The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 28, February, 1860

And she leaned her comely face upon her plump, white hand, while gravely listening to Everett's brief statement of what he had already done, and what were his plans for the future.

"You will sell Hazlewood, pay your father's debts, and begin life on your own account, by going to Canada and becoming a merchant's clerk!" She then recapitulated his plans in a sharp, pitiless tone. "Very well! and we have only to bid you good-bye and wish you success. Is it so? For it appears to me that my daughter is left entirely out of your calculations, and very properly so. You cannot, as a merchant's clerk on a hundred a year, marry Rosa Beauchamp, I presume."

"No," Everett said, steadily, and holding her, as it were, with his earnest eyes, "I cannot have Rosa for my wife till I am able to give her a home worthy of her; but you will not refuse to sanction our engagement during the years in which I shall work for that home?"

Lady Beauchamp tapped the table with her fingers in an ominous manner.

"Long engagements are most unsatisfactory, silly, not to say dangerous things. They never end well. No man ought to wish so to bind a young girl, unless he has a reasonable chance of soon being in a position to marry her. Now I ask you, have you such a chance? If you go to Canada, it may be years before you return. Just look at the thing in a common-sense light, and tell me, can you expect my daughter to wait an indefinite time, while you go to seek and make your fortune?"

She looked at him with an air of bland candor, while thus appealing to his "common sense." Everett's aspect remained unchanged, however, in its calm steadfastness.

"I would not bind her," he said, "unless she herself felt it would be a comfort and a help, in some sort, during the weary years of separation, so to be bound. And that she does feel it, you know, Lady Beauchamp."

"My dear Sir, you are not talking reasonably," she rejoined, impatiently. "A young girl like Rosa, in love for the first time, of course wishes to be bound, as you say, to the object of her first love. But it would be doing her a cruel injustice to take her at her word. Surely you feel that? It is very true, she might not forget you for six months, or more, perhaps. But, in the course of time, as she enters on life and sees more of the world and of people, it is simply impossible that she should remain constant to a dreamy attachment to some one thousands of miles away. She would inevitably wish to form other ties; and then the engagement that she desires to-day would be the blight and burden of her life. No. I say it is a cruel injustice to let young people decide for themselves on such a point. Half the misery in the world springs from these mistakes. Think over the matter coolly, and you will see it as I do."

"It is you who do Rosa injustice," Everett answered, and paused. "Were it to be as you wish," he added, "and we to separate utterly, with no outwardly acknowledged tie to link us, no letters to pass between us, no word or sign from one to the other during all the coming years,—suppose it so,—you would shadow our lives with much unnecessary misery; but you are mistaken, if you think you would really part us. You do not understand."

"Nonsense! You talk like a young man in love. You must be reasonable."

Lady Beauchamp, by this time, had worked herself into the usual warmth with which she argued all questions, great and small, and forgot that her original intention in speaking to Everett had only been to set before him the disadvantages of his plans, in order that her own might come to the rescue with still greater brilliancy and effect.

"You must be reasonable," she repeated. "You don't suppose I have not my child's happiness at heart in all I plan and purpose? Trust me, I have had more experience of life than either of you, and it is for me to interpose between you and the dangers you would blindly rush upon. Some day you will both thank me for having done so, hard and cruel as you may think me now."

"No, I do not think you either hard or cruel. You are mistaken, simply. I believe you desire our happiness. I do not reproach or blame you, Lady Beauchamp," Everett said, sadly.

"Come, come," she cried, touched by his look and manner to an immediate unfolding of her scheme, "let us look at things again. Perhaps we shall not find them so hopeless as they look. If I am prudent, Everett, I am not mercenary. I only want to see Rosa happy. I don't care whether it is on hundreds a year, or thousands. And the fact is, I have not condemned your plans without having a more satisfactory one to offer to your choice. Listen to me."

