A Red Wallflower

Sitting there and musing over many things, his own great question ever and again, he heard a mower whetting his scythe somewhere in the neighbourhood. Pitt set about searching for the unseen labourer, and presently saw the man, who was cutting the grass in an adjoining field. Dismissing thought for action, in two minutes he had sprung over the fence and was beside the man; but the mower did not intermit the long sweeps of his scythe, until he heard Pitt's civil 'Good morning.' Then he stopped, straightened himself up, and looked at his visitor – looked him all over.

'Good mornin',' he replied. 'Guess you're the young squoire, ain't ye?'

If Pitt's appearance had been less supremely neat and faultless, I think the honest worker would have offered his hand; but the white linen summer suit, the polished boots, the delicate gloves, were too much of a contrast with his own dusty and rough exterior. It was no feeling of inferiority, be it well understood, that moved him to this bit of self-denial; only a self-respecting feeling of fitness. He himself would not have wanted to touch a dusty hand with those gloves on his own. But he spoke his welcome.

'Glad to see ye hum, squoire. When did ye come?'

'Last night, thank you. Whom am I talking to? I have been so long away,

I have forgotten my friends.'

'I guess there's nobody hain't forgotten you, you'll find,' said the man, wiping his scythe blade with a wisp of grass; needlessly, for he had just whetted it; but it gave him an opportunity to look at the figure beside him.

'More than I deserve,' said Pitt. 'But I seem not to find some of my old friends. Do you know where is the family that used to live here?'

'Gone away, I guess.'

'I see they have gone away; but where have they gone?'

'Dunno, no more'n the dead,' said the man, beginning to mow again.

'You know whom I am speaking of? – Colonel Gainsborough.'

'I know. He's gone – that's all I kin tell ye.'

'Who takes care of the place?'

'The place? If you mean the house, nobody takes keer of it, I guess. There ain't nobody in it. The land hez as good keer as it ever hed. The squoire, he sees to that.'

'My father, do you mean?'

'Who else? It belongs to the squoire now, and he takes good keer o' allhe sees to. He bought it, ye know, when the cunnel went away,' said the man, stopping work and resting on his scythe to look at Pitt again. 'He'd ha' let it, I guess, ef he could; but you see there ain't nobody that wants it. The folks in Seaforth all hez their own houses, and don't want nobody else's. There is folks, they say, as 'd like to live in two houses to once, ef they could manage it; but I never heerd o' no one that could.'

'Do you know at all why the colonel went away?'

'Hain't an idee. Never knowed him particular, ye see, and so never heerd tell. The cunnel he warn't a sociable man by no means, and kep' himself mostly shut up. I think it's a man's loss; but there's different opinions, I suppose, on that p'int. As on every other! Folks du say, the cunnel warn't never to hum in Seaforth. Anyway, he ain't now.'

With which utterance he went to mowing again, and Pitt, after a courteous 'Good day,' left him.

Where could they be gone? And why should they have gone? And how was it that his mother in her many letters had never said a word about it? Nay, had let him go out this very morning to look for what she knew he would not find? And his father had bought the ground! There was something here to be inquired into. Meanwhile, for the present, he must do his thinking without Esther.

He walked on and on, slowly, under the shade of the great trees, along the empty, grassy street. He had plucked one or two shoots from the honeysuckles, long shoots full of sweetness; and as he went on and thought, they seemed to put in a word now and then. A word of reminder, not distinct nor logical, but with a blended meaning of Esther and sweetness and truth. Not her sweetness and truth, but that which she testified to, and which an inner voice in Pitt's heart kept declaring to be genuine. That lured him and beckoned him one way; and the other way sounded voices as if of a thousand sirens. Pleasure, pride, distinction, dominion, applause, achievement, power, and ease. Various forms of them, various colours, started up before his mind's eye; vaguely discerned, as to individual form, but every one of them, like the picadors in a bull-fight, shaking its little banner of distraction and allurement. Pitt felt the confusion of them, and at the same time was more than vaguely conscious on the other side of a certain steady white light which attracted towards another goal. He walked on in meditative musing, slowly and carelessly, not knowing where he was going nor what he passed on the way; till he had walked far. And then he suddenly stopped, turned, and set out to go back the road he had come, but now with a quick, measured, steady footfall which gave no indication of a vacillating mind or a laboured question.

