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The Trial

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> The Trial




'Flora, Flora, you should not make one wicked. If she is to be
happy, why can't you let me rejoice freely, and only have her drawn
off from me bit by bit, in the right way of nature?'

'I did not tell you to make you dislike it--of course not. Only I
thought that a little tact, a little dexterity, might prevent Charles
Cheviot from being so much afraid of you, as if he saw at once how
really the head of the family you are.'

'Nonsense, Flora, I am no such thing. If I am domineering, the
sooner any one sees it and takes me down the better. If this does
come, I will try to behave as I ought, and not to mind so Mary is
happy; but I can't act, except just as the moment leads me. I hope
it will soon be over, now you have made me begin to believe in it.
I am afraid it will spoil Harry's pleasure at home! Poor dear Harry,
what will he do?'

'When does he come?'

'Any day now; he could not quite tell when he could get away.

When they came back, and Dr. May ran out to say, 'Can you come in.
Flora? we want you,' the sisters doubted whether his excitement were
due to the crisis, or to the arrival. He hurried them into the
study, and shut the door, exulting and perplexed. 'You girls leave
one no rest,' he said. 'Here I have had this young Cheviot telling
me that the object of his attentions has been apparent. I'm sure I
did not know if it were Mab or one of you. I thought he avoided all
alike; and poor Mary was so taken by surprise that she will do
nothing but cry, and say, "No, never;" and when I tell her she shall
do as she pleases, she cries the more; or if I ask her if I am to say
Yes, she goes into ecstasies of crying! I wish one of you would go
up, and see if you can do anything with her.'

'Is he about the house?' asked Flora, preparing to obey.

'No--I was obliged to tell him that she must have time, and he is
gone home. I am glad he should have a little suspense--he seemed to
make so certain of her. Did he think he was making love all the time
he was boring me with his gas in the dormitories? I hope she will
serve him out!'

'He will not be the worse for not being a lady's man,' said Flora, at
the door.

But in ten minutes, Flora returned with the same report of nothing
but tears; and she was obliged to leave the party to their
perplexity, and drive home; while Ethel went in her turn to use all
manner of pleas to her sister to cheer up, know her own mind, and be
sure that they only wished to guess what would make her happiest. To
console or to scold were equally unsuccessful, and after attempting
all varieties of treatment, bracing or tender, Ethel found that the
only approach to calm was produced by the promise that she should be
teased no more that evening, but be left quite alone to recover, and
cool her burning eyes and aching head. So, lighting her fire,
shaking up a much-neglected easy-chair, bathing her eves, desiring
her not to come down to tea, and engaging both that Gertrude should
not behold her, and that papa would not be angry, provided that she
tried to know what she really wished, and be wiser on the morrow,
Ethel left her. The present concern was absolutely more to persuade
her to give an answer of some sort, than what that answer should be.
Ethel would not wish; Dr. May had very little doubt; and Gertrude,
from whom there was no concealing the state of affairs, observed, 'If
she cries so much the first time she has to know her own mind, it
shows she can't do without some one to do it for her.'

The evening passed in expeditions of Ethel's to look after her
patient, and in desultory talk on all that was probable and
improbable between Dr. May and the younger ones, until just as Ethel
was coming down at nine o'clock with the report that she had
persuaded Mary to go to bed, she was startled by the street door
being opened as far as the chain would allow, and a voice calling,
'I say, is any one there to let me in?'

'Harry! O, Harry! I'm coming;' and she had scarcely had time to shut
the door previous to taking down the chain, before the three others
were in the hall, the tumult of greetings breaking forth.

'But where's Polly?' he asked, as soon as he was free to look round
them all.

'Going to bed with a bad headache,' was the answer, with which Daisy
had sense enough not to interfere; and the sailor had been brought
into the drawing-room, examined on his journey, and offered supper,
before he returned to the charge.

'Nothing really the matter with Mary, I hope?'

'Oh! no--nothing.'

'Can't I go up and see her?'

'Not just at present,' said Ethel. 'I will see how she is when she
is in bed, but if she is going to sleep, we had better not disturb
her.'

'Harry thinks she must sleep better for the sight of him,' said the
Doctor; 'but it is a melancholy business.--Harry, your nose is out
of joint.'

'Who is it?' said Harry, gravely.

'Ah! you have chosen a bad time to come home. We shall know no
comfort till it is over.'

'Who?' cried Harry; 'no nonsense, Gertrude, I can't stand guessing.'