And she proceeded, with a cleared brow, and the complacency of one who feels she is performing the part of a good genius, setting everything to rights, and making everybody comfortable, to unfold the plan she had devised, by which Everett's future was to be secured, and his marriage with Rosa looked to as something better than a misty uncertainty at the end of a vista of years.

Everett must go into the Church. That was, in fact, the profession most suited to him, and which most naturally offered itself for his acceptance. His education, his tastes, his habits, all suited him for such a career. By a happy coincidence, too, it was one in which Lady Beauchamp could most importantly assist him through her connections. Her eldest son, the young baronet, had preferment in his own gift, which was to say, in hers; and not only this, but her sister's husband, the uncle of Rosa, was a bishop, and one over whom she, Lady Beauchamp, had some influence. Once in orders, Everett's prosperity was assured. The present incumbent of Hollingsley was aged; by the time Everett was eligible, he might, in all probability, be inducted into that living, and Rosa might then become his wife. Five hundred a year, beside Miss Beauchamp's dowry, with such shining prospects of preferment to look forward to, was not an unwise commencement; for Rosa was no mere fine lady, the proud mother said,—she was sensible and prudent; she would adapt herself to circumstances. And though, of course, it was not such an establishment as she well might expect for her daughter, still, since the young people loved one another, and thought they could be happy under these reduced circumstances, she would not be too exacting. And Lady Beauchamp at last paused, and looked in Everett's face for some manifestation of his joy.

Well,—of his gratitude there could be no question. The tears stood in his earnest eyes, as he took Lady Beauchamp's hand and thanked her,—thanked her again and again.

"There, there, you foolish boy! I don't want thanks," cried she, coloring with pleasure though, as she spoke. "My only wish is to see you two children happy. I am fond of you, Everett; I shall like to see you my son," she said. "I have tried to smooth the way for you, as far as I can, over the many difficulties that obstruct it; and I fancy I have succeeded. What do you say to my plan? When can you be ordained?"

Everett sighed, as he released her hand, and looked at her face, now flushed with generous, kindly warmth. Well he knew the bitter change that would come over that face,—the passion of disappointment and displeasure which would follow his answer to that question.

He could never enter the Church. Sorrowfully, but firmly, he said it,—with that calm, steady voice and look, of which all who knew him knew the significance. He could not take orders.

Lady Beauchamp, at first utterly overwhelmed and dumfounded, stood staring at him in blank silence. Then she icily uttered a few words. His reasons,—might she ask?

They were many, Everett said. Even if no other hindrance existed, in his own mind and opinions, his reverence for so sacred an office would not permit him to embrace it as a mere matter of worldly advantage to himself.

"Grant me patience, young man! Do you mean to tell me you would decline this career because it promises to put an end to your difficulties? Are you quite a fool?" the lady burst out, astonishment and anger quite startling her from all control.

"Bear with what may at first seem to you only folly," Everett answered her, gently. "I don't think your calmer judgment can call it so. Would you have me take upon myself obligations that I feel to be most solemn and most vital, feeling myself unfitted, nay, unable, rightly to fulfil them? Would you have me commit the treachery to God and man of swearing that I felt called to that special service, when my heart protested against my profession?"

"Romantic nonsense! A mere matter of modest scruples! You underrate yourself, Everett. You are the very man for a clergyman, trust me."

But Everett went on to explain, that it was no question of under-estimation of himself.

"You do not know, perhaps," he proceeded, while Lady Beauchamp, sorely tried, tapped her fingers on the table, and her foot upon the floor,—"you do not know, that, when I was a boy, and until two or three years ago, my desire and ambition were to be a minister of the Church of England."

"Well, Sir,—what has made you so much better, or so much worse, since then, as to alter your opinion of the calling?"

"The reasons which made me abandon the idea three years since, and which render it impossible for me to consider it now, have nothing to do with my mental and moral worthiness or unworthiness. The fact is simply, I cannot become a minister of a Church with many of whose doctrines I cannot agree, and to which, indeed, I can no longer say I belong. In your sense of the word, I am far from being a Churchman."

