Chapter IV: Mrs. Beacham “runs Rusty.”

It was, as I before said, the day previous to that appointed for the wedding, and Mrs. Beacham, feeling slightly bemuddled and restless, and being withal half, and only half, reconciled to her son’s marriage, was passing a quiet hour in the large old-fashioned kitchen-garden, which had formed for the best part of half a century her glory and her pride.

In the days before John’s engagement to Honor Blake, and when the mother and son together ruled the household in harmony, and with a prudent yet not illiberal hand, Mrs. Beacham had been remarkable for a quiet cheerfulness of disposition and--making allowance for occasional outbreaks--for a kindly temper. The world had hitherto gone well with her, and she--in common gratitude bound--had gone well with the world. What wonder was it, then, that Updown Paddocks, with its cheery, hospitable mistress, and with “young John,” so pleasant as he was, and open-handed, came to be well appreciated as a “good house,” to use a rustic but expressive phrase, throughout the whole country side?

There was something anomalous, as may already have been noticed, in the social position occupied by the wealthy owner of Updown Paddocks. A simple yeoman by birth, but withal well educated--for he had passed through the grammar-school, at which, according to his mother’s frequent boast, more than half the pupils were “gentlemen’s sons”--John Beacham, whose manners, if not fashionable, were such as to render him quite an admissible guest, was nearly as frequently met with at the tables of the middle-class aristocracy as at the humbler “boards” of those who might be more correctly termed his equals. As a natural result also of his profession as a horse-breeder (bear in mind, however, O captious reader, with what an honest and unselfish steadiness of purpose that trade was carried on), his intimate acquaintance amongst men socially very much his superiors rapidly increased; and so great was the esteem in which John Beacham, not only as an honourable man, but as one whose knowledge of horse-flesh could not be denied, was held, that at the time of his marriage with pretty Honor Blake it would have occasioned no surprise to the Lord-lieutenant of the County had he been invited to meet at dinner the man whose yearly sales of stock amounted on an average to double the net-income of the acknowledged greatest man in Sandyshire.

Nor was Mrs. Beacham, after a fashion appreciated by herself, without her share of the popularity and honours enjoyed by her son. It is true that she was never included in the invitations over which her maternal heart rejoiced. Never, even in a dream, had the stately old lady, in her black lutestring dress, and her cap of finest Mechlin lace (a heirloom in her family), found herself a guest at Gillingham Castle, at Clifton Court, or even at the less-imposing table of sporting Dr. Thorpe, the very reverend the Dean of the neighbouring episcopal town of Gawthorpe. But the sensible old woman was quite content to be thus excluded: she entertained very shrewd ideas, not only regarding old womanhood, but the proprieties of life generally, and had not, at her age, to learn that, even had all things besides been what she, in her simplicity, was wont to call “suitable,” there remained the unanswerable fact that after a certain age ladies cease to be ornamental, and as dinner-table guests must therefore expect to be overlooked.

But although this autocratic middle-class dowager had been hitherto philosophically content to remain in the background, it was more than probable that she would take a different view of this highly important matter, and would be less amenable to reason, should the beautiful daughter-in-law, whose loveliness might, as the saying is, “adorn a court,” chance to be more highly appreciated than herself by the society to which her son was by courtesy admitted. Even, however, were that not to be the case, there still remained the more than probability that the homage which in John’s home had hitherto been paid to herself, to _her_ hospitality, _her_ “pleasantness,” and _her_ powers of causing social enjoyment, would be shared by, if not indeed transferred to, the far younger and more attractive woman who was so soon to make an inroad into Updown Paddocks. Like many hospitable people, Mrs. Beacham was rather inordinately fond of popularity, and the idea of sharing that popularity with a young and winsome bride was eminently distasteful to her.

Ah, well indeed is it for us that the dark corners of our hearts can be seen only by ourselves and by a God who judges mercifully. Our best friends and our dearest relations--the wife of our bosom, and the husband of our choice--might have to hold his or her breath with surprise and consternation could a glance behind the unholy of unholies be obtained, and what is thought and planned in those hidden corners be brought to light. Honor Blake’s future mother-in-law was neither a cold-hearted nor a cruel woman; and yet, as the time of her expected deposition drew nigh, it is to be feared that not a few of the reprehensible feelings which go far towards the making of a villain rose up within her breast against John’s unoffending bride elect.

“Well, mother, and what’s the case with you? Jolly--eh?” exclaimed a cheery voice behind the widow, as that grieving woman, with her head bent lower than was usual with her, prepared to take a fourth turn along her favourite walk. “Pretty bobbish--eh?” John repeated, attempting, after the fashion of cheerful strong-nerved persons, to brighten the countenance and enliven the spirits of the sorrowful by a loud voice and unaccustomed sportiveness of language. “Speculating on the crop of gooseberries, eh?” John added, offering his arm to his mother, who accepted the attention with a sigh that boded ill for the success of her son’s efforts. “Plenty of work this year in the preserving line, I expect; I never saw a greater promise of fruit.”