This was directed to Gertrude, who was only offending by pursed lips
and twinkling eyes, because he could not fall foul of his father.
Dr. May took pity, and answered at once.

'Cheviot!' cried Harry. 'Excellent! He always did know how to get
the best of everything. Polly turning into a Mrs. Hoxton. Ha! ha!
Well, that is a relief to my mind.'

'You did look rather dismayed, certainly. What were you afraid of?'

'Why, when that poor young Leonard Ward's business was in the papers,
a messmate of mine was asked if we were not all very much interested,
because of some attachment between some of us. I thought he must
mean me or Tom, for I was tremendously smitten with that sweet pretty
girl, and I used to be awfully jealous of Tom, but when I heard of
Mary going to bed with a headache, and that style of thing, I began
to doubt, and I couldn't stand her taking up with such a dirty little
nigger as Henry Ward was at school.'

'I think you might have known Mary better!' exclaimed Gertrude.

'And it's not Tom either?' he asked.

'Exactly the reverse,' laughed his father.

'Well, Tom is a sly fellow, and he had a knack of turning up whenever
one wanted to do a civil thing by that poor girl. Where is she now?'

'At New York.'

'They'd better take care how they send me to watch the Yankees,
then.'

'Your passion does not alarm me greatly,' laughed the Doctor. 'I
don't think it ever equalled that for the reigning ship. I hope
there's a vacancy in that department for the present, and that we may
have you at home a little.'

'Indeed, sir, I'm afraid not,' said Harry. 'I saw Captain Gordon at
Portsmouth this morning, and he tells me he is to go out in the Clio
to the Pacific station, and would apply for me as his first
lieutenant, if I liked to look up the islands again. So, if you have
any commissions for Norman, I'm your man.

'And how soon?'

'Uncertain--but Cheviot and Mary must settle their affairs in good
time; I've missed all the weddings in the family hitherto, and won't
be balked of Polly's. I say, Ethel, you can't mean me not to go and
wish her joy.'

'We are by no means come to joy yet,' said Ethel; 'poor Mary is
overset by the suddenness of the thing.'

'Why, I thought it was all fixed.'

'Nothing less so,' said the Doctor. 'One would think it was a naiad
that had had an offer from the mountains next, for she has been
shedding a perfect river of tears ever since; and all that the united
discernment of the family has yet gathered is, that she cries rather
more when we tell her she is right to say No than when we tell her
she is right to say Yes.'

'I declare, Ethel, you must let me go up to her.'

'But, Harry, I promised she should hear no more about it to-night.
You must say nothing unless she begins.'

And thinking a quiet night's rest, free from further excitement, the
best chance of a rational day, Ethel was glad that her mission
resulted in the report, 'Far too nearly asleep to be disturbed;' but
on the way up to bed, soft as Harry's foot-falls always were, a voice
came down the stairs, 'That's Harry! Oh, come!' and with a face of
triumph turned back to meet Ethel's glance of discomfited warning, he
bounded up, to be met by Mary in her dressing-gown. 'O, Harry, why
didn't you come?' as she threw her arms round his neck.

'They wouldn't let me.'

'I did think I heard you; but when no one came I thought it was only
Richard, till I heard the dear old step, and then I knew. O, Harry!'
and still she gasped, with her head on his shoulder.

'They said you must be quiet.'

'O Harry! did you hear?'

'Yes, indeed,' holding her closer, 'and heartily glad I am; I know
him as well as if I had sailed with him, and I could not wish you in
better hands.'

'But--O, Harry dear--' and there was a struggle with a sob between
each word, 'indeed--I won't--mind if you had rather not.'

'Do you mean that you don't like him?'

'I should see him, you know, and perhaps he would not mind--he could
always come and talk to papa in the evenings.'

'And is that what you want to put a poor man off with, Mary?'

'Only--only--if you don't want me to--'

'I not want you to--? Why, Mary, isn't it the very best thing I
could want for you? What are you thinking about?'

'Don't you remember, when you came home after your wound, you said I
--I mustn't--' and she fell into such a paroxysm of crying that he had
quite to hold her up in his arms, and though his voice was merry,
there was a moisture on his eyelashes. 'Oh, you Polly! You're a
caution against deluding the infant mind! Was that all? Was that
what made you distract them all? Why not have said so?'

'Oh, never! They would have said you were foolish.'

'As I was for not knowing that you wouldn't understand that I only
meant you were to wait till the right one turned up. Why, if I had
been at Auckland, would you have cried till I came home?'

