The Three Clerks by Anthony Trollope

A >> Anthony Trollope >> The Three Clerks

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47

On. Saturday Alaric went down, but his arrival hardly made things
more pleasant. Mrs. Woodward could not bring herself to be
cordial with him, and the girls were restrained by a certain
feeling that it would not be right to show too much outward joy
at Alaric's success. Linda said one little word of affectionate
encouragement, but it produced no apparent return from Alaric.
His immediate object was to recover Mrs. Woodward's good graces;
and he thought before he went that he had reason to hope that he
might do so.

Of all the household, Captain Cuttwater was the most emphatic in
his congratulations. 'He had no doubt,' he said, 'that the best
man had won. He had always hoped that the best man might win. He
had not had the same luck when he was young, but he was very glad
to see such an excellent rule brought into the service. It would
soon work great changes, he was quite sure, at the Board of
Admiralty.'

On the Sunday afternoon Captain Cuttwater asked him into his own
bedroom, and told him with a solemn, serious manner that he had a
communication of importance to make to him. Alaric followed the
captain into the well-known room in which Norman used to sleep,
wondering what could be the nature of Uncle Bat's important
communication. It might, probably, be some tidings of Sir Jib
Boom.

'Mr. Alaric,' said the old man, as soon as they were both seated
on opposite sides of a little Pembroke table that stood in the
middle of the room, 'I was heartily glad to hear of your success
at the Weights and Measures; not that I ever doubted it if they
made a fair sailing match of it.'

'I am sure I am much obliged to you, Captain Cuttwater.'

'That is as may be, by and by. But the fact is, I have taken a
fancy to you. I like fellows that know how to push themselves.'

Alaric had nothing for it but to repeat again that he felt
himself grateful for Captain Cuttwater's good opinion.

'Not that I have anything to say against Mr. Norman--a very nice
young man, indeed, he is, very nice, though perhaps not quite so
cheerful in his manners as he might be.'

Alaric began to take his friend's part, and declared what a very
worthy fellow Harry was.

'I am sure of it--I am sure of it,' said Uncle Bat; 'but
everybody can't be A1; and a man can't make everybody his heir.'

Alaric pricked up his ears. So after all Captain Cuttwater was
right in calling his communication important. But what business
had Captain Cuttwater to talk of making new heirs?--had he not
declared that the Woodwards were his heirs?

'I have got a little money, Mr. Alaric,' he went on saying in a
low modest tone, very different from that he ordinarily used; 'I
have got a little money--not much--and it will of course go to my
niece here.'

'Of course,' said Alaric.

'That is to say--it will go to her children, which is all the
same thing.'

'Quite the same thing,' said Alaric.

'But my idea is this: if a man has saved a few pounds himself, I
think he has a right to give it to those he loves best. Now I
have no children of my own.'

Alaric declared himself aware of the fact.

'And I suppose I shan't have any now.'

'Not if you don't marry,' said Alaric, who felt rather at a loss
for a proper answer. He could not, however, have made a better
one.

'No; that's what I mean; but I don't think I shall marry. I am
very well contented here, and I like Surbiton Cottage amazingly.'

'It's a charming place,' said Alaric.

'No, I don't suppose I shall ever have any children of my own,'--
and then Uncle Bat sighed gently--'and so I have been considering
whom I should like to adopt.'

'Quite right, Captain Cuttwater.'

'Whom I should like to adopt. I should like to have one whom I
could call in a special manner my own. Now, Mr. Alaric, I have
made up my mind, and who do you think it is?'

'Oh! Captain Cuttwater, I couldn't guess on such a matter. I
shouldn't like to guess wrong.'

'Perhaps not--no; that's right;--well then, I'll tell you; it's
Gertrude.'

Alaric was well aware that it was Gertrude before her name had
been pronounced.

'Yes, it's Gertrude; of course I couldn't go out of Bessie's
family--of course it must be either Gertrude, or Linda, or Katie.
Now Linda and Katie are very well, but they haven't half the
gumption that Gertrude has.'

'No, they have not,' said Alaric.

'I like gumption,' said Captain Cuttwater. 'You've a great deal
of gumption--that's why I like you.'

Alaric laughed, and muttered something.

'Now I have been thinking of something;' and Uncle Bat looked
strangely mysterious--'I wonder what you think of Gertrude?'

'Who--I?' said Alaric.

'I can see through a millstone as well as another,' said the
captain; 'and I used to think that Norman and Gertrude meant to
hit it off together.'