“It wasn’t the gooseberries nor yet the currants I was thinking of, John,” said Mrs. Beacham mournfully. “It’s to-morrow was in my head, and I couldn’t help wishing, that I couldn’t, that Honor was more steady-like, and older too, John, for your sake. It would be better by half if she was nigher thirty than twenty. Why she’s little better than a child, and it’s not so easy, let me tell you, to put old heads upon young shoulders.”

John laughed hilariously. Naturally of a cheerful turn of mind, his spirits, as the hour of his wedded happiness drew near, grew almost boisterous, and although not given to the utterance of melodious sounds, he could have sung aloud for very joy through every hour of that his marriage eve.

“Thank you for nothing, mother,” he said good-humouredly; “I’m quite content with my young woman as she is. Youth’s a complaint that’s pretty soon got the better of with all of us, and Honor--Heaven bless her!--has got more sense and judgment, child as she is, than many an older woman. God grant I may make her life a happy one!” he added, raising his hat reverently. “If it depends on me to do it, I’m not afraid but what she’ll find all go smoothly at the Paddocks.”

There was a pause after this rather suggestive speech, a pause which Mrs. Beacham filled up by mentally asking herself what John could mean. Were his words intended to convey a hint? or, what was still more hurtful to her maternal feelings, a _warning_? Could it be that John was already preparing to mount guard over his precious Honor? Had he thus betimes his lance in rest to defend her from domestic evils, from imaginary wounds to be inflicted hereafter by her mother-in-law? The thought flashed through her mind, bringing a look that was not altogether pleasant to her still bright, bead-like black eyes: one glance, however, at her son’s honest countenance was sufficient to make her ashamed of having for a moment entertained the suspicion that he had implied more than met the ear. He was in very truth incapable of aught that was not thoroughly open and straightforward, and the mother who bore him should have learned by long experience that the female art of innuendoing was as foreign to his nature and habits as the making a bonnet, or the concocting of a Sunday pie.

Mrs. Beacham, at the age of threescore years and ten, had not yet quite passed the age of impulsiveness. She had wronged that kindly-natured son of hers by a suspicion injurious to his habitual frankness, and to the affection towards herself on which she had such good reason to rely, and self-reproach rendered her for the moment both tender and apologetic.

“My dear boy,” she said, pressing his strong arm with her thin be-mittened fingers, “it sha’n’t be _my_ fault if this marriage of yours don’t turn out well. But I’m an old woman now, my dear, and you must make allowances. It may go a little hard with me at first, too, to see another cared for afore me, but I shall get used to that; and, John, you may trust your mother, for how could I help loving the woman that was good to my boy?”

“That’s right, mother,” said John heartily; “you couldn’t, I’m certain sure of that. And Honor will be good; never fear for her. She may be a trifle giddy and thoughtless, perhaps; though even if she’s that, I’ve got to find it out; but her heart--the darling!--is in the right place, and that, to my mind, is what signifies the most. I only wish you could have seen her with those children of Clay’s! It would have done your heart good. I declare, she’s been as patient as an angel with that little pickle Tom, when I should have liked nothing better than to punch his ugly head; and then as to taking care of one in sickness, you should just hear Mrs. Clay talk of her! So quiet and so sensible; always giving the medicines at the right time, and never a thought about herself, even if she was nights upon nights kept out of her bed, poor girl. Why, mother, she must be almost as clever about sick people as you are yourself--and that’s saying a good deal, as I, who have had an illness or two in my life, can witness to.”

The aged mother and her stalwart son were on the best possible terms by this time, she leaning with an air of proud maternal content on his arm as they stood together on the broad walk which ran along the far end of the well-stocked garden. The view from that spot was an extended as well as a pleasant one. Away beyond the bright green meadows, where the young stock leaped and gambolled on the springy turf--away beyond the not unpicturesque ranges of buildings suggestive of John Beacham’s lucrative business--lay “hedgerow elms,” and hills gray-blue in the soft spring sunshine, while to the right, beyond Clay’s Farm, where pretty Honor Blake was making ready for her bridal, an extensive pine-forest gave depth and “body” to the picture.

“Isn’t it pretty, mother?” John said. “I think the view from this walk prettier every time I see it. She’s sure, Honor is, to like the Paddocks; and only to think that to-morrow is to be our wedding-day; and that in a fortnight--not more; for I don’t intend to be away longer from you and home--only to think that in a fortnight my little Honor may be standing here between us, listening to the nightingales, I hope; for they’ll be singing in the hawthorn hedge, as they do every year, by that time; and, O, mother, it all seems too bright and beautiful to be true!”

There was a moisture, strong man though he was and iron-nerved, in John’s clear brown eyes as he spoke of his coming joy, and his voice trembled with emotion. The old lady noticed his agitation; and again her heart was hardened, not against her son, but against the unconscious object of his love.

“He never shed a tear, that I can remember, ever since he was a man grown, for _me_,” was her silent reflection as they passed together into the old farm-house. Mrs. Beacham was, as I have endeavoured to make appear, very far from being an ill-disposed woman; and yet it was, perhaps, just as well for John’s peace of mind that he knew nothing of the strange complication of feelings which, albeit they owed their origin to devotion towards himself, threatened, nevertheless, to make shipwreck of the comfort and happiness of his idolised Honor.