A Red Wallflower

The house, towards which she turned, as if to ask questions of it, was of moderate size, built of stone, and so massively built as if it had been meant to stand for ever. That was seen at once in the thickness of the walls, the strong oaken doorway, and the heavy window frames. But as soon as Betty set foot within the door she could almost have screamed with delight.

'Upon my word, very good! very well!' said Mr. Dallas, standing in the hall and reviewing it. And then, perceiving the presence of the servants, he checked himself and reviewed them.

'These are my uncle's faithful old friends, mother,' Pitt was saying; 'Mrs. Bunce, and Stephen Hill. Have you got something ready for travellers, Mrs. Bunce?'

Dignified order and grave tranquillity was the impression on Betty's mind again, as they were ushered into the dining-room. It was late, and the party sat down at once to table.

But Betty could hardly eat, for feasting her eyes. And when they went up-stairs to their rooms that feast still continued. The house was irregular, with rather small rooms and low ceilings; which itself was pleasant after the more commonplace regularity to which Miss Frere had been accustomed; and then it was full – all the rooms were full – of quaintness and beauty. Oak wainscottings, dark with time; oaken doorways with singular carvings; chimney-pieces, before which Betty stood in speechless delight and admiration; small-paned windows set in deep window niches; in one or two rooms dark draperies; but the late Mr. Strahan had not favoured anything that shut out the light, and in most of the house there were no curtains put up. And then, on the walls, in cupboards and presses, on tables and shelves, and in cabinets, there was an endless variety and wealth of treasures and curiosities. Pictures, bronzes, coins, old armour, old weapons, curiosities of historical value, others of natural production, others, still, of art; some of all these were very valuable and precious. To examine them must be the work of many days; it was merely the fact of their being there which Betty took in now, with a sense of the great riches of the new mental pasture-ground in which she found herself. She changed her dress in a kind of breathless mood; noticing as she did so the old-fashioned and aged furniture of her room. Aged, not infirm; the manufacture solid and strong as ever; the wood darkened by time, the patterns quaint, but to Betty's eye the more picturesque. Her apartment was a corner room, with one deep window on each of two sides; the look-out over a sunny landscape of grass, trees, and scattered buildings. On another side was a deep chimney-place, with curious wrought-iron fire-dogs. What a delightful adventure – or what a terrible adventure – was it which had brought her to this house! She would not think of that; she dressed and went down.

The rest of the party were gathered in the library, and this room finished Betty's enchantment. It was a well-sized room, the largest in the house, on the second floor; and all the properties that made the house generally interesting were gathered and culminated here. Dark wainscotting, dark bookcases, and dark books, gave it an aspect that might have been gloomy, yet was not so; perhaps because of the many other objects in the room, which gave points of light or bits of colour. What they were, Betty could only find out by degrees; she saw at once, in general, that this must have been a favourite place of the late owner, and that here he had collected a special assemblage of the things that pleased him best. A table at one side must have been made, she thought, about the same time with her chamber furniture, and by the same hand. The floor was dark and polished, and on it lay here and there bits of soft carpeting, which were well worn. Betty advanced slowly to the corner where the party were siting, taking in the effect of all this; then almost started as Pitt gave her a chair, to see in the corner just beyond the group a stuffed bear showing his teeth at her.

The father and mother had been talking about various matters at home, and the talk went on. Betty presently left them, and began to examine the sides of the room. She studied the bear, which was in an upright position, resting one paw on a stick, while the other supported a lamp. From the bear her eyes passed on to a fire-screen, which stood before the empty chimney, and then she went to look at it nearer by. It was a most exquisite thing. Two great panes of plate glass were so set in a frame that a space of some three or four inches separated them. In this space, in every variety of position, were suspended on invisible wires some twenty humming birds, of different kinds; and whether the light fell upon this screen in front or came through it from behind, the display was in either case most beautiful and novel. Betty at last wandered to the chimney-piece, and went no farther for a good while; studying the rich carving and the coat of arms which was both sculptured and painted in the midst of it. By and by she found that Pitt was beside her.

