Chapter XLVI: Conclusion

It is not necessary to go into details, and tell how Mrs. Meredith forgave her son and received her new daughter. In any case, I don’t believe she would have been capable of ‘hurting Agnes’s feelings’ by a cold reception; but as it was, she was as tender to her as if she been her own daughter, and Oswald was the stranger husband who had to be forgiven. A great deal of this was that superlative politeness which was part of her nature, and part of it was the result of Edward’s communication. The cloud which had spoilt everything was definitely lifted from her life, and to be good to the trembling, timid bride, which was the first kind action within her reach, was Mrs. Meredith’s way of thanksgiving for her happiness. It must be allowed it is not a bad way, as good as giving public thanks in church, or perhaps better, though that is good too. When Agnes began a faltering confession of wrong doing, Mrs. Meredith kissed her and stopped her.

‘My dear, we will think nothing more of that,’ she said; ‘we might have wished it otherwise; but no one is beyond the reach of accident, and this will end most happily, please God, for all of us.’

The result of the interview was that Agnes fell in love with her mother-in-law--not a very usual thing, if one puts one’s faith in books, yet not unparalleled. They understood each other, or rather the elder woman understood the younger, and with her warm natural charity was able to comprehend and excuse everything. She looked with a little wonder and amusement at the awe with which Agnes still regarded her bridegroom. That there should be someone in the world who did not simply make allowance for Oswald, and love him in spite of his faults, but to whom his faults were as yet invisible, and himself worthy of deepest respect and admiration, was a thing which was very amusing to his mother. She could scarcely keep from smiling when she saw the serious looks of veneration which his wife gave him. ‘Hush, hush,’ she said, when Edward, grown saucy, ventured to smile at his brother, and when she even herself felt tempted to say, ‘How like Oswald!’ Oswald was like everything that was fine and noble and generous to his bride.

‘And if he did not think of himself quite so much, how good my poor boy is,’ the mother said, with tears in her eyes; and in future, perhaps, he would not think so much of himself.

Anyhow, on the other side everybody was quite satisfied. Oswald, never ungenerous, made settlements upon his wife after they were married which filled the Burchell family with admiration. And they got a pretty little house, and made a kind of religion of furnishing it; and for every pretty thing they got, Agnes, compunctious, hurried down to the House and devised something for the orphans. Sister Mary Jane grew used to these visits, and, being a wise woman, restrained undue liberalities. She gave a great deal of good advice to the young wife. ‘If you take on another child for every bit of china,’ she said, ‘there will soon be no room for the girls, and no money left in the purse.’

‘Oh, how can I let money be spent for nothings, when I know how much need there is in the world!’ cried Agnes. It was difficult to answer such arguments. As for Oswald, he never attempted to answer them. He gave her to understand that she was a mixture of a goose and an angel.

‘Both have wings, you know,’ he said, going away lighthearted to his pleasures, and understanding about as much of the more serious feelings in her mind as her baby did when she had one, which fortunately was in good time. He made the best of husbands, ever eager that she should spend more money on her dressmaker, entertain more, have all manner of pleasures. Louisa Burchell, who was the next sister, thought the little house in Mayfair was like heaven; and Mrs. Burchell kept a list of the important people to whose houses Agnes was asked, looking up her noble acquaintances in the peerage, and finding out the incomes of the rich ones, and the works of those who wrote or painted (though these last figured much less largely in her mind). And Agnes was happy; to have a husband you love, and in due time a pretty baby; and a delightful little house in Mayfair, and a pair of ponies, and more dresses and bonnets than you wish for--could there be a happier lot? If a young woman in such beatific circumstances got confused sometimes in her mind, and wondered whether it might not be better to walk about at the head of a procession of school girls in a black cloak and poke-bonnet, and to work in stuffy schoolrooms, and to have no more recreation than could be got among the girls in St. Cecilia, what could that be but momentary aberration or even a kind of temporary insanity? Is not a wife better than a Sister? Oswald had no kind of doubt on the subject when he saw his beautiful young wife at the head of his table, and reflected with inward complacency upon the aspect she bore when first he saw her, though at that time he had thought the poke-bonnet half-divine. But Agnes was not so sure, had not such unhesitating convictions as her husband, and wondered. This, perhaps, was the penalty she paid for her escapade. Oswald’s light-heartedness was alien to her serious mood. He took his existence so easily! and she knew that life was not so easy a matter, and would take an occasional panic as the fair landscape glided past her, the beautiful days and years flying away from her as fields and trees do on a journey, when you seem yourself to be stationary, and it is the country about that flies and travels on either side.