'Oh, I'm sorry I was silly! But I'm glad you didn't mean it, dear
Harry!' squeezing him convulsively.

'There! And now you'll sleep sound, and meet them as fresh as a fair
wind to-morrow. Eh?'

'Only please tell papa I'm sorry I worried him.'

'And how about somebody else, Mary, whom you've kept on tenter-hooks
ever so long? Are you sure he is not walking up and down under the
limes on the brink of despair?'

'Oh, do you think--? But he would not be so foolish!'

'There now, go to sleep. I'll settle it all for you, and I shan't
let any one say you are a goose but myself. Only sleep, and get
those horrid red spots away from under your eyes, or perhaps he'll
repent his bargain, said Harry, kissing each red spot. 'Promise
you'll go to bed the instant I'm gone.'

'Well,' said Dr. May, looking out of his room, 'I augur that the
spirit of the flood has something to say to the spirit of the fell.'

'I should think so! Genuine article--no mistake.'

'Then what was all this about?'

'All my fault. Some rhodomontade of mine about not letting her marry
had cast anchor in her dear little ridiculous heart, and it is well I
turned up before she had quite dissolved herself away.'

'Is that really all?'

'The sum total of the whole, as sure as--' said Harry, pausing for an
asseveration, and ending with 'as sure as your name is Dick May;'
whereat they both fell a-laughing, though they were hardly drops of
laughter that Harry brushed from the weather-marked pucker in the
comer of his eyes; and Dr. May gave a sigh of relief, and said,
'Well, that's right!'

'Where's the latch-key? I must run down and put Cheviot out of his
misery.'

'It is eleven o'clock, he'll be gone to bed.'

'Then I would forbid the banns. Where does he hang out? Has he got
into old Hoxton's?'

'No, it is being revivified. He is at Davis's lodgings. But I
advise you not, a little suspense will do him good.'

'One would think you had never been in love,' said Harry,
indignantly. 'At least, I can't sleep till I've shaken hands with
the old fellow. Good night, father. I'll not be long.'

He kept his word, and the same voice greeted him out of the dressing-
room: 'How was the spirit of the fell? Sleep'st thou, brother?'

'Brother, nay,' answered Harry, 'he was only looking over Latin
verses! He always was a cool hand.'

'The spirit of the Fell--Dr. Fell, with a vengeance,' said Dr. May.
'I say, Harry, is this going to be a mere business transaction on his
part? Young folks have not a bit of romance in these days, and one
does not know where to have them; but if I thought--'

'You may be sure of him, sir,' said Harry, speaking the more eagerly
because he suspected the impression his own manner had made; 'he is
thoroughly worthy, and feels Mary's merits pretty nearly as much as I
do. More, perhaps, I ought to say. There's more warmth in him than
shows. I don't know that Norman ever could have gone through that
terrible time after the accident, but for the care he took of him.
And that little brother of his that sailed with me in the Eurydice,
and died at Singapore--I know how he looked to his brother Charles,
and I do assure you, father, you could not put the dear Mary into
safer, sounder hands, or where she could be more prized or happier.
He is coming up to-morrow morning, and you'll see he is in earnest in
spite of all his set speeches. Good night, father; I am glad to be
in time for the last of my Polly.'

This was almost the only moment at which Harry betrayed a
consciousness that his Polly was less completely his own. And yet it
seemed as if it must have been borne in on him again and again, for
Mary awoke the next morning as thoroughly, foolishly, deeply in love
as woman could be, and went about comporting herself in the most
comically commonplace style, forgetting and neglecting everything,
not hearing nor seeing, making absurd mistakes, restless whenever Mr.
Cheviot was not present, and then perfectly content if he came to sit
by her, as he always did; for his courtship--now it had fairly begun
--was equally exclusive and determined. Every day they walked or rode
together, almost every evening he came and sat by her, and on each
holiday they engrossed the drawing-room, Mary looking prettier than
she had ever been seen before; Aubrey and Gertrude both bored and
critical; Harry treating the whole as a pantomime got up for his
special delectation, and never betokening any sense that Mary was
neglecting him. It was the greatest help to Ethel in keeping up the
like spirit, under the same innocent unconscious neglect from the
hitherto devoted Mary, who was only helpful in an occasional revival
of mechanical instinct in lucid intervals, and then could not be
depended on. To laugh good-naturedly and not bitterly, to think the
love-making pretty and not foolish, to repress Gertrude's saucy
scorn, instead of encouraging it, would have been far harder without
the bright face of the brother who generously surrendered instead of
repining.