'Mr. Strahan's?' she asked.

'No; they belonged to a former possessor of the house. It came into my uncle's family by the marriage of his father.'

'It is very old?'

'Pretty old; that is, what in America we would call so. It reaches back to the time of the Stuarts. Really that is not so long ago as it seems.'

'It is worth while to be old, if it gives one such a chimney-piece as that. But I should not like another man's arms in it, if I were you.'

'Why not?'

'I don't know – I believe it diminishes the sense of possession.'

'A good thing, then,' said Pitt. 'Do you remember that "they that have" are told to be "as though they possessed not"?'

'How can they?' answered Betty, looking at him.

'You know the words?'

'I seem to have read them – I suppose I have.'

'Then there must be some way of making them true.'

'What is this concern, Pitt?' inquired his father, who had followed them, and was looking at a sort of cabinet which was framed into the wall.

'I was going to invite Miss Frere's attention to it; yet, on reflection, I believe she is not enthusiastic for that sort of thing.

That is valuable, father. It is a collection of early Greek coins.

Uncle Strahan was very fond of that collection, and very proud of it.

He had brought it together with a great deal of pains.'

'Rubbish, I should say,' observed the elder man; and he moved on, while

Betty took his place.

'Now, I do not understand them,' she said.

'You can see the beauty of some of them. Look at this head of Apollo.'

'That is beautiful – exquisite! Was that a common coin of trade?'

'Doubtful, in this case. It is not certain that this was not rather a medal struck for the members of the Amphictyonic Council. But see this coin of Syracuse; this was a common coin of trade; only of a size not the most common.'

'All I can say is, their coinage was far handsomer than ours, if it was like that.'

'The reverse is as fine as the obverse. A chariot with four horses, done with infinite spirit.'

'How can you remember what is on the other side – I suppose this side is what you mean by the obverse– of this particular coin? Are you sure?'

Pitt produced a key from his pocket, unlocked the glass door of the cabinet, and took the coin from its bed. On the other side was what he had stated to be there. Betty took the piece in her hands to look and admire.

'That is certainly very fine,' she said; but her attention was not entirely bent on the coin 'Is this lovely head meant for Apollo too?'

'No; don't you see it is feminine? Ceres, it is thought; but Mr. Strahan held that it was Arethusa, in honour of the nymph that presided over the fine fountain of sweet water near Syracuse. The coinage of that city was extremely beautiful and diversified; yielding to hardly any other in design and workmanship. Here is an earlier one; you see the very different stage art had attained to.'

'A regular Greek face,' remarked Betty, going back to the coin she held in her hand. 'See the straight line of the nose and the very short upper lip. Do you hold that the Greek type is the only true beauty?'

'Not I. The only true beauty, I think, is that of the soul; or at least that which the soul shines through.'

'What are these little fish swimming about the head? They would seem to indicate a marine deity.'

'The dolphin; the Syracusan emblem.'

'I wish I had been born in those times!' said Betty. And the wish had a meaning in the speaker's mind which the hearer could not divine.

'Why do you wish that?' asked Pitt, smiling.

'I suppose the principal reason is, that then I should not have been born in this. Everything is dreadfully prosy in our age. Oh, nothere, at this moment! but this is a fairy tale we are living through. I know how the plain world will look when I go back to it.'

'At present,' said Pitt, taking the Syracusan coin and restoring it to its place, 'you are not an enthusiastic numismatist!'

'No; how should I? Coins are not a thing to excite enthusiasm. They are beautiful, and curious, but not exactly – not exactly stirring.'

'I had a scholar once,' remarked Pitt, as he locked the glass door of the cabinet, 'whose eyes would have opened very wide at sight of this collection. Have you heard anything of the Gainsboroughs, mother?'

Betty started, inwardly, and was seized with an unreasoning fear lest the question might next be put to herself. Quietly, as soon as she could, she moved away from the coin cabinet, and seemed to be examining something else; but she was listening all the while.

'Nothing whatever,' Mrs. Dallas had answered.

