Eli's Children: The Chronicles of an Unhappy Family

Part 1, Chapter XXXIII.
The Rector Gives Way

Cyril Mallow was right. He had three women to fight upon his side, and he was not long in bringing their power to bear. Petted, spoiled son as he was, literally idolised by the patient invalid, to whom his presence formed the greater part of the sunshine of her life, he was not long in winning her to his side.

“It is no light fancy, dear,” he said tenderly, as he sat beside her couch. “She is to me the woman who will bless my life as you have blessed my father’s.”

The sick woman shook her head mournfully.

“I repeat my words,” he said: “as you have blessed my father’s life. Well, I have been restless and foolish, perhaps, but I am sobered down now, and I mean to marry. I cannot help it, mamma, and I am quite prepared to have plenty of opposition to my proposal, and to be told that I am marrying beneath me; all the same, I mean to marry Sage Portlock, and I ask you to help me.”

Mrs Mallow tried persuasion, pointed out how directly this would be in opposition to his father’s wishes, and how the Churchwarden had set his face against it; but all she said only seemed to strengthen her son’s desire, and the natural consequence was that very soon Mrs Mallow began to talk earnestly to the Rector, but for quite a month without any other effect than angering him more against his son, whom he accused of fighting against his sisters’ prospects.

But when the father began to find that with patient pertinacity the son was keeping up his pursuit of Sage, the words of his wife began to have more effect, and one day, during a visit to the school, the old gentleman found himself speaking to Sage with greater deference, and thoughtfully musing over the possibility of her becoming his sons wife.

“It is terrible though,” he mused; “just as his sisters are about to make brilliant matches. It is like degrading them.”

That night, however, the Rector heard something about Cyril having been seen a great deal down by the ford lately, and quick to take alarm, warned as he had been by earlier escapades, he began to think more seriously, and went down to the school a great deal more.

“Better that than disgrace,” he said; “a fresh scandal would almost kill her, poor sweet. Ah, me! she has much to bear.”

He sighed weakly and went to the school again, setting Sage Portlock in a flutter by his quiet paternal ways, and he came away at last avowing that if the object of his son’s affections had been the daughter of a brother clergyman, he would have been delighted to find in her the child his son should bring to him to take a place within his heart.

Then he began thinking about Lord Artingale and Mr Perry-Morton, and he grew angry; but again he was obliged to say to himself, It would settle Cyril perhaps. Better that than a fresh scandal.

He tried to find failings in Sage – seeing in her conduct cause of offence – but without avail, for she gave him no hold whatever, and he went away thinking of her deeply, and wondering what was to be the end.

Cyril Mallow smiled as he saw that he was right, and that it was only a matter of time. He liked Sage Portlock, and he told himself that he loved her passionately, and that without her he should die, and then he entered into pecuniary calculations.

“The old man must leave her at least half of what he has, and every one in Lawford says he is well off, so that it will be a pleasant little bit of revenge to spend the old hunks’s money for the way in which he abused me. Then there is poor mamma’s money. That must come to me, so that we shall be pretty well off. Bah! it will all come right in time. But I hope Frank is not playing the fool about little Rue.”

After the stern encounter with the Churchwarden, and the angry words with his father, Cyril thought it prudent to keep away from Kilby Farm, and ceased to watch for Sage as she was going to or leaving school; but he rearranged his seat in the rectory pew, so that he could see her where she sat in church, became more regular than ever in his attendance, and sat through his father’s sermons gazing pensively at the young schoolmistress.

People said he was growing pale and thin, which was a fact easily explicable, for he smoked from morning to night, and the healthy brown of the last sea voyage was fading away consequent upon his indoor life.

“If I kick up a row I shall do no good,” he argued, “so I may as well wait. I could persuade her to run away with me, but then we should be confoundedly short of money till the old folks forgave us, and I’m sick of that sort of thing. No, I think the injured dodge is best, for it pays all round.”