If she had known him longer, if she had known him better, would it have made any difference? In all probability not the slightest, and she did not ask herself that question; for, after all, Oswald was Oswald, and the only man in the whole world----

As for the other personages mentioned in these pages, their affairs worked themselves out as was to be expected, with no very extraordinary results. Roger Burchell recovered of his wound because he could not help it, not with any will of his; and went out to India in due time, where he did very well and made steady progress, but neither then nor now became very remarkable. He married too in the due course of events, when he could afford it--as most men do, except perhaps in the very heart and centre of society, a sect so small that it does not affect the world’s continuance, nor need necessarily affect our peace of mind who look on. He forgot Cara and the chapter in his life which was dominated by her, far more completely than the romantic reader would believe possible, and was not at all sure after he had been some years married whether it was not he who had behaved badly to her; and, indeed, I think his wife had this impression, and never having seen this object of his early affections, was rather pleased to believe Cara a little flirt with whom her Roger had been involuntarily ‘entangled,’ but escaped in time. So stories are travestied and turned into myths with piquant change of circumstance all over the world.

Mr. Maxwell had a more unlikely fate. Bursting out of No. 6 in the Square, in the trouble of his mind, after that unlucky interference which had come to less than nothing, but which must, he felt sure, cost him his friends, he went with murderous energy through all his round of patients, and took it out of them with unregulated zeal, making his hypochondriacs really ill by way of variety, twisting the joints and cramping the sinews of the unhappy people in his hands as cruelly as Prospero. This way of avenging himself upon mankind, however, did not prevent him from suffering tortures in his own person. Should he apologise--should he appeal to Cara to intercede for him? Should he go humbly to the feet of the injured one, and ask to be kicked and forgiven? He adopted another expedient more wonderful than any of these. Next day was the day of his weekly visit to the Hill. Lovelier lights and visions than those that revealed themselves through the openings of the trees on that sweetest day of June could scarcely be. The sky was as soft as a child’s eyes--the air as its breath. The trees hung rich and close still in their early green, throwing their wealth of foliage all the more closely together to hide that the flowers were over, the may faded, the golden laburnum boughs all dropped to dust. Through the leafy arches came glimpses of the great plain all billowy with trees, shadowing far into the blue distance, and the great grey castle with its royal flag. Underneath on the hedgerows there was one flush of the wild rose lighting up the winding road as with a smile. To live on such a day was enough for pleasure. To move through it easily without fatigue, with trees waving over you, and the unfathomable blue shining, and the sun throwing magical gleams over the landscape, hushed even the most restless soul to a semblance of goodness and happiness. Unless you happen to be toiling along a dusty road, in the blaze of the sunshine, in tight boots, or a dress too warm for the season, which circumstances I allow to be contrary both to happiness and goodness, I cannot understand how you could refuse to be good and happy on such a day.

But everything promoted these exemplary sensations about the Hill. Fatigue was not there, nor dust, nor undue heat. Old Miss Charity in her sun-bonnet, and less old but still not young Miss Cherry in her cool and soft grey gown, were on the lawn, surrounded by a world of roses--roses everywhere in standards, in dwarfs, on trellis-work, over arches, along the walls. The air was just touched by them to a delicate sweetness, to be elevated into beatitude when you approached your face to a particular flower. Mr. Maxwell arrived with his troubled soul, and the ladies made much of him. They compassionated him for his hot drive. They offered him tea; they gave him, on his refusal of the tea, claret cup with great bits of ice tinkling in it, and making a grateful noise. They gave him a comfortable chair on the lawn, where he had his doctors’ talk with old Miss Charity, and felt her pulse and admired its steady beat, not one more or less than it ought to be. ‘Please God, if I live long enough, I’ll pull you along to a hundred,’ he said, with professional enthusiasm. ‘But I shall not live long enough,’ he added, in a despondent tone.