'They have not come back to England. I have made out so much. I looked up the family after I came home last fall; their headquarters are at a nice old place down in Devonshire. I introduced myself and got acquainted with them. They are pleasant people. But they knew nothing of the colonel. He has not come home, and he has not written. Thus much I have found out.'

'It is not certain, however,' grumbled Mr. Dallas. 'I believe he hascome home; that is, to England. He was on bad terms with his people, you know.'

'When are you going to show Miss Frere and me London?' asked Mrs. Dallas. She was as willing to lead off from the other subject as Betty herself.

'Show you London, mamma! Show you a bit of it, you mean. It would take something like a lifetime to show you London. What bit will you begin with?'

'What first, Betty?' said Mrs. Dallas.

Betty turned and slowly came back to the others.

'Take her to see the lions in the Tower,' suggested Mr. Dallas; 'and the wax-work.'

'Do you think I have never seen a lion, Mr. Dallas?' said the young lady.

'Well, – small ones,' said the gentleman, stroking his chin. 'But the

Tower is a big lion itself. I believe I should like to go to the

Tower. I have never been there yet, old as I am.'

'I do not want to go to the Tower,' said Mrs. Dallas. 'I do not care for that kind of thing. I should like to see the Temple, and Pitt's chambers.'

'So should I,' said the younger lady.

'You might do worse,' said Pitt. 'Then to-morrow we will go to the

Temple, and to St. Paul's.'

'St. Paul's? that will not hold us long, will it?' said Betty. 'Is it so much to see?'

'A good deal, if you go through and study the monuments!'

'Well,' said Betty, 'I suppose it will be all delightful.'

But when she had retired to her room at night, her mood was not just so. She sat down before her glass and ruminated. That case of coins, and Pitt's old scholar, and the Gainsboroughs, who had not come home. He would find them yet; yes, and Esther would one day be standing before those coins; and Pitt would be showing them to her; and she – she would enter into his talk about them, and would understand and have sympathy, and there would be sympathy on other points too. If Esther ever stood there, in that beautiful old library, it would be as mistress and at home. Betty had a premonition of it; she put her hands before her eyes to shut out the picture. Suppose she earned well of the two and gained their lasting friendship by saying the words that would bring them to each other? That was one way out of her difficulty. But then, why should she? What right had Esther Gainsborough to be happy more than Betty Frere? The other way out of her difficulty, namely, to win Pitt's liking, would be much better; and then, they both of them might be Esther's friends. For of one thing Betty was certain; if she could win Pitt, he would be won. No half way-work was possible with him. He would never woo a woman he did not entirely love; and any woman so loved by him would not need to fear any other woman; it would be once for all. Betty had never, as it happened, met thoroughgoing truth before; she recognised it and trusted it perfectly in Pitt; and it was one of the things, she confessed to herself, that drew her most mightily to him. A person whom she could absolutely believe, and always be sure of. Whom else in the world could she trust so? Not her own brothers; not her own father; mother she had none. How did she know so securely that Pitt was an exception to the universal rule? – the question might be asked, and she asked it. She had not seen him tested in any great thing. But she had seen him tried in little bits of everyday things, in which most people think it is no harm to dodge the truth a little; and Betty recognised the soundness of the axiom, – 'He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much.'

CHAPTER XLII

THE TOWER

The next morning they went to inspect the Temple; Pitt and the two ladies. Mr. Dallas preferred some other occupation. But the interest brought to the inspection was not altogether legitimate. Mrs. Dallas cared principally to see how comfortable her son's chambers were, and to refresh herself with the tokens of antiquity and importance which attached to the place and the institution to which he belonged. Betty was no antiquarian in the best of times, and at present had all her faculties concentrated on one subject and one question which was not of the past. Nevertheless, it is of the nature of things that a high strain of the mind renders it intensely receptive and sensitive for outward impressions, even though they be not welcomed; like a taut string, which answers to a breath breathed upon it. Betty did not care for the Temple; had no interest in the old Templars' arms on the sides of the gateways; and thought its medley of dull courts and lanes a very undesirable place. What was it to her where Dr. Johnson had lived? she did not care for Dr. Johnson at all, and as little for Oliver Goldsmith. Pitt, she saw, cared; how odd it was! It was some comfort that Mrs. Dallas shared her indifference.