He was quite right; and while he shut himself up with his brother in the room devoted to their personal use, read Bell’s Life in London, and sent communications to one or two betting men in town whenever he had the necessary funds at his disposal, everything was working steadily to the end he sought to gain.

His quiet acceptance, as it seemed to the Rector and Portlock, of the commands which he had received, gave him, in the eyes of the other interested parties, an injured, martyrlike air, and, though she did not meet him now, Sage’s thoughts were none the less busy about him. His every word had impressed her deeply, and day by day, in spite of her efforts to be true to her promise, she felt that she was falling more and more away.

This was plainly shown in her letters to Luke Ross, to whom she wrote weekly, hearing from him regularly in return. But he noted the gradual change in her communications. They grew shorter by degrees; less full of chatty little paragraphs about herself and her daily life. Still she did not fail to send to him once. It had become a habit – a duty – and while she did this she told herself that she was making a brave fight against her weak heart, and hiding the truth from Luke, little thinking that her notes laid her heart quite bare to the reader.

For it is a very strange thing how the feelings of a writer at the time of writing infuse themselves in the words. A note may contain only a thousand, and those thousand words relate certain matters, but from one writer they will seem to flow with affection, from another be calm, cool, and simply matter-of-fact. The sentences shall be almost the same, the words be very little varied, and yet, even without endearing expressions, one letter shall breathe and emanate affection, the other be friendliness alone.

So, by slow degrees, it was with Sage’s letters to her lover; and at first, as the idea stole upon him that she was growing colder, Luke Ross fought back the cruel thought, telling himself that he was wrong, and that hard study was souring his disposition, making him exacting and strange.

But as time went on he was obliged to realise the truth, and he wrote reproachful letters, but only tore them up again, to write others in his old, simple, confiding strain.

He longed to go down and see her more often, but kept putting it off till she should express a wish for him to come, hinting at it, and expecting that some such invitation would be contained in the next letter; but he hoped against hope.

Then a week passed without any communication from Lawford, and Luke packed up a few things in a bag, and started for his old home, but only to return directly to his chambers.

“She is not ill,” he said to himself. “If she had been some one would have written to tell me. I’ll wait.”

He waited, and at the appointed time – at the end of another week – a letter came, very similar to the last, and in which she said that she would have written as usual, only that she was very busy.

“Very busy,” said Luke to himself, as he sat in his dingy room, gazing straight before him, through the dull window, at the smoky chimney-pots, but seeing, as in a picture, the interior of Lawford Girls’ School, with its mistress moving from class to class. “Very busy.”

He sighed deeply, and went on with his reading.

From that time Sage’s letters came fortnightly, Luke sending two for one, but he made no complaint, keeping rigidly to his old stern determination.

“I said I would place myself in a worthy position to win her,” he said. “That I will do. What is more, I will be faithful, come what may – faithful, even in my belief in her.”

He sat, hot of eye and weary of brain, thinking whether he ought not to go down and see why this gradual change was taking place, but in his stern repression of self he felt that to go down unexpectedly would be like mistrusting the woman he hoped to make his wife, and this he could not bear.

Study – hard study – was Luke Ross’s medicine for a mind diseased, and whenever doubting thoughts and mistrust came hand in hand to torture him he forced himself to attend to his studies, making, by prodigious efforts, great advances in the learned treatises he was striving to master, but only at the expense of his health.

“It is for Sage,” he said, by way of encouragement, and when doubts became very strong he held up the shield of his faith.

“No,” he would say aloud, “writing is, perhaps, irksome to one who has so much to do, but her heart is mine, and save from her own lips I would never believe that she could let it stray.”

In his stern determination to master the profession for which he was reading, Luke Ross only allowed himself a very rare visit home; and though he had felt frequent urgings of late he fought them down, setting his teeth, and vowing that he would not go before the appointed time.

It was a terrible fight when once the dire attacks of doubt were made, and repeated from day to day, for during the weeks of the past month Sage’s letters had grown more irregular still, as if she felt emboldened to be more careless from that absence of reproach. But the truth was that every letter from London was read by Sage with bitter misery and reproach, and her replies were often so blotted with tears that they were destroyed instead of being posted, and it was only those which escaped the fire which he received.

