The Three Clerks Part 22

They sauntered on for a while together, and then Norman left them. He said nothing, but merely stole away from the lawn towards the drawing-room window. Mrs. Woodward well knew with what object he went, and would have spared him from his immediate sorrow by following him; but she judged that it would be better both for him and for her daughter that he should learn the truth.

He went in through the open drawing-room window, and found Gertrude alone. She was on the sofa with a book in her hand; and had he been able to watch her closely he would have seen that the book trembled as he entered the room. But he was unable to watch anything closely. His own heart beat so fast, his own confusion was so great, that he could hardly see the girl whom he now hoped to gain as his wife. Had Alaric been coming to his wooing, he would have had every faculty at his call. But then Alaric could not have loved as Norman loved.

And so we will leave them. In about half an hour, when the short twilight was becoming dusk, Mrs. Woodward returned, and found Norman standing alone on the hearthrug before the fireplace.

Gertrude was away, and he was leaning against the mantelpiece, with his hands behind his back, staring at vacancy; but oh! with such an aspect of dull, speechless agony in his face.

Mrs. Woodward looked up at him, and would have burst into tears, had she not remembered that they would not be long alone; she therefore restrained herself, but gave one involuntary sigh; and then, taking off her bonnet, placed herself where she might sit without staring at him in his sorrow.

Katie came in next. 'Oh! Harry, it's so lucky we didn't start in the punt,' said she, 'for it's going to pour, and we never should have been back from the island in that slow thing.'

Norman looked at her and tried to smile, but the attempt was a ghastly failure. Katie, gazing up into his face, saw that he was unhappy, and slunk away, without further speech, to her distant chair. There, from time to time, she would look up at him, and her little heart melted with ruth to see the depth of his misery.

'Why, oh why,' thought she, 'should that greedy Alaric have taken away the only prize?'

And then Linda came running in with her bonnet ribbons all moist with the big raindrops. 'You are a nice squire of dames,' said she, 'to leave us all out to get wet through by ourselves;' and then she also, looking up, saw that jesting was at present ill-timed, and so sat herself down quietly at the tea-table.

But Norman never moved. He saw them come in one after another. He saw the pity expressed in Mrs. Woodward's face; he heard the light-hearted voices of the two girls, and observed how, when they saw him, their light-heartedness was abashed; but still he neither spoke nor moved. He had been stricken with a fearful stroke, and for a while was powerless.

Captain Cutt.w.a.ter, having shaken off his dining-room nap, came for his tea; and then, at last, Gertrude also, descending from her own chamber, glided quietly into the room. When she did so, Norman, with a struggle, roused himself, and took a chair next to Mrs. Woodward, and opposite to her eldest daughter.

Who could describe the intense discomfiture of that tea-party, or paint in fitting colours the different misery of each one there a.s.sembled? Even Captain Cutt.w.a.ter at once knew that something was wrong, and munched his bread-and-b.u.t.ter and drank his tea in silence. Linda surmised what had taken place; though she was surprised, she was left without any doubt. Poor Katie was still in the dark, but she also knew that there was cause for sorrow, and crept more and more into her little self. Mrs. Woodward sat with averted face, and ever and anon she put her handkerchief to her eyes. Gertrude was very pale, and all but motionless, but she had schooled herself, and managed to drink her tea with more apparent indifference than any of the others. Norman sat as he had before been standing, with that dreadful look of agony upon his brow.

Immediately after tea Mrs. Woodward got up and went to her dressing-room. Her dressing-room, though perhaps not improperly so called, was not an exclusive closet devoted to combs, petticoats, and soap and water. It was a comfortable snug room, nicely furnished, with sofa and easy chairs, and often open to others besides her handmaidens. Thither she betook herself, that she might weep unseen; but in about twenty minutes her tears were disturbed by a gentle knock at the door.

Very soon after she went, Gertrude also left the room, and then Katie crept off.

'I have got a headache to-night,' said Norman, after the remaining three had sat silent for a minute or two; 'I think I'll go across and go to bed.'

'A headache!' said Linda. 'Oh, I am so sorry that you have got to go to that horrid inn.'

'Oh! I shall do very well there,' said Norman, trying to smile.

'Will you have my room?' said the captain good-naturedly; 'any sofa does for me.'

Norman a.s.sured them as well as he could that his present headache was of such a nature that a bed at the inn would be the best thing for him; and then, shaking hands with them, he moved to the door.

'Stop a moment, Harry,' said Linda, 'and let me tell mamma.

She'll give you something for your head.' He made a sign to her, however, to let him pa.s.s, and then, creeping gently upstairs, he knocked at Mrs. Woodward's door.

'Come in,' said Mrs. Woodward, and Harry Norman, with all his sorrows still written on his face, stood before her.

'Oh! Harry,' said she, 'come in; I am so glad that you have come to me. Oh! Harry, dear Harry, what shall I say to comfort you?

What can I say--what can I do?'