'My dear,' she said, 'I do not care about anybody's lodgings but yours.

Dr. Johnson is not there now, I suppose. Where are your rooms?'

But Pitt laughed, and took them first to the Temple church.

Here Betty could not refuse to look and be interested a little. How little, she did not show. The beauty of the old church, its venerable age, and the strange relics of the past in its monuments, did command some attention. Yet Betty grudged it; and went over the Halls and the Courts afterward with a half reluctant foot, hearing as if against her will all that Pitt was telling her and his mother about them. Oh, what did it matter, that one of Shakspeare's plays had been performed in the Middle Temple Hall during its author's lifetime? and what did it signify whether a given piece of architecture were Early English or Perpendicular Gothic? What did interest her, was to see how lively and warm was Pitt's knowledge and liking of all these things. Evidently he delighted in them and was full of information concerning them; and his interest did move Betty a little. It moved her to speculation also. Could this man be so earnest in his enjoyment of Norman arches and polished shafts and the effigies of old knights, and still hold to the views and principles he had avowed and advocated last year? Could he, who took such pleasure in the doings and records of the past, really mean to attach himself to another sort of life, with which the honours and dignities and delights of this common world have nothing to do?

The question recurred again afresh on their return home. As Betty entered the house, she was struck by the beauty of the carved oak staircase, and exclaimed upon it.

'Yes,' said Pitt; 'that is the prettiest part of the house. It is said to be by Inigo Jones; but perhaps that cannot be proved.'

'Does it matter?' said Betty, laughing.

'Not to any real lover of it; but to the rest, you know, the name is the thing.'

'"Lover of it"!' said Betty. 'Can you love a staircase?'

Pitt laughed out; then he answered seriously.

'Don't you know that all that is good and true is in a way bound up together? it is one whole; and I take it to be certain that in proportion to anyone's love for spiritual and moral beauty will be,coeteris paribus, his appreciation of all expression of it, in nature or art.'

'But', said Betty, '"spiritual and moral beauty"! You do not mean that this oak staircase is an expression of either?'

'Of both, perhaps. At any rate, the things are very closely connected.'

'You are an enigma!' said Betty.

'I hope not always to remain so,' he answered.

Betty went up the beautiful staircase, noting as she went its beauties, from storey to storey. She had not noticed it before, although it really took up more room than was proportionate to the size of the house. What did Pitt mean by those last words? she was querying. And could it be possible that the owner of a house like this, with a property corresponding, would not be of the world and live in the world like other men? He must, Betty thought. It is all very well for people who have not the means to make a figure in society, to talk of isolating themselves from society. A man may give up a little; but when he has much, he holds on to it. But how was it with Pitt? She must try and find out.

She accordingly made an attempt that same evening, beginning with the staircase again.

'I admired Inigo Jones all the way up-stairs,' she said, when she had an opportunity to talk to Pitt alone. Mr. Dallas had gone to sleep after dinner, and his wife was knitting at a sufficient distance. 'The quaint fancies and delicate work are really such as I never imagined before in wood-carving. But your words about it remain a puzzle to me.'

'My words? About art being an expression of truth? Surely that is not new?'

'It may be very old; but I do not understand it.'

'You understand, that so far as art is genuine, it is a setter forth of truth?'

'Well, I suppose so; of some truth. Roses must be roses, and trees must be trees; and of course must look as like the reality as possible.'

'That is the very lowest thing art can do, and in some cases is not true art at all. Her business is to tell truth – never to deceive.'

'What sort of truth then?'

'What I said; spiritual and moral.'

'Ah, there it is! Now you have got back to it. Now you are talking mystery, or – forgive me – transcendentalism.'

'No; nothing but simple and very plain fact. It is this first, – that all truth is one; and this next, – that in the world of creation things material are the expression of things spiritual. So all real beauty in form or colour has back of it a greater beauty of higher degree.'