It only wanted a week of the time he had settled in his own mind, and in spite of his efforts to be calm, it was almost more than he could do to keep on with his task. A strong feeling was urging him to go down at once, see Sage, and learn the worst, for a fortnight had again passed and no letter.

Twenty times over he threw his books aside and started up to go, but upon each occasion the indomitable power of will that helped him to make the great efforts to master his profession – a power of will that had already stood him in such good stead during his stay at Saint Chrysostom’s – came to his aid, and he fought out the miseries of that last week and won. “I will – not – show – mistrust,” he said, sternly, as if addressing an unseen accuser of Sage; “I gave – her – my – love – and – I – will – never – take – it – from – her. If – she – cast – it – away – then – the – act – is – hers – not – mine.”

This, slowly repeated, with a pause between the words, became, as it were, a formula impressed in his mind, and it seemed to him that he had become Sage’s advocate, bound to defend her against unseen accusers.

At last, having no longer any conscientious reasons for deferring his visit, he hastily packed his bag and closed up his dreary little chambers, feeling, as he went out into busy roaring Fleet-street, that the rest was absolutely necessary, for his head throbbed and seemed confused, troubled as it had been with conflicting emotions.

It was winter once more, but one of those mild seasons when balmy winds from the west tempt the wild flowers into a belief that it is spring, and sweetly-scented violets make the air redolent of their homely, heart-appealing fragrance, when from amongst the dark dead leaves the tender green of the crinkled primrose roots could be seen surrounding here and there a pale sulphur blossom.

It was such a change from the smoke-haunted, soot-dotted city region of the law, that fifteen-mile coach ride, after the run down by fast train, that as Luke gazed over the flat landscape illumined by the mellow glow of the wintry sun, and noted the silvery bronze of the young oak stems, and the ruddy birch and ashes grey, he felt a joyous elasticity of frame; his pulses throbbed with pleasure, and before they reached the town he determined to alight and follow the mossy lane to the left, two miles of whose windings would take him within a hundred yards of Kilby, the time fitting so well that he knew he should intercept Sage as she left the school, which would not break up for the holidays until the following day.

Home again, after many months’ absence – months of stern self-denial; and as he leaped down from his seat on the coach, leaving his portmanteau for delivery at the inn, he felt so boyish and light-hearted that he began to run along the lane.

“What nonsense!” he said, half aloud. “One shuts oneself up in that little hole and reads and reads till one’s brain gets clogged, and full of unwholesome fancies. What a brute I am to let such thoughts creep in, when I’ll wager anything that my darling is longing to see me back.”

He stopped to pick a primrose, then another, and a violet. Walked rapidly on again, but paused to select a couple of bramble-leaves of a most glorious deep green bronze. Then there was a beautiful privet spray, and another primrose or two, and by degrees, as he hurried on with little pauses, a goodly wild bouquet had been culled, and he smiled as he saw in imagination Sage’s delight at his present.

“Heaven bless her!” he said, half aloud, and, all unpleasant suspicions gone, he walked on with his eyes half closed, revelling in a kind of day-dream full of delights, the only jarring thought being that he was coming to see Sage before paying his duty to his father at home.

“He’ll forgive me,” he said. “He knows how I love her. Why, what a boy I feel to-day! It’s this delicious air that has not been breathed by two million sets of lungs.”

“There’s the farm,” he said. “How clean the windows must be to reflect the setting sun like that. Different to mine. I wonder how Mrs Portlock is, and what the old lady will say?”

He hurried on, eager to reach the narrow cross where the Kilby lane and the one he was in intersected, and, once there, he meant to mount the high bank, and wait by the old mossy oak pollard, watching for Sage’s steps, so as to give her a surprise by throwing the bouquet of wild flowers at her feet, and then —

And then? – Alas! how pleasant is that habit of castle-building in the air. How brightly the edifices are raised, how quickly, how dismally they fall! Luke had planned all so well, and hurried on along the soft, mossy border of the lane, heedless of the winter’s dirt, till he reached the cross, turned sharply, and then stopped short, uttering a low moan as he reeled against the hedge, clutching at the thorns for a support.

