Chapter XIV

For oft when summer leaves were bright
And every flower was bathed in light,
In sunshine moments past,
My wilful heart would burst away
From where the holy shadow lay,
Where Heaven my lot had cast.
THE CHRISTIAN YEAR.

Think not of rest--though dreams be sweet,
Start up and ply your heaven-ward feet;
Is not God’s oath upon your head,
Ne’er to sink back on slothful bed?
IBID.

Christmas came, and with Christmas Reginald arrived, and with Christmas--came a visitor to Ernest De Grey.

Lady Vere and Camilla were returning from a long drive on a cold afternoon the day after Christmas day; the wind was piercing, and the air foggy and cold. At a distance of five or six miles from Cranleigh they observed Ernest, leaning against a large tree by the side of the high-road. At Camilla’s desire, to gratify her curiosity, they drew up to speak to him.

“What are you doing?” she inquired as he approached the carriage; “how can you stand there in this piercing wind?”

“Is it worse for me than for you?” he said, with a smile.

“Ah! but look at our fur cloaks; we can hardly be cold.”

“They are extremely comfortable,” observed Lady Vere; and added, civilly, “I wish we could spare you one.”

“Thank you very much, but I am not cold. I don’t mind a fresh wind, I rather like it; it seems to drive the clouds away from one’s intellect,” and he half sighed as he spoke. “Besides, I have not been standing long; I walked here to meet my mother, and was only resting: if she does not come soon, I shall go on further.”

“Is your mother coming here?” Camilla said, in surprise.

“Yes, I expect her this afternoon,--but only for one whole day.”

“And is it for fear of losing one single minute of her visit, that you come all this way to meet her?”

“Partly that and partly from other things. I thought,” he said with a slight smile, “that she would feel strange coming back here alone; and I could not go to the station to meet her, because it is St. Stephen’s day, and I was detained by the service and other things.”

“You are a very good son, Mr. De Grey; I must say that for you,” Camilla said approvingly. “I have often thought so before.”

“I should be so,” he replied earnestly.

She looked at him for a moment with a kind of curiosity; then looked at her own mother’s vacant face, and sighed. Her advancing years and deepening thought, Miss Vincent’s influence, and the style of sentimental reading and reflection to which that influence led her, enlarging much,--if it _could_ be so, even too much, on the necessity and happiness of sympathy, often made her sigh over the want of such a blessing in her home; and there was a tone of tenderness in her voice, as leaning forward again to Ernest, she said,

“May I come to see your mother? I should like it; I am sure I should like her so very much.”

He coloured with pleasure at her tone and her words; but endeavouring to conceal any too great expression of his feeling, replied only quietly, how happy her visit would make both his mother and himself.

“Then I shall come to-morrow--and mamma too. Mamma, I am sure you would like to make acquaintance with Mrs. De Grey--shouldn’t you?”

“It would give me, I assure you, the very greatest pleasure,” Lady Vere said, with her ever ready politeness.

“You must be very cold, I won’t stop you any more,” Ernest remarked, and retreated from the carriage; “it is getting late, too.”

“Reginald is gone, you know; I am afraid he never will stay here steadily again. I am very sorry his education is over.”

“He told me you were displeased with him,” Ernest said, smiling; “but I hope you have forgiven him; he could not help it.”

“I got up to breakfast with him at six this very bad morning; don’t you think that looks like forgiveness?”

“I think it does indeed.” And the carriage drove on, leaving Ernest in a reverie of a very lover-like kind; the sound of a rattling post-chaise, however, quickly aroused him, and Camilla was for a time forgotten, in the intense pleasure with which he saw his mother again.

Mr. De Grey had determined never to visit the neighbourhood of Clare Abbey; and so uncertain were his spirits, and so constant his desire for attention, that his wife, unwilling to leave him even for a day, had scarcely contemplated the possibility of seeing her son in his new home. During the last few weeks, however, his letters had troubled her. He said nothing of his feelings, made no complaint; he himself fancied he wrote as usual, but there was in their tone a melancholy and depression, so constant and so evident, that she felt called upon by absolute necessity to inquire into the cause. At a short notice, therefore, she came for a short visit to Cranleigh. But the visit was little calculated to set her mind at ease. Ernest was excited by her coming, and was besides determined to be cheerful; but though something of the depression of his spirits he could and did conceal, he could not (to a mind as true as his, it was impossible) conceal the languor and heartlessness with which his duties were performed. Something more than happiness was at stake, that Mrs. De Grey saw plainly, and though Ernest shrank, as he never had done before, from the least allusion to himself and his own state of mind, it did not need Mrs. Cook’s dark hints and mysterious allusions, to lead her to guess the cause.