He went into the breakfast-room when he got home, which was also the common sitting-room and where he found, as he expected, his mother alone. She looked anxious; which was not a usual thing with Mrs. Dallas.

'Pitt, my dear! – out all this time? Are you not very hot?'

'I do not know, mother; I think not. I have not thought about the heat,

I believe.'

He had kept the honeysuckle sprays in his hand all this while, and he now went forward to stick them in the huge jar which occupied the fireplace, and which was full of green branches. Turning when he had done this, he did not draw up a chair, but threw himself down upon the rug at his mother's feet, so that he could lay back his head upon her knees. Presently he put up his two hands behind him and found her hands, which he gently drew down and laid on each side of his head, holding them there in caressing fashion. Caresses were never the order of the day in this family; rarely exchanged even between mother and son, who yet were devoted faithfully to each other. The action moved Mrs. Dallas greatly; she bent down over him and kissed her son's brow, and then loosening one of her hands thrust it fondly among the thick brown wavy locks of hair that were such a pride to her. She admired him unqualifiedly, with that blissful delight in him which a good mother gives to her son, if his bodily and mental properties will anyway allow of it. Mrs. Dallas's pride in this son had always been satisfied and unalloyed; all the more now was the chagrin she felt at the first jar to this satisfaction. Her face showed both feelings, the pride and the trouble, but for a time she kept silence. She was burning to discuss further with him the subject of the morning; devoured with restless curiosity as to how it could ever have got such a lodgment in Pitt's mind; at the same time she did not know how to touch it, and was afraid of touching it wrong. Her husband's counsel, not to talk, she did not indeed forget; but Mrs. Dallas had her own views of things, and did not always take her husband's advice. She was not minded to follow it now, but she was uncertain how best to begin. Pitt was busy with his own thoughts.

'I have invited somebody to come and make your holiday pass pleasantly,' Mrs. Dallas said at last, beginning far away from the burden of her thoughts.

'Somebody? – whom?' asked Pitt a little eagerly, but without changing his attitude.

'Miss Betty Frere.'

'Who is she, that she should put her hand on my holiday? I do not want any hands but yours, mother. How often I have wanted them!'

'But Miss Frere will make your time pass more pleasantly, my boy. Miss Frere is one of the most admired women who have appeared in Washington this year. She is a sort of cousin of your father's, too; distant, but enough to make a connection. You will see for yourself what she is.'

'Where did you find her out?'

'In Washington, last winter.'

'And she is coming?'

'She said she would come. I asked her to come and help me make the time pass pleasantly for you.'

'Which means, that I must help you make the time pass pleasantly for her.'

'That will be easy.'

'I don't know; and you do not know. When is she coming?'

'In a few days, I expect her.'

'Young, of course. Well, mother, I really do not want anybody but you; but we'll do the best we can.'

'She is handsome, and quick, and has excellent manners. She would have made a good match last winter, at once, – if she had not been poor.'

'Are men such cads as that on this side the water too?'

'Cads, my dear!'

'I call that being cads. Don't you?'

'My boy, everybody cannot afford to marry a poor wife.'

'Anybody that has two hands can. Or a head.'

'It brings trouble, Pitt.'

'Does not the other thing bring trouble? It would with me! If I knew a woman had married me for money, or if I knew I had married her for money, there would be no peace in my house.'

Mrs. Dallas laughed a little. 'You will have no need to do the latter thing,' she said.

'Mother, nobody has any need to do it.'

'You, at any rate, can please yourself. Only' —

'Only what?' said Pitt, now laughing in his turn, and twisting his head round to look up into her face. 'Go on, mother.'

'I am sure your father would never object to a girl because she was poor, if you liked her. But there are other things' —

'Well, what other things?'

'Pitt, a woman has great influence over her husband, if he loves her, and that you will be sure to do to any woman whom you make your wife. I should not like to have you marry out of your own Church.'

Pitt's head went round, and he laughed again.

'In good time!' he said. 'I assure you, mother, you are in no danger yet.'

'I thought this morning,' said his mother, hesitating, – 'I was afraid, from what you said, that some Methodist, or some other Dissenter, might have got hold of you.'

Pitt was silent. The word struck him, and jarred a little. Was his mother not grazing the truth? And a vague notion rose in his mind, without actually taking shape, which just now he had not time to attend to, but which cast a shadow, like a young cloud. He was silent, and his mother after a little pause went on.