'You are talking pure mystery.'

'No, surely,' said Pitt eagerly. 'You certainly recognise the truth of what I am saying, in some things. For instance, you cannot look up steadily into the blue infinity of one of our American skies on a clear day – at least I cannot – without presently getting the impression of truth, pure, unfailing, incorruptible truth, in its Creator. The rose, everywhere in the world, so far as I know, is the accepted emblem of love. And for another very familiar instance, – Christ is called in the Bible the Sun of righteousness – the Light that is the life of man. Do you know how close to fact that is? What this earth would be if deprived of the sun for a few days, is but a true image of the condition of any soul finally forsaken by the Sun of righteousness. In one word, death; and that is what the Bible means by death, of which the death we commonly speak of is again but a faint image.'

Betty fidgeted a little; this was not what she wished to speak of; it was getting away from her point.

'Your staircase set me wondering about you,' she said boldly, not answering his speech at all.

'In yet another connection?' said Pitt, smiling.

'In another connection. You remember you used to talk to me pretty freely last summer about your new views and plans of life?'

'I remember. But my staircase?' —

'Yes, your staircase. You know it is rich and stately, as well as beautiful. Whatever it signifies to you, to my lower vision it means a position in the world and the means to maintain it. And I debated with myself, as I went up the stairs, whether the owner of all this wouldstill think it his duty to live altogether for others, and not for himself like common people.'

She looked at him, and Pitt met her inquiring eyes with a steady, penetrating, grave look, which half made her wish she had let the question alone. He delayed his answer a little, and then he said, —

'Will you let me meet that doubt in my own way?'

'Certainly!' said Betty, surprised; 'if you will forgive me its arising.'

'Is one responsible for doubts? One may be responsible for the state of mind from which they spring. Then, if you will allow me, I will say no more on the subject for a day or two. But I will not leave you unanswered; that is, unless you refuse to submit to my guidance, and will not let me take my own way.'

'You are mysterious!'

'Will you go with me when I ask you?'

'Yes.'

'Then that is sufficient.'

Betty thought she had not gained much by her move.

The next day was given to the Tower. Mrs. Dallas did not go; her husband was of the party instead. The inspection of the place was thorough, and occupied some hours; Pitt, being able, through an old friend of Mr. Strahan's who was now also his friend, to obtain an order from the Constable for seeing the whole. At dinner Betty delivered herself of her opinion.

'Were you busy all day with nothing but the Tower? asked Mrs. Dallas.

'Stopped for luncheon,' said her husband.

'And we did our work thoroughly, mamma,' added Pitt. 'You must take time, if you want to see anything.'

'Well,' said Betty, 'I must say, if this is what it means, to live in an old country, I am thankful I live in a new one.'

'What now?' asked Mr. Dallas. 'What's the matter?'

'Mrs. Dallas was wiser, that she did not go,' Betty went on. '"I have supped fall of horrors." Really I have read history, but that gives it to one diluted. I had no notion that the English people were so savage.'

'Come, come! no worse than other people,' Mr. Dallas put in.

'I do not know how it is with other people. I am thankful we have no such monument in America. I shouldn't think snow would lie on the Tower!'

'Doesn't often,' said Pitt.

'Think, Mrs. Dallas! I stood in that little chapel there, – the prisoners' chapel, – and beneath the pavement lay between thirty and forty people, the remains of them, who lay there with their heads separated from their bodies; and some of them with no heads at all. The heads had been set up on London bridge, or on Temple Bar, or some other dreadful place. And then as we went round I was told that here was the spot where Lady Jane Grey was beheaded; and there was the window from which she saw the headless body of her husband carried by; and therestood the rack on which Anne Askew was tortured; and there was the prison where Arabella Stuart died insane; and here was the axe which used to be carried before the Lieutenant when he took a prisoner to his trial, and was carried before the prisoner when he returned, mostly with the sharp edge turned towards him. I do not see how people used to live in those times. There are Anne Boleyn and her brother, Lady Jane Grey and her husband, and other Dudleys innumerable' —