchi, if there had been no Cornelia; no Samuel, if Hannah had not trained him. The profession of motherhood is woman's great natural office; no others can be named with it. The family must be put before everything else as a principle."

"John," she said coaxingly, "you are so far behind the times. The idea of 'home' is growing antiquated, and the institution of the family is passing out of date, my dear."

"You are mistaken, Jane. Mother and home are the soul of the world; they will never pass. I read the other day that Horace Walpole thanked God that he came into the world when there were still such terms as 'afternoon' and 'evening.' I hope I may say I came when the ideas of 'home' and children' were still the moving principles of human society; and I swear that I will do nothing to sink them below the verge. God forbid!"

"John, I am not concerned about principles. My care is not for anything but what concerns ourselves and our home. I tell you plainly I do not desire children. I will not have any more. I will do all I can to make you honorable and happy. I will order and see to your house, servants, and expenditures. I will love and cherish and bring up properly our dear child. I will make you socially respected. I will read or write, or play or sing to your desire. I will above all other things love and obey you. Is not this sufficient, John?"

"No, I want children. They were an understood consequence of our marriage. I feel ashamed among my fellows–"

"Yes, I suppose you would like to imitate Squire Atherton and take two pews in church for your sons and daughters and walk up the aisle every Sunday before them. It is comical to watch them. And poor Mrs. Atherton! Once she was the beauty of the West Riding! Now she is a faded, draggled skeleton, carelessly and unfashionably dressed, following meekly the long procession of her giggling girls and sulky boys. Upon my word, John, it is enough to cure any girl of the marriage fever to see Squire Atherton and his friend Ashby and Roper of Roper's Mills and Coates of Coates Mills and the like. And if it was an understood thing in our marriage that I should suffer and perhaps die in order that a new lot of cotton-spinners be born, why was it not so stated in the bond?"

"My dear Jane, the trial to which you propose to subject me, I cannot discuss tonight. You have said all I can bear at present. It has been a long, long, hard day. God help me! Good night!" Then he bowed his head and slowly left the room.

Jane was astonished, but his white face, the sad, yonderly look in his eyes, and the way in which he bit his lower lip went like a knife to her heart.

She sat still, speechless, motionless. She had not expected either his prompt denial of her position or its powerful effect on him physically. Never before had she seen John show any symptoms of illness, and his sudden collapse of bodily endurance, his evident suffering and deliberate walk frightened her. She feared he might have a fit and fall downstairs. Colonel Booth had found his death in that way when he heard of his son's accident on the railway. "All Yorkshiremen," she mused, "are so full-blooded and hot-blooded, everything that does not please them goes either to their brains or their hearts—and John has a heart." Yes, she acknowledged John had a heart, and then wondered again what made him so anxious to have children.

But with all her efforts to make a commonplace event of her husband's great sorrow, she did not succeed in stifling the outcry in her own heart. She whispered to it to "Be still!" She promised to make up for it, even to undo it, sometime; but the Accuser would not let her rest, and when exhaustion ended in sleep, chastised her with distracting, miserable dreams.

John walked slowly upstairs, but he had no thought of falling. He knew that something had happened to the Inner Man, and he wanted to steady and control him. It was not Jane's opinions; it was not public opinion, however widespread it might be. It was the blood of generations of good men and good women that roused in him a passionate protest against the destruction of their race. His private sense of injustice and disloyalty came later. Then the iron entered his soul and it was on this very bread of bitterness he had now to feed it; for on this bread only could he grow to the full stature of a man of God. His heart was bruised and torn, but his soul was unshaken, and the hidden power and strength of life revealed themselves.

First he threw all anger behind him. He thought of his wife with tenderness and pity only. He made himself recall her charm and her love. He decided that it would be better not to argue the fatal subject with her again. "No man can convince a woman," he thought. "She must be led to convince herself. I will trust her to God. He will send some teacher who cannot fail." Then he thought of the days of pleasantness they had passed together, and his heart felt as if it must break, while from behind his closed eyelids great tears rolled down his face.

This incident, though so natural, shocked him. He arrested such evident grief at once and very soon he stood up to pray. So prayed the gray fathers of the world, Terah and Abram, Lot and Jacob; and John stood at the open window with his troubled face lifted to the starlit sky. His soul was seeking earnestly that depth in our nature where the divine and human are one, for when the brain is stupefied by the inevitable and we know not what to abandon and what to defend, that is the sanctuary where we shall find help for every hour of need.