Alaric said nothing. He did not feel inclined to tell Norman's
secret, and yet he could not belie Gertrude by contradicting the
justice of Captain Cuttwater's opinion.

'I used to think so--but now I find there's nothing in it. I am
sure Gertrude wouldn't have him, and I think she's right. He
hasn't gumption enough.'

'Harry Norman is no fool.'

'I dare say not,' said the captain; 'but take my word, she'll
never have him--Lord bless you, Norman knows that as well as I
do.'

Alaric knew it very well himself also; but he did not say so.

'Now, the long and the short of it is this--why don't you make up
to her? If you'll make up to her and carry the day, all I can say
is, I will do all I can to keep the pot a-boiling; and if you
think it will help you, you may tell Gertrude that I say so.'

This was certainly an important communication, and one to which
Alaric found it very difficult to give any immediate answer. He
said a great deal about his affection for Mrs. Woodward, of his
admiration for Miss Woodward, of his strong sense of Captain
Cuttwater's kindness, and of his own unworthiness; but he left
the captain with an impression that he was not prepared at the
present moment to put himself forward as a candidate for
Gertrude's hand.

'I don't know what the deuce he would have,' said the captain to
himself. 'She's as fine a girl as he's likely to find; and two or
three thousand pounds isn't so easily got every day by a fellow
that hasn't a shilling of his own.'

When Alaric took his departure the next morning, he thought he
perceived, from Mrs. Woodward's manner, that there was less than
her usual cordiality in the tone in which she said that of course
he would return at the end of the week.

'I will if possible,' he said, 'and I need not say that I hope to
do so; but I fear I may be kept in town--at any rate I'll write.'
When the end of the week came he wrote to say that unfortunately
he was kept in town. He thoroughly understood that people are
most valued when they make themselves scarce. He got in reply a
note from Gertrude, saying that her mother begged that on the
following Saturday he would come and bring Charley with him.

On his return to town, Alaric, by appointment, called on Sir
Gregory. He had not seen his patron yet since his great report on
Wheal Mary Jane had been sent in. That report had been written
exclusively by himself, and poor Neverbend had been obliged to
content himself with putting all his voluminous notes into
Tudor's hands. He afterwards obediently signed the report, and
received his reward for doing so. Alaric never divulged to
official ears how Neverbend had halted in the course of his
descent to the infernal gods.

'I thoroughly congratulate you,' said Sir Gregory. 'You have
justified my choice, and done your duty with credit to yourself
and benefit to the public. I hope you may go on and prosper. As
long as you remember that your own interests should always be
kept in subservience to those of the public service, you will not
fail to receive the praise which such conduct deserves.'

Alaric thanked Sir Gregory for his good opinion, and as he did
so, he thought of his new banker's account, and of the L300 which
was lying there. After all, which of them was right, Sir Gregory
Hardlines or Undy Scott? Or was it that Sir Gregory's opinions
were such as should control the outward conduct, and Undy's those
which should rule the inner man?

CHAPTER XIV

VERY SAD

Norman prolonged his visit to his father considerably beyond the
month. At first he applied for and received permission to stay
away another fortnight, and at the end of that fortnight he sent
up a medical certificate in which the doctor alleged that he
would be unable to attend to business for some considerable
additional period. It was not till after Christmas Day that he
reappeared at the Weights and Measures.

Alaric kept his appointment at Hampton, and took Charley with
him. And on the two following Saturdays he also went there, and
on both occasions Charley accompanied him. During these visits,
he devoted himself, as closely as he could, to Mrs. Woodward. He
talked to her of Norman, and of Norman's prospects in the office;
he told her how he had intended to abstain from offering himself
as a competitor, till he had, as it were, been forced by Norman
to do so; he declared over and over again that Norman would have
been victorious had he stood his ground to the end, and assured
her that such was the general opinion through the whole
establishment. And this he did without talking much about
himself, or praising himself in any way when he did so. His
speech was wholly of his friend, and of the sorrow that he felt
that his friend should have been disappointed in his hopes.

All this had its effects. Of Norman's rejected love they neither
of them spoke. Each knew that the other must be aware of it, but
the subject was far too tender to be touched, at any rate as yet.
And so matters went on, and Alaric regained the footing of favour
which he had for a while lost with the mistress of the house.