“I hope, mamma, you will be very particularly civil to Mrs. De Grey,” Camilla said, as they drove up to the door of the parsonage early in the afternoon; “you know it is almost like going to see yourself.”

“How so, my dear Camilla?” inquired her mother, with a puzzled look.

“Why, mamma, you know if Mr. De Grey had not lost his fortune, Mrs. De Grey would have been in your place at Clare Abbey.”

“True, Camilla,--but,” she added, with unusual acuteness, “I should never have been at the parsonage.”

“Well, mamma, I hope, at any rate, that you will be very civil.”

“I hope I always am civil,” replied Lady Vere, with complacency. Nevertheless, warned by Camilla, she gathered up her powers for a more than ordinary show of politeness.

And she _was_ extremely civil, and kind as well as civil; but how could her kindness or civility be thought of, in presence of the winning grace and gentleness of Camilla’s manner? The tenderness with which she and Reginald always thought of the De Greys, and which on the present occasion could so safely and properly be shown, gave an added charm to her usual fascinating cordiality; and nothing prettier could have been conceived than the half tender, half smiling face--the half playful and half serious words with which she gave Mrs. De Grey her own welcome to the neighbourhood.

With pleased and grateful admiration Mrs. De Grey regarded her, but she turned her eyes from her lovely face to cast them with pity and sympathy on her son. Her attempt at sympathy was, however, in vain. Ernest was not observing her--was not thinking of himself; inexpressible and irrepressible feelings were in his mind as he watched Camilla. Her manner to his mother had placed her on the pinnacle of human perfection. He thought he never had loved her as he ought--never done her justice before: he was lost and gone in a trance of gratitude and admiration.

He was standing near the window, thoughtful and abstracted, when Camilla, leaving her mother in the exhibition of her necessary civilities to Mrs. De Grey, joined him.

“Do you know, Mr. De Grey,” she said, playfully, “I have wished so much and so often to see your house, and though I have often hinted my wish, you never would offer to show it. I am afraid that must have been the cause of my great desire to come here to-day.”

“I never thought of your wishing to see it,” he said, smiling, “or I am sure I should have been only too happy. What do you think of it, now you do see it?” He turned a chair into a more convenient posture as he spoke, and moved it towards her.

She sat down and looked about her. “It is not only because I always think new rooms pretty, but really and truly I think this the prettiest room I ever saw.”

And her admiration was justified; for it _was_ one of the prettiest rooms of the kind that could have been imagined. The furniture was light and suitable; the chintz, one of the prettiest of chintzes; and the sea-green walls were ornamented by engravings (proclaiming the owner’s active tastes) from some of Landseer’s choicest pictures. All looked fresh and bright and habitable--a perfect picture of domestic comfort.

“I am glad you admire it,” Ernest said, much gratified, “for I must say I think it pretty myself.”

“If I say quite what I think--I think it a great deal too pretty for you,” and she moved her head emphatically as she spoke. “I had no idea that clergymen made themselves so comfortable.”

“I assure you I more than agree with you,” Ernest replied, laughing, yet seriously also. “I never go to see Mrs. Hervey without feeling ashamed of myself. But it is not my fault; everything you see was given to me. My rector at Chesford gave me the furniture, and his sisters the paper and the chintz, my father and mother gave me the books, and two very old friends, Harry and Leopold Leslie, gave me those pretty engravings. Whatever you may think of me, I will not be set down as luxurious and extravagant.”

“I think Mr. De Grey,” and she looked up at him, “that you seem to be unusually fortunate in finding friends.” There was something of mingled softness and sadness in her voice which might have been, which partly was, misunderstood.