'Methodists and Dissenters are not much in Mr. Strahan's way, I am sure; and you would hardly be troubled by them at Oxford. How was it, Pitt? Where did you get these new notions?'

'Do they sound like Dissent, mother?'

'I do not know what they sound like. Not like you. I want to know what they mean, and how you came by them?'

He did not immediately answer.

'I have been thinking on this subject a good while,' he said slowly, – 'a good while. You know, Mr. Strahan is a great antiquary, and very full of knowledge about London. He has taken pleasure in going about with me, and instructing me, and he is capital company; but at last I learned enough to go by myself sometimes, without him; and I used to ramble about through the places where he had taken me, to review and examine and ponder things at my leisure. I grew very fond of London. It is like an immense illustrated book of history.

'One day I was wandering in one of the busy parts of the city, and turned aside out of the roar and the bustle into a little chapel, lying close to the roar but separate from it. I had been there before, and knew there were some fine marbles in the place; one especially, that I wanted to see again. I was alone that day, and could take my time; and I went in. It is the tomb of some old dignitary who lived several centuries ago. I do not know what he was in life; but in death, as this effigy represents him, it is something beautiful to look upon. I forget at this minute the name of the sculptor; his work I shall never forget. It is wonderfully fine. The gravity, and the sweetness, and the ineffable repose of the figure, are beyond praise. I stood looking, studying, thinking, I cannot tell for how long – or rather feeling than thinking, at the moment. When I left the chapel and came out again into the glare and the rush and the confusion, then I began to think, mother. I went off to another quiet place, by the bank of the river, and sat down and thought. I can hardly tell you how. The image of that infinite repose I carried with me, and the rush of human life filled the streets I had just come through behind me, and I looked at the contrast of things. There, for ages already, that quiet; here, for a day or two, this driving and struggling. Even suppose it be successful struggling, what does it amount to?'

'It amounts to a good deal while you live,' said Mrs. Dallas.

'And after?' —

'And after too. A man's name, if he has struggled successfully, is held in remembrance – in honour.'

'What is that to him after he is gone?'

'My dear, you would not advocate a lazy life? – a life without effort?'

'No, mother. The question is, what shall the effort be for?'

Mrs. Dallas was in the greatest perplexity how to carry on this conversation. She looked down on the figure before her, – Pitt was still sitting at her feet, holding her two hands on either side of his head; and she could admire at her leisure the well-knit, energetic frame, every line of which showed power and life, and every motion of which indicated also the life and vigour of the spirit moving it. He was the very man to fight the battle of life with distinguished success – she had looked forward to his doing it, counted upon it, built her pride upon it; what did he mean now? Was all that power and energy and ability to be thrown away? Would he decline to fill the place in the world which she had hoped to see him fill, and which he could so well fill? Young people do have foolish fancies, and they pass over; but a fancy of this sort, just at Pitt's age, might be fatal. She was glad it was herself and not his father who was his confidant, for Pitt, she well knew, was one neither to be bullied nor cajoled. But what should she say to him?

'My dear, I think it is duty,' she ventured at last. 'Everybody must be put here to do something.'

'What is he put here to do, mamma? That is the very question.'

Pitt was not excited, he showed no heat; he spoke in the quiet, calm tones of a person long familiar with the thoughts to which he gave utterance; indeed, alarmingly suggestive that he had made up his mind about them.

'Pitt, why do you not speak to a clergyman? He could set you right better than I can.'

'I have, mamma.'

'To what clergyman?'

'To Dr. Calcott of Oxford, and to Dr. Plympton, the rector of the church to which Uncle Strahan goes.'

'What did they say?'

'Dr. Calcott said I had been studying too hard, and wanted a little distraction; he thought I was morbid, and warned me against possible listening to Methodists. Said I was a good fellow, only it was a mistake to try to be too good; the consequence would be a break-down. Whether physical or moral, he did not say; I was left to apprehend both.'

'That is very much as I think myself, only not the fear of break-downs. I see no signs of that in you, my boy. What did the other, Dr. – whom did you say? – what did he tell you?'

'Dr. Plympton. He said he did not understand what I would be at.'

'I agree with him too,' said Mrs. Dallas, laughing a little. Pitt did not laugh.

'I quoted some words to him out of the Bible, and he said he did not know what they meant.'

'I should think he ought to know.'

'So I thought. But he said it was for the Church to decide what they meant.'