But there was one inmate of Surbiton Cottage who saw that though
Alaric spent so much of his tune with Mrs. Woodward, he found
opportunity also for other private conversation; and this was
Linda. Why was it that in the moments before they dressed for
dinner Alaric was whispering with Gertrude, and not with her? Why
was it that Alaric had felt it necessary to stay from church that
Sunday evening when Gertrude also had been prevented from going
by a headache? He had remained, he said, in order that Captain
Cuttwater might have company; but Linda was not slow to learn
that Uncle Bat had been left to doze away the time by himself.
Why, on the following Monday, had Gertrude been down so early,
and why had Alaric been over from the inn full half an hour
before his usual time? Linda saw and knew all this, and was
disgusted. But even then she did not, could not think that Alaric
could be untrue to her; that her own sister would rob her of her
lover. It could not be that there should be such baseness in
human nature!

Poor Linda!

And yet, though she did not believe that such falseness could
exist in this world of hers at Surbiton Cottage, she could not
restrain herself from complaining rather petulantly to her
sister, as they were going to bed on that Sunday evening.

'I hope your headache is better,' she said, in a tone of voice as
near to irony as her soft nature could produce.

'Yes, it is quite well now,' said Gertrude, disdaining to notice
the irony.

'I dare say Alaric had a headache too. I suppose one was about as
bad as the other.'

'Linda,' said Gertrude, answering rather with dignity than with
anger, 'you ought to know by this time that it is not likely that
I should plead false excuses. Alaric never said he had a
headache.'

'He said he stayed from church to be with Uncle Bat; but when we
came back we found him with you.'

'Uncle Bat went to sleep, and then he came into the drawing-
room.'

The two girls said nothing more about it. Linda should have
remembered that she had never breathed a word to her sister of
Alaric's passion for herself. Gertrude's solemn propriety had
deterred her, just as she was about to do so. How very little of
that passion had Alaric breathed himself! and yet, alas! enough
to fill the fond girl's heart with dreams of love, which occupied
all her waking, all her sleeping thoughts. Oh! ye ruthless
swains, from whose unhallowed lips fall words full of poisoned
honey, do ye never think of the bitter agony of many months, of
the dull misery of many years, of the cold monotony of an
uncheered life, which follow so often as the consequence of your
short hour of pastime?

On the Monday morning, as soon as Alaric and Charley had started
for town--it was the morning on which Linda had been provoked to
find that both Gertrude and Alaric had been up half an hour
before they should have been--Gertrude followed her mother to her
dressing-room, and with palpitating heart closed the door behind
her.

Linda remained downstairs, putting away her tea and sugar, not in
the best of humours; but Katie, according to her wont, ran up
after her mother.

'Katie,' said Gertrude, as Katie bounced into the room, 'dearest
Katie, I want to speak a word to mamma--alone. Will you mind
going down just for a few minutes?' and she put her arm round her
sister, and kissed her with almost unwonted tenderness.

'Go, Katie, dear,' said Mrs. Woodward; and Katie, speechless,
retired.

'Gertrude has got something particular to tell mamma; something
that I may not hear. I wonder what it is about,' said Katie to
her second sister.

Linda's heart sank within her. 'Could it be? No, it could not,
could not be, that the sweet voice which had whispered in her
ears those well-remembered words, could have again whispered the
same into other ears--that the very Gertrude who had warned her
not to listen to such words from such lips, should have listened
to them herself, and have adopted them and made them her own! It
could not, could not be!' and yet Linda's heart sank low within
her.

* * * * *

'If you really love him,' said the mother, again caressing her
eldest daughter as she acknowledged her love, but hardly with
such tenderness as when that daughter had repudiated that other
love--'if you really love him, dearest, of course I do not, of
course I cannot, object.'

'I do, mamma; I do.'

'Well, then, Gertrude, so be it. I have not a word to say against
your choice. Had I not believed him to be an excellent young man,
I should not have allowed him to be here with you so much as he
has been. We cannot all see with the same eyes, dearest, can we?'

'No, mamma; but pray don't think I dislike poor Harry; and, oh!
mamma, pray don't set him against Alaric because of this----'

'Set him against Alaric! No, Gertrude. I certainly shall not do
that. But whether I can reconcile Harry to it, that is another
thing.'

'At any rate he has no right to be angry at it,' said Gertrude,
assuming her air of dignity.

'Certainly not with you, Gertrude.'

'No, nor with Alaric,' said she, almost with indignation.

'That depends on what has passed between them. It is very hard to
say how men so situated regard each other.'

'I know everything that has passed between them,' said Gertrude.
'I never gave Harry any encouragement. As soon as I understood my
own feelings I endeavoured to make him understand them also.'