She never told herself that there was no proportion between the
trials, not only because her spirits still suffered from the ever-
present load of pity at her heart, nor because the loss would be
hourly to her, but also because Charles Cheviot drew Harry towards
him, but kept her at a distance, or more truly laughed her down. She
was used to be laughed at; her ways had always been a matter of
amusement to her brothers, and perhaps it was the natural assumption
of brotherhood to reply to any suggestion or remark of hers with
something intended for drollery, and followed with a laugh, which,
instead of as usual stirring her up to good-humoured repartee,
suppressed her, and made her feel foolish and awkward. As to Flora's
advice, to behave with tact, she could not if she would, she would
not if she could; in principle she tried to acquiesce in a man's
desire to show that he meant to have his wife to himself, and in
practice she accepted his extinguisher because she could not help it.

Mr. Cheviot was uneasy about the chances of Aubrey's success in the
examination at Woolwich, and offered assistance in the final
preparation; but though Aubrey willingly accepted the proposal, two
or three violent headaches from over-study and anxiety made Dr. May
insist on his old regimen of entire holiday and absence of work for
the last week; to secure which repose, Aubrey was sent to London with
Harry for a week's idleness and the society of Tom, who professed to
be too busy to come home even for Christmas. Mr. Cheviot's opinion
transpired through Mary, that it was throwing away Aubrey's only
chance.

In due time came the tidings that Aubrey had the second largest
number of marks, and had been highly commended for the thoroughness
of his knowledge, so different from what had been only crammed for
the occasion. He had been asked who had been his tutor, and had
answered, 'His brother,' fully meaning to spare Ethel publicity; and
she was genuinely thankful for having been shielded under Tom's six
months of teaching. She heartily wished the same shield would have
availed at home, when Charles Cheviot gave that horrible laugh, and
asked her if she meant to stand for a professor's chair. She
faltered something about Tom and mathematics. 'Ay, ay,' said
Charles; 'and these military examinations are in nothing but foreign
languages and trash;' and again he laughed his laugh, and Mary
followed his example. Ethel would fain have seen the fun.

'Eh, Cheviot, what two of a trade never agree?' asked Dr. May, in
high glory and glee.

'Not my trade, papa,' said Ethel, restored by his face and voice,
'only the peculiarity of examiners, so long ago remarked by Norman,
of only setting questions that one can answer.'

'Not your trade, but your amateur work!' said Mr. Cheviot, again
exploding, and leaving Ethel to feel demolished. Why, she wondered
presently, had she not held up her knitting, and merrily owned it for
her trade--why, but because those laughs took away all merriment, all
presence of mind, all but the endeavour not to be as cross as she
felt. Was this systematic, or was it only bad taste?

The wedding was fixed for Whitsuntide; the repairs and drainage
necessitating early and long holidays; and the arrangements gave full
occupation. Mary was the first daughter who had needed a portion,
since Mr. Cheviot was one of a large family, and had little of his
own. Dr. May had inherited a fair private competence, chiefly in
land in and about the town, and his professional gains, under his
wife's prudent management, had been for the most part invested in the
like property. The chief of his accumulation of ready money had been
made over to establish Richard at Cocksmoor; and though living in an
inexpensive style, such as that none of the family knew what it was
to find means lacking for aught that was right or reasonable, there
was no large amount of capital available. The May custom had always
been that the physician should inherit the landed estate; and though
this was disproportionately increased by the Doctor's own
acquisitions, yet the hold it gave over the town was so important,
that he was unwilling it should be broken up at his death, and wished
to provide for his other children by charges on the rents, instead of
by sale and division. All this he caused Richard to write to Tom,
for though there was no absolute need of the young man's concurrence
in arranging Mary's settlements, it was a good opportunity for
distinctly stating his prospects, and a compliment to consult him.

Feeling that Tom had thus been handsomely dealt with, his letter to
his father was the greater shock, when, after saying that he doubted
whether he could come home for the wedding, he expressed gratitude
for the opening held out to him, but begged that precedents
applicable to very different circumstances might not be regarded as
binding. He was distressed at supplanting Richard, and would greatly
prefer the property taking its natural course. It would be so many
years, he trusted, before there would be room for his services, even
as an assistant, at Stoneborough, that he thought it would be far
more advisable to seek some other field; and his own desire would be
at once to receive a younger son's share, if it were but a few
hundreds, and be free to cut out his own line.