"Do you mean to say you have become a Dissenter?" cried Lady Beauchamp; and, as if arrived at the climax of endurance, she stood transfixed, regarding the young man with a species of sublime horror.

"Again, not in your sense of the term," Everett said, smiling; "for I have joined no sect, attached myself to no recognized body of believers."

"You belong to nothing, then? You believe in nothing, I suppose?" she said, with the instinctive logic of her class. "Oh, Everett!" real distress for the moment overpowering her indignation, "it is those visionary notions of yours that have brought you to this. It was to be expected. You poets and dreamers go on refining your ideas, forsooth, till even the religion of the ordinary world isn't good enough for you."

Everett waited patiently till this first gust had passed by. Then, with that steady, calm lucidity which, strange to say, was characteristic of this Visionary's mind and intellect, he explained, so far as he could, his views and his reasons. It could not be expected that his listener should comprehend or enter into what he said. At first, indeed, she appeared to derive some small consolation from the fact that at least Everett had not "turned Dissenter." She hated Methodists, she declared,—intending thus to include with sweeping liberality all denominations in the ban of her disapproval. She would have deemed it an unpardonable crime, had the young man deserted the Church of his fathers in order to join the Congregation, some ranting conventicle. But if her respectability was shocked at the idea of his becoming a Methodist, her better feelings were outraged when she found, as she said, that he "belonged to nothing." She viewed with dislike and distrust all forms of religion that differed from her own; but she could not believe in the possibility of a religion that had no external form at all. She was dismayed and perplexed, poor lady! and even paused midway in her wrathful remonstrance to the misguided young man, to lament anew over his fatal errors. She could not understand, she said, truly enough, what in the world he meant. His notions were perfectly extraordinary and incomprehensible. She was deeply, deeply shocked, and grieved for him, and for every one connected with him.

In fact, the very earnestness and sincerity in their own opinions of a certain calibre of minds make them incapable of understanding such a state of things. That a man should believe differently from all they have been taught to believe appears to them as simply preposterous as that he should breathe differently. And so it is that only the highest order of belief can afford to be tolerant; and, as extremes meet, it requires a very perfect Faith to be able to sympathize and bear patiently with Doubt.

There was no chance of Lady Beauchamp's "comprehending" Everett in this matter. There was something almost pathetic in her mingled anger, perplexity, and disappointment. She could only look on him as a headstrong young man, suicidally bent on his own ruin,—turning obstinately from every offered aid, and putting the last climax of wretchedness to his isolated and fallen position by "turning from the faith of his fathers," as she rather imaginatively described his secession from Orthodoxy.

And, as may be concluded, the mother of Rosa was inexorable, as regarded the engagement between the young people. It must at once be cancelled. She could not for one moment suffer the idea of her daughter's remaining betrothed to the mere adventurer she considered Everett Gray had now become. If, poor as he was, he had thought fit to embrace a profession worthy of a gentleman, the case would have been different. But if his romantic notions led him to pursue such an out-of-the-way course as he had laid out for himself, he must excuse her, if she forbade her child from sharing it. Under present circumstances, his alliance could but be declined by the Beauchamp family, she said, with her stateliest air. And the next minute, as Everett held her hand, and said good-bye, she melted again from that frigid dignity, and, looking into the frank, manly, yet gentle face of the young man, cried,—

"Are you quite decided, Everett? Will you take time to consider? Will you talk to Rosa about it, first?"

"No, dear Lady Beauchamp. I know already what she would say. I have quite decided. Thank you for all your purposed kindness. Believe that I am not ungrateful, even if I seem so."

"Oh, Everett,—Everett Gray! I am very sorry for you, and for your mother, and for all connected with you. It is a most unhappy business. It gives me great pain thus to part with you," said Lady Beauchamp, with real feeling.

And so the interview ended, and so ended the engagement.

Nothing else could have been expected, every one said who heard the state of the case, and knew what Lady Beauchamp had wished and Everett had declined. There were no words to describe how foolishly and weakly he had acted. "Everybody" quite gave him up now. With his romantic, transcendental notions, what would become of him, when he had his own way to make in the world?