Part 1, Chapter XXXIV.
An Invitation

Cyril Mallow’s plan of playing what he called a waiting game had the effect he anticipated, and when he thought that the time was ripe he sent a very tenderly-worded letter, full of gentle reproach, to Sage, telling her that he had fought, no one knew how hard, to master his feelings, but that it was all in vain; that he could not bear his existence there, and that he was going abroad – anywhere, he said – and he wished it was out of the world.

It was just at a time when the Rector was in high glee, for there had been no parish troubles for some time. He was beginning to make the people understand him, he told the curate, who bowed and said nothing, though he did think about his efforts to preserve peace. Julia and Cynthia were staying in town with Claudine and Faustine Perry-Morton, an act of kindness those ladies said, while their dear brother was forced to be in Rome, where the new art society had invited him to be president and inaugurate their proceedings. Then, although Frank was still at home, leading a life that, if he had been a poor man’s son, would have been called “loafing,” there was hope for Cyril, and a chance for weaning him from this attachment for Sage Portlock. In fact, jumping at a hint from the Rector, Lord Artingale had gone to Magnus and asked his advice, which was freely given, with a good idea or two how to set about it, and the result was that he had the pleasure of writing down to the Rector that the Duke of Borwick had given him an excellent post for his friend.

“It is only five hundred a year,” wrote Lord Artingale, “but I dare say something better will come.”

The Rector took the letter into Mrs Mallow’s room after reading it in the grape house, where he had been busy trimming special bunches intended for the invalid’s use.

“He’s a good fellow, Artingale, a thoroughly good fellow,” he said. “Sunshine at last for that unhappy boy.”

“Our son, Eli,” said Mrs Mallow, reproachfully. “If he is unhappy, may not we be to blame?”

The Rector’s delight was of short duration, for Cyril’s next move was to tell his father flatly that he had not been consulted, and that he should decline the post.

“But you must take it, Cyril,” said his father. “Why, my boy, I have been so full of hope that since our last quarrel you had seen the folly of your ways, and were becoming obedient, and willing to take your place in the duties of the world.”

“I have tried,” said Cyril, mournfully.

“You have, I know, my boy,” cried the Rector, “and conquered.”

“Conquered!” said Cyril, tragically. “No, father, I have obeyed you, and kept away from Sage Portlock, but I am more than ever her slave.”

He strode out of the room, leaving the Rector wishing that the Portlocks had never come to Kilby, and that he had never made such a protégée of Sage, ending by going into Mrs Mallow’s room to pour out his plaints in her willing ear.

“What is to be done with the boy?” he said, dolefully. “I will never get into a passion with him again. But what is to be done? He has some plan in view.”

“Let me see him,” said Mrs Mallow. “Give me some latitude, dear, and I will try to bring him to a better way of thinking.”

“Do what you will,” said the unhappy father, “only bring him to his senses. Here have I been almost on my knees to Artingale to get him this post, and now he says that he will not have it.”

“He would take it if we consented to his marrying Sage Portlock.”

“But we can’t, my dear. It is impossible,” cried the Rector.

Mrs Mallow was silent, and the Rector left the room.

Five minutes later, in obedience to her summons, Cyril was at his mother’s side, talking to her in a depressed but very determined way.

“Go back with Frank, Cyril!” she said, piteously. “It would break my heart.”

“You said that it would break if I were to die.”

“Yes,” she faltered.

“Well, I shall die naturally or unnaturally if I stop here,” he said coldly. “I cannot bear it any longer. You know how I have tried.”

Mrs Mallow laid her hand upon her side.

“Then you must fight against all that pain and suffering for my sake, mamma dear,” he said, bending over her, and kissing her tenderly.