'But, my dearest, no one is blaming you.'

'But you are blaming Alaric.'

'Indeed I am not, Gertrude.'

'No man could have behaved more honourably to his friend,' said
Gertrude; 'no man more nobly; and if Harry does not feel it so,
he has not the good heart for which I always gave him credit.'

'Poor fellow! his friendship for Alaric will be greatly tried.'

'And, mamma, has not Alaric's friendship been tried? and has it
not borne the trial nobly? Harry told him of--of--of his
intentions; Harry told him long, long, long ago----'

'Ah me!--poor Harry!' sighed Mrs. Woodward.

'But you think nothing of Alaric!'

'Alaric is successful, my dear, and can----' Think sufficiently
of himself, Mrs. Woodward was going to say, but she stopped
herself.

'Harry told him all,' continued Gertrude, 'and Alaric--Alaric
said nothing of his own feelings. Alaric never said a word to me
that he might not have said before his friend--till--till--You
must own, mamma, that no one can have behaved more nobly than
Alaric has done.'

Mrs. Woodward, nevertheless, had her own sentiments on the
matter, which were not quite in unison with those of her
daughter. But then she was not in love with Alaric, and her
daughter was. She thought that Alaric's love was a passion that
had but lately come to the birth, and that had he been true to
his friend--nobly true as Gertrude had described him--it would
never have been born at all, or at any rate not till Harry had
had a more prolonged chance of being successful with his suit.
Mrs. Woodward understood human nature better than her daughter,
or, at least, flattered herself that she did so, and she felt
well assured that Alaric had not been dying for love during the
period of Harry's unsuccessful courtship. He might, she thought,
have waited a little longer before he chose for his wife the girl
whom his friend had loved, seeing that he had been made the
confidant of that love.

Such were the feelings which Mrs. Woodward felt herself unable to
repress; but she could not refuse her consent to the marriage.
After all, she had some slight twinge of conscience, some inward
conviction that she was prejudiced in Harry's favour, as her
daughter was in Alaric's. Then she had lost all right to object
to Alaric, by allowing him to be so constantly at the Cottage;
and then again, there was nothing to which in reason she could
object. In point of immediate income, Alaric was now the better
match of the two. She kissed her daughter, therefore, and
promised that she would do her best to take Alaric to her heart
as her son-in-law.

'You will tell Uncle Bat, mamma?' said Gertrude.

'O yes--certainly, my dear; of course he'll be told. But I
suppose it does not make much matter, immediately?'

'I think he should be told, mamma; I should not like him to think
that he was treated with anything like disrespect.'

'Very well, my dear, I'll tell him,' said Mrs. Woodward, who was
somewhat surprised at her daughter's punctilious feelings about
Uncle Bat. However, it was all very proper; and she was glad to
think that her children were inclined to treat their grand-uncle
with respect, in spite of his long nose.

And then Gertrude was preparing to leave the room, but her mother
stopped her. 'Gertrude, dear,' said she.

'Yes, mamma.'

'Come here, dearest; shut the door. Gertrude, have you told Linda
yet?'

'No, mamma, not yet.'

As Mrs. Woodward asked the question, there was an indescribable
look of painful emotion on her brow. It did not escape Gertrude's
eye, and was not to her perfectly unintelligible. She had
conceived an idea--why, she did not know--that these recent
tidings of hers would not be altogether agreeable to her sister.

'No, mamma, I have not told her; of course I told you first. But
now I shall do so immediately.'

'Let me tell her,' said Mrs. Woodward, 'will you, Gertrude?'

'Oh! certainly, mamma, if you wish it.'

Things were going wrong with Mrs. Woodward. She had perceived,
with a mother's anxious eye, that her second daughter was not
indifferent to Alaric Tudor. While she yet thought that Norman
and Gertrude would have suited each other, this had caused her no
disquietude. She herself had entertained none of those grand
ideas to which Gertrude had given utterance with so much
sententiousness, when she silenced Linda's tale of love before
the telling of it had been commenced. Mrs. Woodward had always
felt sufficiently confident that Alaric would push himself in the
world, and she would have made no objection to him as a son-in-
law had he been contented to take the second instead of the first
of her flock.

She had never spoken to Linda on the matter, and Linda had
offered to her no confidence; but she felt all but sure that her
second child would not have entertained the affection which she
had been unable altogether to conceal, had no lover's plea been
poured into her ears. Mrs. Woodward questioned her daughters but
little, but she understood well the nature of each, and could
nearly read their thoughts. Linda's thoughts it was not difficult
to read.