But Everett had consolation and help through it all; for Rosa, the woman he loved, his mother, and his sister believed in him, and gloried in what other people called his want of common sense. Ay, though the horrible wrench of parting was suffered by Rosa every minute of every day, and the shadow of that dreadful, unnatural separation began to blacken her life even before it actually fell upon her,—through it all, she never wavered. When he first told her that he must go, that it was the one thing he held it wise and right to do, she shrunk back affrighted, trembling at the coming blankness of a life without him. But after a while, seeing the misery that came into his face reflected from hers, she rose bravely above the terrible woe, and then, with her arms round him and her eyes looking steadfastly into his, she said, "I love you better than the life you are to me. So I can bear that you should go."

And he said, "There can be no real severance between those who love as we do. God, in His mercy and tenderness, will help us to feel that truth, every hour and every day."

For they believed thus,—these two young Visionaries,—and lived upon that belief, perhaps, when the time of parting came. And it may be that the thought of each was very constantly, very intimately present to the other, during the many years that followed. It may be that this species of mental atmosphere, so surrounding and commingling with all other things more visibly and palpably about them, did cause these dreamers to be happier in their love than many externally united ones, whose lot appears to us most fair and smooth and blissful. Time and distance, leagues of ocean and years of suspense, are not the most terrible things that can come between two people who love one another.

And so Everett Gray, his mother, and his sister, went to Canada. A year after, Agnes was married to Charles Barclay, then a thriving merchant in Montreal. When the people at home heard of this, they very wisely acknowledged "how much good there had been in that young man, in spite of his rashness and folly in early days. No fear about such a man's getting on in life, when once he gave his mind to it," and so forth.

Meanwhile, our Visionary–But what need is there to trace him, step by step, in the new life he doubtless found fully as arduous as he had anticipated? That it was a very struggling, difficult, and uncongenial life to him can be well understood. These reminiscences of Everett Gray relate to a long past time. We can look on his life now as almost complete and finished, and regard his past as those in the valley look up to the hill that has nothing between it and heaven.

Many years he remained in Canada, working hard. Tidings occasionally reached England of his progress. Rosa, perhaps, heard such at rare intervals,—though somewhat distorted, it may be, from their original tenor, before they reached her. But it appeared certain that he was "getting on." In defiance and utter contradiction of all the sapient predictions there anent, it seemed that this dreamy, poetizing Everett Gray was absolutely successful in his new vocation of man-of-business.

The news that he had become a partner in the firm he had entered as a clerk was communicated in a letter from himself to Lady Beauchamp. In it he, for the first time since his departure, spoke of Rosa; but he spoke of her as if they had parted but yesterday; and, in asking her mother's sanction to their betrothal now, urged, as from them both, their claim to have that boon granted at last.

Lady Beauchamp hastily questioned her daughter.

"You must have been corresponding with the young man all this time?" she said.

But Rosa's denial was not to be mistaken.

"He has heard of you, then, through some one," the practical lady went on; "or, for anything he knows, you may be married, or going to be married, instead of waiting for him, as he seems to take it for granted you have been all this time."

"He was right, mother," Rosa only said.

"Right, you foolish girl? You haven't half the spirit I had at your age. I would have scorned that it should have been said of me that I 'waited' for any man."

"But if you loved him?"

"Well, if he loved you, he should have taken more care than to leave you on such a Quixotic search for independence as his."

"He thought it right to go, and he trusted me; we had faith in one another," Rosa said; and she wound her arms round her mother, and looked into her face with eyes lustrous with happy tears. For, from that lady's tone and manner, despite her harsh words, she knew that the opposition was withdrawn, and that Everett's petition was granted.