“I am indeed,” he replied earnestly, and his eyes rested upon her with a look of such deep and grateful tenderness, that his mother, attracted by the gaze, paused in her conversation to watch its effect upon the young face lifted to his. She gazed for a moment, then turned away her head with a sigh. It was not that in sober judgment she desired a return of Ernest’s affection--but reason and feeling do not always speak the same language, and she could not read the signs of his perfect love and her indifference unmoved.

Of the feelings that prompted Ernest’s words--of the meaning that shone in his clear blue eyes, Camilla was apparently unconscious. Thought, indeed, and something of sadness was on her brow, but it was no thought for him. The subject of her meditations shortly appeared.

“You are more fortunate than I am. There is no one in the world, except, perhaps, Reginald, who would have taken so much thought and care for me.” She was expressing a growing feeling of melancholy and discontent which had taken possession of her mind--it came she knew not how or whence, but it was filling her with vague repinings and indefinable longings.

“Why do you say so?” Ernest replied gravely, for he was endeavouring not to say something else, and the endeavour made him restrained. “You cannot think it, and you should not say what you do not think.”

“But I do think it,” she said, sadly; “I always say what I mean. Perhaps you think Miss Vincent is a great friend; but I know just how much of a friend she is, and how much she cares for me. I like her more than she likes me; and there is no one else--no; and even Reginald, I sometimes think, does not really care for me; at least he despises as well as cares.”

Ernest made no answer. He would have given the world to speak; but his own thought was not to be spoken, and he could say nothing else.

“I believe you think I deserve no better,” Camilla continued, partly in the same tone, but a little petulantly also. “I dare say you are right; but, though it may be right, I often wish it were not so. I often wish that Reginald were not so taken up with his great thoughts;--at this time especially, I have wished a good deal that he would think more of me.”

“He was very much occupied these few days,” Ernest said, suppressing with a violent effort any allusion to himself, though he thought himself a brute for his coldness. “It will not be so again. Don’t tell me that there is any shadow of discontent between your brother and you, for it would grieve me to think so.”

“Well, there is none,” she cried, warmly, “or at least,” with a touch of sadness again, “if there is, it is because I am unworthy of him. Sometimes I wish I were more like him, and sometimes, a little, I wish that he were more like me. Sometimes I feel as if our happiest days were past--that he will grow greater, and I shall grow less--that he will grow better, and I shall grow worse; and then he will hate me.”

“If I were you,” Ernest said, still gravely, “I would not allow myself to think of the possibility of such a thing. You know we don’t grow worse quite without our own will.”

“But I am not sure that my will is quite against it. I don’t know--it seems to me that everybody is growing very grave and severe, and I don’t like gravity. You, too, Mr. De Grey, you are graver than you used to be. You are as grave now as Reginald is, and much more severe.”

“Severe!” he exclaimed hastily, startled into anxiety; “do _you_ think me severe?” But, whether consciously or unconsciously, his mother’s eye fell upon him as he spoke, seeming to warn and to restrain him, and with something of formal quietness the sentence was finished. “I certainly have no right to be severe with any one except myself.”

“But you are severe--” she was persisting, when they were interrupted.

“Mrs. De Grey says she won’t dine with us, Camilla.” Mrs. De Grey smiled at Lady Vere’s concise communication of her refusal; but she did not contradict it.

“Then I was right, mamma,” Camilla said, leaving her seat, and taking another on the opposite side of the room. “I said,” she continued, leaning towards Mrs. De Grey, “that you would not: I said that it would be a shame if you were to spoil all Mr. De Grey’s pleasure by dining out on this one single day. But I am sorry, very sorry, that I am right.” And she smiled so prettily, so kindly, so engagingly, that Ernest turned away, and stood looking out of the window during the remainder of the visit.

The conversation continued for a few minutes between Mrs. De Grey and Camilla--the mood of the past hour forgotten, Camilla as gay again as a child. Then Lady Vere rose from her seat, and a repetition of her civil speeches recommenced.

“I am so glad to have seen your pretty house,” Camilla said to Ernest, while the ceremonial was proceeding; “for now I shall be relieved from pitying you. I _have_ pitied you very much and very often for living here alone; but now I am sure I need not pity you any more.”

“Don’t pity me for living alone,” he said, with a little irritation in his manner, “for I like it.”

“Do you really like living alone?” she inquired, with some surprise.