‘How old are you now?’ said Miss Charity. ‘Fifty? phoo, nonsense. I am seventy-three. I want only seven-and-twenty of the hundred. You will be just over my present age when we’ve accomplished it. And what a thing to have lived for?’ The old lady was more ready for the joke than he was--he shook his head.

‘You can’t think what foolish things I have been doing,’ he said; ‘never man made a greater fool of himself.’

‘You have been asking someone to marry you, my poor man!’

‘No, by Jove! I never thought of that,’ he said, looking up quickly. Miss Cherry had walked discreetly out of hearing, as she always did while they had their medical talk. This was evidently a new idea to the doctor. ‘No,’ he went on, ‘trying to keep other people from marrying, that was all.’

‘Still sillier; they will hate you for ever and ever,’ Miss Charity said, in her ignorance, seated cool and smiling in her garden chair.

Meanwhile Miss Cherry strayed to one of the openings and looked wistfully across the country. She wanted to hear about ‘the child.’ A thousand questions were on her lips, but in her soft old-maidenly self-consciousness she did not like to take the doctor aside in her turn, and there were questions which she did not wish to ask in her aunt’s presence. It may be imagined then what her surprise was when, startled by a voice at her elbow, she turned round and found the doctor by her side. ‘The views are lovely to-day,’ he said; but he was not thinking of the views, Miss Cherry could see. Had he something painful to tell her--had anything gone wrong? She began to ask a few faltering questions. ‘Tell me about Cara,’ she said. ‘I am so hungering for news of the child.’ Miss Cherry looked up pathetically in the doctor’s face with wistful anxiety in her soft eyes--everything about her was soft, from her grey gown to her eyes. A mild consolatory woman, not charming like Mrs. Meredith, not clever like other people he knew, but a refreshment, like green lawns and green leaves and quietness to the heart. The doctor turned round to see that nobody was looking. The old lady, who had her suspicions of him, had gone in, and like a naughty old lady as she was, had gone upstairs to a bedroom window, where she stood behind the curtains, chuckling to herself, to watch the result. When Mr. Maxwell saw the coast was clear and nobody looking (as he thought), he turned round again to Miss Cherry, who stood anxiously waiting for the next word, and deliberately, without a word of preface, fired as it were point blank into her with a pistol at her heart--that is to say, he proposed. A greater shock never was administered by any human being to another. Right off on the spot, without wasting any words, he offered her himself and his brougham and his practice and all that he had. The old lady at the window--naughty old lady!--could make out the very moment when it was done, and saw Cherry’s start and jump of amazement. ‘Will she have him?’ she asked herself. ‘I could not put up with a man in my house.’ But it does not do to take a gentle old maiden like Miss Cherry so suddenly. In the very extremity of her surprise, she said no. How she trembled! ‘Oh no, I could not, I could not, thank you, Mr. Maxwell! I am too old _now_. Long ago I might have thought of such a thing; but I could not, I could not. It is not possible. You must excuse me _now_.’

‘Oh, no one will force you, Miss Cherry, against your inclination,’ said the doctor, angry and discomfited. And without waiting to say good-day to his patient, he went off and threw himself into his brougham more uncomfortable than before.

Whether Miss Cherry ever regretted this I cannot tell--perhaps if she had not been so entirely taken by surprise--but ‘Oh no, oh no,’ she said to herself, ‘I could not have done it. It would have been cheating Cara.’ But what a shock it was on that June afternoon! As if the man had brought an electric battery with him, Miss Charity said, who was the only one of the three, however, to whom it was an amusement and no shock at all.