“But you will take this post, Cyril?” she said, imploringly.

“What?” he cried, angrily. “No, I am going back to the other side of the world.”

He strode out of the room, and for the next two or three days there was misery in the house. Cyril was ill, and kept his bed, and his fond mother, who believed in him thoroughly, seeing nothing in his nature but a little wilfulness, was in agony till, after a series of long consultations with the Rector, the latter gave way.

“If we do consent, I am sure all will be well,” said Mrs Mallow, feebly.

“If I give way, will he promise to take the clerkship?” said the Rector. “Artingale will never forgive me if it is thrown up. He said that he had to beg for it humbly, and that he would never have done it but for me.”

“I will undertake to say that he will,” said Mrs Mallow.

Just then the Rector sniffed. “What is it, dear?” exclaimed the invalid. “I smell burning,” he said. “Fire, dear?” she exclaimed, excitedly, as she thought of her helpless condition. “No, dear,” he said: “smoke.”

“Then there must be fire,” she cried, clinging to his hands.

“No, no,” he said, trying to soothe her alarm. “It is tobacco. Surely Cyril would not smoke up-stairs?”

“Oh, no, dear; and he is too ill,” said the fond mother. “Poor boy!”

“Then it must have been Frank down-stairs,” said the Rector. “But to go back. Now, look here, dear, can you guarantee that?”

“I am sure I can.”

“But it is such a descent. Think of Lord Artingale.”

“Don’t say that, dear,” said Mrs Mallow. “I have thought over it so long. You say yourself that she is a good, sweet girl, and I am sure when I saw her I thought so, too. Well, then, why should pride stand in the way?”

“Yes, she is very nice,” said the Rector, “and I am willing to forget all about birth and position; but then there are our girls.”

“But if it is to be the winning of our boy to the life we wish him to lead? I’m sure he loves her very dearly.”

“Better than himself,” said the Rector, bitterly.

“Oh, Eli, do not talk like that,” sighed the invalid. “For my sake and his – let pride be set aside. If Henry Artingale really cares for Cynthia he will not mind, and as for Mr Perry-Morton, I heard when we were in town that his father made an immense fortune in some very low class trade. Say yes, and let us hope that Sage – ”

“Sage!” said the Rector. “Bitter herb! A pity it is not Rue. Bitter herbs for us to eat. Heigho! nothing but troubles, I suppose. Then you quite adopt her now?”

“For my boy’s sake – yes,” said the invalid. “Then you do give way?”

“For the last time – yes.”

“And you will go and see the Portlocks?”

“Yes.”

“And I may tell Cyril this?”

“Yes.”

“God bless you, Eli! You are always good to me,” sobbed the poor woman; and the tears stood in her husband’s eyes as he knelt down and took her in his arms. At that time Mr Cyril Mallow, the sick, sat up in bed and lit a fresh cigar before comfortably rearranging himself for a good skim of the sporting papers.

About a couple of hours after, as the Churchwarden was returning from a round amongst his sheep, he caught sight of the Rector coming to meet him, when a long conversation took place, one that ended by the gate leading into the home close.

“Well, parson,” said Portlock, as they parted, “as I said before, I’ll make no promises but this – I won’t be hard. My niece’s happiness is what I wish to bring about before I die; and if she wants to have him, and he really will steady down and make her a good husband, why, I suppose it must be. Now I must go away and think.”

They shook hands and parted, the Rector going thoughtfully home with his hands behind him, and his stick whisking right and left, tail fashion, and up and down, while he talked to himself about his weakness in giving way, and wondering what was to be the outcome of an arrangement that seemed like breaking faith on his part with Luke Ross.

As he reached the gate he smelt the smoke of a cigar, and, in spite of his knowledge of his son’s ways, he could not help feeling surprised at the sight of Cyril coolly walking up and down, the message he had had from his mother having apparently effected a miraculous cure.

“Better, Cyril?” he said, drily.