Mrs. Dallas was greatly at a loss, and growing more and more uneasy. Pitt went on in such a quiet, meditative way, not asking help of her, and, she fancied, not intending to ask it of anybody. Suddenly, however, he lifted his head and turned himself far enough round to enable him to look in her face.

'Mother,' said he, 'what do you think those words mean in one of the psalms, – "Thou hast made me exceeding glad with thy countenance"?'

'Are they in the Psalms? I do not know.'

'You have read them a thousand times! In the psalter translation the wording is a little different, but it comes to the same thing.'

'I never knew what they meant, my boy. There are a great many things in the Bible that we cannot understand.'

'But is this one of them? "Exceeding glad —with thy countenance."

David knew what he meant.'

'The Psalmist was inspired. Of course he understood a great many things which we do not.'

'We ought to understand some things that he did not, I should think. But this is a bit of personal experience – not abstruse teaching. David was "exceeding glad" – and what made him glad? that I want to know.'

Pitt's thoughts were busy with the innocent letter he had once received, in which a young and unlearned girl had given precisely the same testimony as the inspired royal singer. Precisely the same. And surely what Esther had found, another could find, and he might find. But while he was musing, Mrs. Dallas grew more and more uneasy. She knew better than to try the force of persuasion upon her son. It would not avail; and Mrs. Dallas was a proud woman, too proud to ask what would not be granted, or to resist forcefully what she might not resist successfully. She never withstood her husband's plans, or asked him to change them, except in cases when she knew her opposition could be made effective; so it did not at all follow that she was pleased where she made no effort to hinder. It was the same in the case of her son, though rarely proved until now. In the consciousness of her want of power she was tempted to be a little vexed.

'My dear,' she said, 'what you say sounds to me very like Methodist talk! They say the Methodists are spreading dreadfully.'

Pitt was silent, and then made a departure.

'How often I have wanted just the touch of these hands!' he said, giving those he held a little squeeze. 'Mother, there is nothing in all the world like them.'

CHAPTER XXIV

DISAPPOINTMENT

It was not till the little family were seated at the dinner-table, that

Pitt alluded to the object of his morning ramble.

'I went to see Colonel Gainsborough this morning,' he began; 'and to my astonishment found the house shut up. What has become of him?'

'Gone away,' said his father shortly.

'Yes, that is plain; but where is he gone to?'

'New York.'

'New York! What took him away?'

'I believe a desire to put his daughter at school. A very sensible desire.'

'To New York!' Pitt repeated. 'Why did you never mention it, mamma?'

'It never occurred to me to mention it. I did not suppose that the matter was of any great interest to you.'

Mrs. Dallas had said just a word too much. Her last sentence set Pitt to thinking.

'How long have they been gone?' he asked, after a short pause.

'Not long,' said Mr. Dallas carelessly. 'A few months, I believe.'

'A man told me you had bought the place?'

'Yes; it suited me to have it. The land is good, what there is of it.'

'But the house stands empty. What will you do with it?'

'Let it – as soon as anybody wants it.'

'Not much prospect of that, is there?'

'Not just now,' Mr. Dallas said drily.

There was a little pause again, and then Pitt asked, —

'Have you Colonel Gainsborough's address, sir?'

'No.'

'I suppose they have it at the post office.'

'They have not. Colonel Gainsborough was to have sent me his address, when he knew himself what it would be, but he has never done so.'

'Is he living in the city, or out of it.'

'I have explained to you why I am unable to answer that question.'

'Why do you want to know, Pitt?' his mother imprudently asked.

'Because I have got to look them up, mother; and knowing whereabouts they are would be rather a help, you see.'

'You have not got to look them up!' said his father gruffly. 'What business is it of yours? If they were here, it would be all very well for you to pay your respects to the colonel; it would be due; but as it is, there is no obligation.'

'No obligation of civility. There is another, however.'

'What, then?'

'Of friendship, sir.'

'Nonsense. Friendship ought to keep you at home. There is no friendship like that of a man's father and mother. Do you know what a piece of time it would take for you to go to New York to look up a man who lives you do not know where? – what a piece of your vacation?'

'More than I like to think of,' said Pitt; 'but it will have to be done.'

'It will take you two days to get there, and two more days to get back, merely for the journey; and how many do you want to spend in New York?'

'Must have two or three, at least. It will swallow up a week.'

'Out of your little vacation!' said his mother reproachfully. She was angry and hurt, as near tears as she often came; but Mrs. Dallas was not wont to show her discomfiture in that way.