“Yes, I really do.” And, having put her and Lady Vere into the carriage, he proceeded to prove the truth of his words by leaving his mother’s society, and going for a solitary walk.

There are some good actions, which do not receive as they merit the reward of an approving conscience, and Ernest’s self-control was of that nature. He felt angry with himself, and angry with his mother, because he saw her views of his duty agreed with his. Never had Camilla been so gentle, so engaging, so lovable; never had he been so indifferent in manner, so repulsive. And why was it to be, he asked, and why was he to thwart his own wishes, and perhaps hers also? Or if not now, if too childish and thoughtless now to dream of love, why might he not teach her to love him,--win her to love him? What in the world could make her happier than a love like his? So he walked by himself, and talked with himself, till conflicting views and conflicting feelings, and indulged dreams, had reduced his mind to a state of uncontrollable irritation and excitement.

He returned to the house only when he dared, for his mother’s sake, remain no longer absent. She was seated in the quiet room, the lamp before her, engaged in writing to her husband. On Ernest’s entrance she looked up, and laid down her pen; but, after a short observation of his countenance, she resumed it again, and merely greeting him with a smile, stooped her head over her letter, and appeared to be lost in thought. Ernest stood for a moment by the fire; then listlessly walking to the book-shelves, he took down a large book, and placing it on the opposite side of the lamp, sat down before it. He put his elbows on the book, crossed his hands, rested his forehead upon them, and began to read.

His mother watched him at intervals. His eyes were steadily fixed on the page, but the page was never turned. She made, however, no remark, quietly finished her letter, sealed it, and laid it aside, unperceived by him sought for her work, and sat down again. Then at last, suddenly and quietly, she broke the silence.

“You asked me last night, Ernest, to recommend you a text: I have thought of one on which I should much like you to preach, and which would be appropriate to the end of the old and the beginning of the new year.”

She drew a Bible towards her, and opening it, placed it before him with her finger on the following words:--

“_No man having put his hand to the plough and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God._”

Ernest looked at it--looked at his mother, and coloured deeply; then suddenly closing the book and speaking in a very resolute tone he said, “No, mother; whatever I may be, I will not be dishonest--I will not preach what I do not practise.”

“But, Ernest,” she said, seriously, “what do you mean by not practising? Should you not preach and practise too?”

“I should, mother, but I do not. I confess it,” he continued, passionately and excitedly, “I do look back--I would not be what I am--I would be what I am not--I would be _anything_ which could give me a better hope of winning, a better right to try to win _her_ heart.”

He turned rapidly over some pages; then again placing his elbows on the book, and shading his face, began to read.

Advice, it is said, is only powerful when it puts into language the secret oracle of our souls. There is a time to speak and a time to keep silence; and the time for speech is not at that moment when, through passion or excitement, the voice of the secret oracle is unheard. Most unwise are they who force the responsibility of even sweet and wholesome counsel on an unprepared spirit.

Mrs. De Grey was well aware of this, as of most of the secrets of the human mind; and she suffered her son’s passionate and wayward speech to pass uncorrected and unreproved.

Her forbearance touched him and restored him to himself, sooner than a thousand arguments would have done, and he was the first to recur to the subject.

As they sat together in the evening, he suddenly rose from his seat, and withdrawing himself from the bright light of the lamp, said, with an effort, “Mother, you must have thought me very weak, very wicked, when I spoke this afternoon.”

“No, my dear Ernest,” she answered, tenderly, “those were not my thoughts. It is easy to speak of the weakness of those who are deeply tried--easy to condemn--but none but those who suffer know what their trial is. _You_ can tell how, and how far you have failed--_I_ only grieved for you.”

He sighed and said nothing.

His mother paused for a moment, then continued steadily, “Grieved for you, Ernest, but I did not, I do not despair. You have indulged in feelings that must not be indulged; but you will not utterly fail. You will arouse yourself, and you will conquer yet.”

“_Conquer_, mother! You think then it must be so. I must conquer; there is no other hope.”

“I do, Ernest,” she said, gently. “Consider Miss St. Maur’s youth, and her father’s probable will, and then remember that you are _her_ guardian, as well as that of the poorest among the people. I cannot think it is for you to attempt to gain her heart. And besides this, Ernest,” she continued steadily, for it was not for her to shrink from speaking the truth, however painful, “she does not love you.”