“Yes, sir, I’m pretty well all right now,” was the reply; and the Rector sighed, and began to feel a strange sensation of regret stealing over him, as once more he asked himself what was to be the end.

Meanwhile, the Churchwarden had gone on to the farm, and entered by the kitchen door, where Mrs Portlock was busy dividing her attention between scolding the maids and mincing meat for sausages.

He gave her a short nod, and went on into the parlour, treading upon the mats so as to make no sound, and there finding Sage so preoccupied that, as she sat with her back to him, she did not notice her uncle’s entrance.

Pen, ink, and paper were before her, and on her right an envelope.

This was directed in a plain, clear hand – so plain that the farmer could easily read it from where he stood.

It bore the name of Luke Ross, and she had prepared the envelope before writing her letter, for upon the sheet of paper was the date, and then came the three words, “My dear Luke.”

That was all, and the marks that followed upon the paper were made by tears.

“It is like living a lie,” he heard her say, with a passionate sigh; and then she started up, for she became aware of her uncle’s presence in the room.

“Why, Sage, lass,” he said, gently, “do you always cry over your letters to Luke Ross?”

She looked piteously in his face, but said no word.

“Is it because he is so long away, my lass? Well, well, we shall have him back these holidays, and it won’t be long.”

He was watching her intently as he spoke, and he saw that not only did she turn pale, but a spasm as of pain crossed her face.

“Thou dost not look well, my pet,” he said, gently. “There, there, put the writing away, and come and sit by me while I have my pipe. I don’t like my little one to be so dull. Why, Sage, what’s come of all the songs? You used to be always singing and making the house cheery. I’m thinking you work too hard.”

“Oh, no, no, uncle,” she cried, forcing a smile.

“Then you think too much, child. You must have more change. Parson didn’t come in here, did he, my lass?”

“No, uncle,” she said, starting.

“No, I thought he wouldn’t; but he came to meet me, and he brought a message for thee, my girl.”

“For me, uncle?” she cried, crimsoning to the parting of her hair.

“Ay, he did. He says he has to be out a deal, and Mrs Mallow finds it lonesome at times without her girls; and he said, as a favour, would you mind going up and seeing her, and sitting with her and reading a bit?”

“Oh, no, uncle,” faltered Sage, crimsoning more deeply, every trace of emotion being duly noted by him who was probing her to the quick. “But would Mrs Mallow – ?”

She paused without finishing her sentence.

“Like it?” he said, finishing the sentence for her. “To be sure she would, my pet. What a one I am to deliver a message. It was her who asked the Rector to bid you come; and, as I thought you wouldn’t mind, I just said that you would go.”

“Oh, uncle, but I – I dare not,” cried Sage, excitedly.

“Stuff! Tchah! Nonsense, my dear. What’s to be afraid of! They’re gentlepeople, I s’pose, but they’re only human beings after all, and you’ve nothing to be ashamed of, I’m sure. I told parson you’d go on this afternoon, as there was no school, and he said I was not to be uneasy, for some one should see you home.”

Sage’s colour came and went as she sat there trembling, and painfully conscious.

Some one should see her home – some one should see her home. The words kept repeating themselves in her ears till she felt giddy.

What did it all mean? Why did her uncle speak to her in this gentle way? What more had passed between him and the Rector?

She gazed in his face at this, and a score more such questions repeated themselves, while the answers seemed far away.

“Go up to the rectory to-day, uncle?” she faltered at last. “I dare not go.”

“But I wish you to go,” he said, decidedly, and Sage’s heart gave one great joyful throb.

Had it been left to her she would have stayed away, but her uncle wished her to go – he literally bade her go.

The end of the matter was, that after being egged on by her aunt to dress herself in the showiest things she possessed, and having the good sense, in spite of the feeling of delirious joy that had taken possession of her, to attire herself with great simplicity, she walked, with fluttering heart, up to the rectory, where the Rev. Eli Mallow himself met her at the door with a paternal empressement of manner that was quite tender in its way, as he drew her hand through his arm, and led her up-stairs to Mrs Mallow’s room.