'Linda, pet,' she said, as soon as she could get Linda into her
room without absolutely sending for her, 'you have not yet heard
Gertrude's news?'

'No,' said Linda, turning very pale, and feeling that her heart
was like to burst.

'I would let no one tell you but myself, Linda. Come here,
dearest; don't stand there away from me. Can you guess what it
is?'

Linda, for a moment, could not speak. 'No, mamma,' she said at
last, 'I don't know what it is.'

Mrs. Woodward twined her arm round her daughter's waist, as they
sat on the sofa close to each other. Linda tried to compose
herself, but she felt that she was trembling in her mother's
arms. She would have given anything to be calm; anything to hide
her secret. She little guessed then how well her mother knew it.
Her eyes were turned down, and she found that she could not raise
them to her mother's face.

'No, mamma,' she said. 'I don't know--what is it?'

'Gertrude is to be married, Linda. She is engaged.'

'I thought she refused Harry,' said Linda, through whose mind a
faint idea was passing of the cruelty of nature's arrangements,
which gave all the lovers to her sister.

'Yes, dearest, she did; and now another has made an offer--she
has accepted him.' Mrs. Woodward could hardly bring herself to
speak out that which she had to say, and yet she felt that she
was only prolonging the torture for which she was so anxious to
find a remedy.

'Has she?' said Linda, on whom the full certainty of her misery
had now all but come.

'She has accepted our dear Alaric.'

Our dear Alaric! what words for Linda's ears! They did reach her
ears, but they did not dwell there--her soft gentle nature sank
beneath the sound. Her mother, when she looked to her for a
reply, found that she was sinking through her arms. Linda had
fainted.

Mrs. Woodward neither screamed, nor rang for assistance, nor
emptied the water-jug over her daughter, nor did anything else
which would have the effect of revealing to the whole household
the fact that Linda had fainted. She had seen girls faint before,
and was not frightened. But how, when Linda recovered, was she to
be comforted?

Mrs. Woodward laid her gently on the sofa, undid her dress,
loosened her stays, and then sat by her chafing her hands, and
moistening her lips and temples, till gradually the poor girl's
eyes reopened. The recovery from a fainting fit, a real fainting
fit I beg young ladies to understand, brings with it a most
unpleasant sensation, and for some minutes Linda's sorrow was
quelled by her sufferings; but as she recovered her strength she
remembered where she was and what had happened, and sobbing
violently she burst into an hysterical storm of tears.

Her most poignant feeling now was one of fear lest her mother
should have guessed her secret; and this Mrs. Woodward well
understood. She could do nothing towards comforting her child
till there was perfect confidence between them. It was easy to
arrive at this with Linda, nor would it afterwards be difficult
to persuade her as to the course she ought to take. The two girls
were so essentially different; the one so eager to stand alone
and guide herself, the other so prone to lean on the nearest
support that came to her hand.

It was not long before Linda had told her mother everything.
Either by words, or tears, or little signs of mute confession,
she made her mother understand, with all but exactness, what had
passed between Alaric and herself, and quite exactly what had
been the state of her own heart. She sobbed, and wept, and looked
up to her mother for forgiveness as though she had been guilty of
a great sin; and when her mother caressed her with all a mother's
tenderness, and told her that she was absolved from all fault,
free of all blame, she was to a certain degree comforted.
Whatever might now happen, her mother would be on her side. But
Mrs. Woodward, when she looked into the matter, found that it was
she that should have demanded pardon of her daughter, not her
daughter of her! Why had this tender lamb been allowed to wander
out of the fold, while a wolf in sheep's clothing was invited
into the pasture-ground?

Gertrude, with her talent, her beauty, and dignity of demeanour,
had hitherto been, perhaps, the closest to the mother's heart--
had been, if not the most cherished, yet the most valued;
Gertrude had been the apple of her eye. This should be altered
now. If a mother's love could atone for a mother's negligence,
Mrs. Woodward would atone to her child for this hour of misery!
And Katie--her sweet bonny Katie--she, at least, should be
protected from the wolves. Those were the thoughts that passed
through Mrs. Woodward's heart as she sat there caressing Linda.
But how were things to be managed now at the present moment? It
was quite clear that the wolf in sheep's clothing must be
admitted into the pastoral family; either that, or the fairest
lamb of the flock must be turned out altogether, to take upon
herself lupine nature, and roam the woods a beast of prey. As
matters stood it behoved them to make such a sheep of Alaric as
might be found practicable.