He knew it as well as she did. When the question unexcitedly was asked, he _knew_ that if she did love him, her words and actions would be far other than what they were; but the calm conviction of his mother’s words fell like lead upon his soul.

He sat by the fire, playing with the ashes, drawing with the poker mysterious signs and figures. He could not reply to her.

“What _might_ be at a future day,” she began again, after a pause, “I do not know. That it would be _impossible_ for you to win her heart, I am far from thinking. How could I think it, dear Ernest, when I know you, and what the treasure of your love would be? But I do not think she loves you now, or wishes to love you; and I do not think it would be for her happiness or yours--for her good or for yours, even if there were not other considerations--that it should be so. I feel her charms, dear Ernest, almost as you can do; I see her beauty, and I feel that her mind is as full of natural beauty as her most lovely face; but she is still almost a child, a wild, untaught child--and I do not think the quiet, sober, _holy_ life which your wife should lead, could be anything to her but a temptation.” She paused again; she wished to hear him speak, and he spoke at last, and with excitement in his tone.

“I know you are right, mother--I feel you are right--I have felt the same again and again. Do not fear, I will not speak; if I cannot conquer, I will at least be silent. I have vowed it before, and I say it again before you, _my lips shall never tell her what I feel_. Whatever may come, I will not reproach myself with having attempted to win her love. But, mother,” he continued after a moment, in an altered voice, “how is life to go on?--I often ask myself. This perpetual struggle, it makes it burdensome, it makes it even hateful to me.”

“Do you remember,” she said, with a smile, “how you longed in your early days to be a hero?” He shook his head; his heroism had not been of an enduring, suffering kind. “I remember it; and I remember too,” she added fondly, “that you have fulfilled your early wish. If to sacrifice for others our dearest hopes can make one so, you _have_ been a hero. Why are you to dread your power now?”

“Because I am not, mother, what I once was; I do not even feel as I used to feel: I am become mean, low, selfish, and a coward.” He spoke with vehemence.

“These are hard words, Ernest,” and his mother smiled faintly; “but I will not contradict you. It _is_ cowardly in you, in me, in all, to shrink from any plain duty that lies before us. But, Ernest,” she continued more seriously, “will you submit to be a coward? You have higher and holier motives than you had in your youth, and you know better where to find the strength that will arm you to overcome.” She stopped again, then again began with something of hesitation, “There is one motive which I am almost afraid to point out to you, lest it should influence you more than the one high motive which ought to be yours. But earthly motives may and should influence us in their degree, and this is far from being a merely earthly one. I wish you to think of her whom you so fondly love, for whose welfare and happiness, not in this world only, you are bound to provide. If she sees you the guardian and teacher set over her by God himself,--if she sees _you_ tied and bound with earthly care and earthly passion,--how will she ever learn to rise? Surely, dear Ernest, you have motives to awake and be strong.”

He made no answer; he was sitting in profound thought, his head leaning against the chimney-piece. Unwilling to disturb him, or to banish his meditations, conscious, too, that _one_ word in season is better than many words, Mrs. De Grey said no more, but laying down her work, left the room.

On her return, a short time afterwards, she found Ernest busily engaged in writing. He looked up with a smile that seemed to invite her approach,--a smile, if not a bright one, yet one that fell like returning sunshine on her heart. She looked over his shoulder and read his text, and stroked, as in his childhood, his dark glossy hair, but no remark was made on either side, and the subject was recurred to no more.

Something of languor had crept of late over Ernest’s sermons. It could not have been otherwise; for it needs a singular gift of eloquence, or a turn of mind bordering at least on hypocrisy, to speak forcibly and persuasively on truths that are unfelt. No such fault could however be found with his present discourse. It was in one strain of passionate exhortation from beginning to end; it was an address to himself as well as to his hearers, calling upon all to awake from the sleep of sloth, and to arise from the death of sin, and breaking forth from the bonds of their infirmities, to redeem in the opening year the hours of their wasted life.

It was eloquence,--not the eloquence of new thoughts clothed in choice words, and varied phrase, but the eloquence of simple truth, poured forth from roused feelings and a fervent heart.