'What is he driving at, Ethel?' asked the Doctor, much vexed. 'I
offer him what any lad should jump at; and he only says, "Give me the
portion of goods that falleth to me." What does that mean?'

'Not prodigality,' said Ethel. 'Remember what Sir Matthew Fleet said
to Dr. Spencer--"Dick's ability and common sense besides."'

'Exactly what makes me suspicious of his coming the disinterested
over me. There's something behind! He is running into debt and
destruction among that precious crew about the hospitals.'

'Harry saw nothing wrong, and thought his friends in good style.'

'Every one is in good style with Harry, happy fellow! He is no more
a judge than a child of six years old--carries too much sunshine to
see shades.'

'A lieutenant in the navy can hardly be the capital officer that our
Harry is without some knowledge of men and discipline.'

'I grant you, on his own element; but on shore he goes about in his
holiday spectacles, and sees a bird of paradise in every cock-
sparrow.'

'Isn't _there_ a glass house that can sometimes make a swan?' said
Ethel, slyly touching her father's spectacles; 'but with you both,
there's always a something to attract the embellishing process; and
between Harry and Aubrey, Dr. Spencer and Sir Matthew, we could
hardly fail to have heard of anything amiss.'

'I don't like it.'

'Then it is hard,' said Ethel, with spirit. 'So steady as he has
always been, he ought to have the benefit of a little trust.'

'He was never like the others; I don't know what to be at with him!
I should not have minded but for that palaver about elder brothers.'

Defend as Ethel might, it was still with a misgiving lest
disappointment should have taken a wrong course. It was hard to
trust where correspondence was the merest business scrap, and neither
Christmas nor the sister's marriage availed to call Tom home; and
though she had few fears as to dissipation, she did dread hardening
and ambition, all the more since she had learnt that Sir Matthew
Fleet was affording to him a patronage unprecedented from that
quarter.

No year of Etheldred May's life had been so trying as this last. It
seemed like her first step away from the aspirations of youth, into
the graver fears of womanhood. With all the self-restraint that she
had striven to exercise at Coombe, it had been a time of glorious
dreams over the two young spirits who seemed to be growing up by her
side to be faithful workers, destined to carry out her highest
visions; and the boyish devotion of the one, the fraternal reverence
of the other, had made her very happy. And now? The first
disappointment in Leonard had led--not indeed to less esteem for him,
but to that pitying veneration that could only be yielded by a
sharing in spirit of the like martyrdom; a continued thankfulness and
admiration, but a continual wringing of the heart. And her own child
and pupil, Aubrey, had turned aside from the highest path; and in the
unavowed consciousness that he was failing in the course he had so
often traced out with her, and that all her aid and ready
participation in his present interests were but from her outward not
her inward heart, he had never argued the point with her, never
consulted her on his destination. He had talked only to his father
of his alteration of purpose, and had at least paid her the
compliment of not trying to make her profess that she was gratified
by the change. In minor matters, he depended on her as much as ever;
but Harry was naturally his chief companion, and the prime of his
full and perfect confidence had departed, partly in the step from boy
to man, but more from the sense that he was not fulfilling the
soldiership he had dreamt of with her, and that he had once led her
to think his talents otherwise dedicated. She had few fears for his
steadiness, but she had some for his health, and he was something
taken away from her--a brightness had faded from his image.

And this marriage--with every effort at rejoicing and certainty of
Mary's present bliss and probability of future happiness, it was the
loss of a sister, and not the gain of a brother, and Mr. Cheviot did
his utmost to render the absence of repining a great effort of
unselfishness. And even with her father, her possession of Tom's
half-revealed secret seemed an impairing of absolute confidence; she
could not but hope that her father did her brother injustice, and in
her tenderness towards them both this was a new and painful
sensation. Her manner was bright and quaint as ever, her sayings
perhaps less edged than usual, because the pain at her heart made her
guard her tongue; but she had begun to feel middle-aged, and
strangely lonely. Richard, though always a comfort, would not have
entered into her troubles; Harry, in his atmosphere of sailor on
shore, had nothing of the confidant, and engrossed his father; Mary
and Aubrey were both gone from her, and Gertrude was still a child.
She had never so longed after Margaret or Norman. But at least her
corner in the Minster, her table at home with her Bible and Prayer-
Book, were still the same, and witnessed many an outpouring of her
anxiety, many a confession of the words or gestures that she had felt
to have been petulant, whether others had so viewed them or not.

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