'Yes, mother; I am very sorry.'

'Why do you care about seeing them? – care so much, I mean,' his father inquired, with a keen side-glance at his son.

'I have made a promise, sir. I am bound to keep it.'

'What promise?' both parents demanded at once.

'To look after the daughter, in case of the father's death.'

'But he is not dead. He is well enough; as likely to live as I am.'

'How can I be sure of that? You have not heard from him for months, you say.'

'I should have heard, if anything had happened to him.'

'That is not certain, either,' said Pitt, thinking that Esther's applying to his father and mother in case of distress was more than doubtful.

'How can you look after the daughter in the event of her father's death? You are not the person to do it,' said his mother.

'I am the person who have promised to do it,' said Pitt quietly. 'Never mind, mother; you see I must go, and the sooner the better. I will take the stage to-morrow morning.'

'You might wait and try first what a letter might do,' suggested his father.

'Yes, sir; but you remember Colonel Gainsborough had very little to do with the post office. He never received letters, and he had ceased taking the London Times. My letter might lie weeks unclaimed. I must go myself.'

And he went, and stayed a week away. It was a busy week; at least the days in the city were busily filled. Pitt inquired at the post office; but, as he more than half expected, nobody knew anything of Colonel Gainsborough's address. One official had an impression he had heard the name; that was all. Pitt beleaguered the post office, that is, he sat down before it, figuratively, for really he sat down in it, and let nobody go out or come in without his knowledge. It availed nothing. Either Christopher did not at all make his appearance at the post office during those days, or he came at some moment when Pitt was gone to get a bit of luncheon; if he came, a stupid clerk did not heed him, or a busy clerk overlooked him; all that is certain is, that Pitt saw and heard nothing which led to the object of his quest. He made inquiries elsewhere, wherever he could think it might be useful; but the end was, he heard nothing. He stayed three days; he could stay no longer, for his holiday was very exactly and narrowly measured out, and he felt it not right to take any more of it from his father and mother.

The rest of the time they had him wholly to themselves, for Miss Frere was hindered by some domestic event from keeping her promise to Mrs. Dallas. She did not come. Pitt was glad of it; and, seeing they were now free from the danger of Esther, his father and mother were glad of it too. The days were untroubled by either fear or anxiety, while their son made the sunshine of the house for them; and when he went away he left them without a wish concerning him, but that they were going too. For it was to be another two years before he would come again.

The record of those same summer months in the house on the bank of the Hudson was somewhat different. Esther had her vacation too, which gave her opportunity to finish everything in the arrangements at home for which time had hitherto been lacking. The girl went softly round the house, putting a touch of grace and prettiness upon every room. It excited Mrs. Barker's honest admiration. Here it was a curtain; there it was a set of toilet furniture; in another place a fresh chintz cover; in a fourth, a rug that matched the carpet and hid an ugly darn in it. Esther made all these things and did all these things herself; they cost her father nothing, or next to nothing, and they did not even ask for Mrs. Barker's time, and they were little things, but the effect of them was not so. They gave the house that finished, comfortable, home-like air, which nothing does give but the graceful touch of a woman's fingers. Mrs. Barker admired; the colonel did not see what was done; but Esther did not work for admiration. She was satisfying the demand of her own nature, which in all things she had to do with called for finish, fitness, and grace; her fingers were charmed fingers, because the soul that governed them had itself such a charm, and worked by its own standard, as a honey bee makes her cell. Indeed, the simile of the honey bee would fit in more points than one; for the cell of the little winged worker is not fuller of sweetness than the girl made all her own particular domicile. If the whole truth must be told, however, there was another thought stirring in her, as she hung her curtains and laid her rugs; a half recognised thought, which gave a zest to every additional touch of comfort or prettiness which she bestowed on the house. She thought Pitt would be there, and she wanted the impression made upon him to be the pleasantest possible. He would surely be there; he was coming home; he would never let the vacation go by without trying to find his old friends. It was a constant spring of pleasure to Esther, that secret hope. She said nothing about it; her father, she knew, did not care so much for Pitt Dallas as she did; but privately she counted the days and measured the time, and went into countless calculations for which she possessed no sufficient data. She knew that, yet she could not help calculating. The whole summer was sweetened and enlivened by these calculations, although indeed they were a little like some of those sweets which bite the tongue.