Such was the end of this middle-aged wooing, which was all over in a quarter of an hour. The other of which we know, which had been going on so long, and which only artificial motives made into a wooing at all, had been broken off very abruptly by that interpellation of Dr. Maxwell’s and all that followed. It was not till after the commotion caused by Oswald’s return, and all the arrangements consequent upon his marriage, were over, that the two friends returned to this broken chapter again. The changes which had happened had not thrown them apart, however, and the naturalness with which, even in the suspense of this question between themselves, their intercourse went on, showed plainly either that warmer relationships were unlikely or that they were the most natural things in the world; but which? Each of them had been slightly piqued by the absence of enthusiasm on the part of the other, but even that pique produced no enthusiasm in themselves. They were exactly in the same state of feeling, their minds only too much alike. But a return to the question was inevitable one way or other, and Mr. Beresford took it in hand, not without a little tremor, one still summer evening at the usual hour, when they were sitting in their usual places, their windows open, but the lamps lighted, and the soft dusk outside relieving with its shadowy background the soft illumination within.

‘Do you remember,’ he said, ‘the talk we had one evening before all these agitations began? It was not decided. You would not say yes, or no.’

‘Would I not say no? it was because it has too harsh a sound. Why should there be yes’es or no’es between you and me?’

‘Ah, but it was needful. What do you say now? I can only repeat what I said then. You know all my heart. Speak to me, dear. Shall it be yes or no?’

She had nothing to do with blushing at her age--yet she blushed and was ashamed of it; but looked at him frankly, openly, all the same, holding out her hands. ‘Dear,’ she said, ‘I will call you so too. No; why should we do this and disturb our life and trouble our children with new ideas. Listen, James Beresford. I would rather marry you than lose you; but there is no thought of losing you in any case.’

‘None, my dear, none--none, whatever comes of it.’

‘Then why should we trouble each other with new ideas and disturb our lives? We cannot be happier in our intercourse, you and I; we have all we want in each other. Let the children marry; it is natural. What a blessing of God it is that we have these dear proxies, James! And my boy is not going away,’ she said, the tears coming to her eyes. ‘And I love your girl as if she were my own--and we are the father and mother without any trouble. What could heart wish for more?’

And no more was said. The subject was closed at once and for ever. Such is the perversity of human nature, that when James Beresford went home that evening he felt just a little cast down, disgusted, lonely, and slighted as it were by fate. He had not really wished for the change; indeed, did not really wish for it now; but yet--on the other side of the wall, Mrs. Meredith was much more comfortable--for why? She had been permitted the woman’s privilege of being the refuser, which banished all possibilities of pique, and made it impossible for her to feel herself slighted. But by-and-by they were both a great deal happier, and at their ease, which they had not been for weeks before.

And do I need to tell how the natural conclusion which their father and mother wisely and happily evaded arrived for Edward and Cara? Not quite immediately, however, for the young man gathered his note-books together again, and having given up India, entered upon his course of dinners, and betook himself (like most other people) to the Bar. He was ‘called’ before the marriage took place; and when the marriage did take place the young people remained along with the old people in the two houses which were one. It would be hard to make an absolute appropriation of what belongs to No. 6 and what belongs to No. 8 in the Square. The thing which is most like a fixture is Mrs. Meredith, who sits smiling in the same chair as the years go on, hearing what everybody has to say. She is not expected to go to anyone; but everyone comes to her; and her chair is the only absolutely undisputed piece of property in the two houses. The young people are very happy and go honeymooning as once their elders did; and sometimes Mr. Beresford will make a journey in the interests of science or art. But nothing has touched the double house, nor is likely to touch it, till death does those sworn companions part.

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Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:

beileved he would always=> believed he would always {pg 78}

coming in brokes uddenly=> coming in broke suddenly {pg 205}

herself treexmely disagreeable=> herself extremely disagreeable {pg 223}

being scarely fashionable=> being scarcely fashionable {pg 233}

It will send you=> I will send you {pg 249}

eager to her all about=> eager to hear all about {pg 269}

were like emblmes=> were like emblemes {pg 356}

ppinion for granted=> opinion for granted {pg 374}

believe that oerhaps=> believe that perhaps {pg 374}

still speechlsss=> still speechless {pg 398}

were bridgroom and bride=> were bridegroom and bride {pg 402}

she said falteriug=> she said faltering {pg 404}

unkindly, or coldy=> unkindly, or coldly {pg 411}