Norman, forgetting his manhood, burst into tears, and throwing himself on a sofa, buried his face on the arm and sobbed like a young girl. But the tears of a man bring with them no comfort as do those of the softer s.e.x. He was a strong tall man, and it was dreadful to see him thus convulsed.

Mrs. Woodward stood by him, and put her hand caressingly on his shoulder. She saw he had striven to speak, and had found himself unable to do so. 'I know how it is,' said she, 'you need not tell me; I know it all. Would that she could have seen you with my eyes; would that she could have judged you with my mind!'

'Oh, Mrs. Woodward!'

'To me, Harry, you should have been the dearest, the most welcome son. But you are so still. No son could be dearer. Oh, that she could have seen you as I see you!'

'There is no hope,' said he. He did not put it as a question; but Mrs. Woodward saw that it was intended that she should take it as such if she pleased. What could she say to him? She knew that there was no hope. Had it been Linda, Linda might have been moulded to her will. But with Gertrude there could now be no hope. What could she say? She knelt down and kissed his brow, and mingled her tears with his.

'Oh, Harry--oh, Harry! my dearest, dearest son!'

'Oh, Mrs. Woodward, I have loved her so truly.'

What could Mrs. Woodward do but cry also? what but that, and throw such blame as she could upon her own shoulders? She was bound to defend her daughter.

'It has been my fault, Harry,' she said; 'it is I whom you must blame, not poor Gertrude.'

'I blame no one,' said he.

'I know you do not; but it is I whom you should blame. I should have learnt how her heart stood, and have prevented this--but I thought, I thought it would have been otherwise.'

Norman looked up at her, and took her hand, and pressed it. 'I will go now,' he said, 'and don't expect me here to-morrow. I could not come in. Say that I thought it best to go to town because I am unwell. Good-bye, Mrs. Woodward; pray write to me. I can't come to the Cottage now for a while, but pray write to me: do not you forget me, Mrs. Woodward.'

Mrs. Woodward fell upon his breast and wept, and bade G.o.d bless him, and called him her son and her dearest friend, and sobbed till her heart was nigh to break. 'What,' she thought, 'what could her daughter wish for, when she repulsed from her feet such a suitor as Harry Norman?'

He then went quietly down the stairs, quietly out of the house, and having packed up his bag at the inn, started off through the pouring rain, and walked away through the dark stormy night, through the dirt and mud and wet, to his London lodgings; nor was he again seen at Surbiton Cottage for some months after this adventure.

CHAPTER XIII

A COMMUNICATION OF IMPORTANCE

Norman's dark wet walk did him physically no harm, and morally some good. He started on it in that frame of mind which induces a man to look with indifference on all coming evils under the impression that the evils already come are too heavy to admit of any increase. But by the time that he was thoroughly wet through, well splashed with mud, and considerably fatigued by his first five or six miles' walk, he began to reflect that life was not over with him, and that he must think of future things as well as those that were past.

He got home about two o'clock, and having knocked up his landlady, Mrs. Richards, betook himself to bed. Alaric had been in his room for the last two hours, but of Charley and his latch-key Mrs. Richards knew nothing. She stated her belief, however, that two a.m. seldom saw that erratic gentleman in his bed.

On the following morning, Alaric, when he got his hot water, heard that Norman returned during the night from Hampton, and he immediately guessed what had brought him back. He knew that nothing short of some great trouble would have induced Harry to leave the Cottage so abruptly, and that that trouble must have been of such a nature as to make his remaining with the Woodwards an aggravation of it. No such trouble could have come on him but the one.

As Charley seldom made his appearance at the breakfast table on Sunday mornings, Alaric foresaw that he must undergo a _tete-a-tete_ which would not be agreeable to himself, and which must be much more disagreeable to his companion; but for this there was no help. Harry had, however, prepared himself for what he had to go through, and immediately that the two were alone, he told his tale in a very few words.

'Alaric,' said he, 'I proposed to Gertrude last night, and she refused me.'

Alaric Tudor was deeply grieved for his friend. There was something in the rejected suitor's countenance--something in the tone of voice, which would have touched any heart softer than stone; and Alaric's heart had not as yet been so hardened by the world as to render him callous to the sight of such grief as this.

'Take my word for it, Harry, she'll think better of it in a month or two,' he said.

'Never-never; I am sure of it. Not only from her own manner, but from her mother's,' said Harry. And yet, during half his walk home, he had been trying to console himself with the reflection that most young ladies reject their husbands once or twice before they accept them.

There is no offering a man comfort in such a sorrow as this; unless, indeed, he be one to whom the worship of Bacchus may be made a fitting subst.i.tute for that of the Paphian G.o.ddess.

There is a sort of disgrace often felt, if never acknowledged, which attaches itself to a man for having put himself into Norman's present position, and this generally prevents him from confessing his defeat in such matters. The misfortune in question is one which doubtless occurs not unfrequently to mankind; but as mankind generally bear their special disappointments in silence, and as the vanity of women is generally exceeded by their good-nature, the secret, we believe, in most cases remains a secret.