They were married. It is years ago, now, since their wedding-bells rung out from the church-tower of Hazlewood, blending with the sweet spring-air and sunshine of a joyous May-day. The first few years of their married life were spent in Canada. Then they returned to England, and Everett Gray put the climax to the astonishment of all who knew him by purchasing back a great part of Hazlewood with the fruits of his commercial labors in the other country.

At Hazlewood they settled, therefore. And there, when he grew to be an old man, Everett Gray lived, at last, the peaceful, happy life most natural and most dear to him. No one would venture to call the successful merchant a Visionary; and even his brother owns that "the old fellow has got more brains, after all, by Jove! than he ever gave him credit for." Yet, as the same critic, and others of his calibre, often say of him, "He has some remarkably queer notions. There's no making him out,—he is so different from other people."

Which he is. There is no denying this fact, which is equally evident in his daily life, his education of his children, his conduct to his servants and dependants, his employment of time, his favorite aims in life, and in everything he does or says, in brief. And of course there are plenty who cavil at his peculiar views, and who cannot at all understand his unconventional ways, and his apparent want of all worldly wisdom in the general conduct of his affairs. And yet, somehow, these affairs prosper. Although he declined a valuable appointment for his son, and preferred that he should make his own way in the profession he had chosen, bound by no obligation, and unfettered by the trammels of any party,—although he did this, to the astonishment of all who did not know him, yet is it not a fact that the young barrister's career has been, and is, as brilliant and successful as though he had had a dozen influential personages to advance him? And though he permitted his daughter to marry, not the rich squire's son, nor the baronet, who each sought her hand, but a man comparatively poor and unknown, who loved her, and whom she loved, did it not turn out to be one of those marriages that we can recognize to have been "made in heaven," and even the worldly-wise see to be happy and prosperous?

But our Everett is growing old. His hair is silver-white, and his tall figure has learned to droop somewhat as he walks. Under the great beech-trees at Hazlewood you may have seen him sitting summer evenings, or sauntering in spring and autumn days, sometimes with his grandchildren playing about him, but always with one figure near him, bent and bowed yet more than his own, with a still sweet and lovely face looking placidly forth from between its bands of soft, white hair.

How they have loved, and do love one another, even to this their old age! All the best and truest light of that which we call Romance shines steadily about them yet. No sight so dear to Everett's eyes as that quiet figure,—no sound so welcome to his ears as her voice. She is all to him that she ever was,—the sweetest, dearest, best portion of that which we call his life.

Yes, I speak advisedly, and say he is, they are. It is strange that this Visionary, who was wont to be reproached with the unpracticality of all he did or purposed, the unreality of whose life was a byword, should yet impress himself and his existence so vividly on those about him that even now we cannot speak of him as one that is no more. He seems still to be of us, though we do not see him, and his place is empty in the world.

His wife went first. She died in her sleep, while he was watching her, holding her hand fast in his. He laid the last kisses on her eyes, her mouth, and those cold hands.

After that, he seemed to wait. They who saw him sitting alone under the beech-trees, day by day, found something very strangely moving in the patient serenity of his look. He never seemed sad or lonely through all that time,—only patiently hopeful, placidly expectant. So the autumn twilights often came to him as he stood, his face towards the west, looking out from their old favorite spot.

One evening, when his daughter and her husband came out to him, he did not linger, as was usual with him, but turned and went forward to meet them, with a bright smile, brighter than the sunset glow behind him, on his face. He leaned rather heavily on their supporting arms, as they went in. At the door, the little ones came running about him, as they loved to do. Perhaps the very lustre of his face awed them, or the sight of their mother's tears; for a sort of hush came over them, even to the youngest, as he kissed and blessed them all.

And then, when they had left the room, he laid his head upon his daughter's breast, and uttered a few low words. He had been so happy, he said, and he thanked God for all,—even to this, the end. It had been so good to live!—it was so happy to die! Then he paused awhile, and closed his eyes.

"In the silence, I can hear your mother's voice," he murmured, and he clasped his hands. "O thou most merciful Father, who givest this last, great blessing, of the new Home, where she waits for me!—and God's love is over all His worlds!"