CHAPTER XXXIV.
The fields are hoary with December's frost, I too am hoary with the chills of age. But through the fields and through the untrodden woods Is rest and stillness--only in my heart The pall of winter shrouds a throbbing life.
A week after that Treby riot, Harold Transome was at Transome Court. Hehad returned from a hasty visit to town to keep his Christmas at thisdelightful country home, not in the best Christmas spirits. He had lostthe election but if that had been his only annoyance, he had good humorand good sense enough to have borne it as well as most men, and to havepaid the eight or nine thousand, which had been the price ofascertaining that he was not to sit in the next Parliament, withoutuseless grumbling. But the disappointments of life can never, any morethan its pleasures, be estimated singly; and the healthiest and mostagreeable of men is exposed to that coincidence of various vexations,each heightening the effect of the other, which may produce in himsomething corresponding to the spontaneous and externally unaccountablemoodiness of the morbid and disagreeable.
Harold might not have grieved much at a small riot in Treby, even if ithad caused some expenses to fall on the county; but the turn which theriot had actually taken was a bitter morsel for rumination, on moregrounds than one. However the disturbances had arisen and beenaggravated--and probably no one knew the whole truth on thesepoints--the conspicuous, gravest incidents had all tended to throw theblame on the Radical party, that is to say, on Transome and onTransome's agents; and so far the candidateship and its results had doneHarold dishonor in the county: precisely the opposite effect to thatwhich was a dear object of his ambition. More than this, Harold'sconscience was active enough to be very unpleasantly affected by whathad befallen Felix Holt. His memory, always good, was particularly vividin its retention of Felix Holt's complaint to him about the treating ofthe Sproxton men, and of the subsequent irritating scene in Jermyn'soffice, when the personage with the inauspicious name of Johnson hadexpounded to him the impossibility of revising an electioneering schemeonce begun, and of turning your vehicle back when it had already begunto roll downhill. Remembering Felix Holt's words of indignant warningabout hiring men with drink in them to make a noise, Harold could notresist the urgent impression that the offences for which Felix wascommitted were fatalities, not brought about by any willing co-operationof his with the noisy rioters, but arising probably from some ratherill-judged efforts to counteract their violence. And this urgentimpression, which insisted on growing into a conviction, became in oneof its phases an uneasy sense that he held evidence which would at oncetend to exonerate Felix and to place himself and his agents in anythingbut a desirable light. It was likely that some one else could giveequivalent evidence in favor of Felix--the little talkative Dissentingpreacher, for example: but, anyhow, the affair with the Sproxton menwould be ripped open and made the worst of by the opposite parties. Theman who has failed in the use of some indirectness, is helped verylittle by the fact that his rivals are men to whom that indirectness isa something human, very far from being alien. There remains this granddistinction, that he has failed, and that the jet of light is thrownentirely on his misdoings.
In this matter Harold felt himself a victim. Could he hinder the tricksof his agents? In this particular case he had tried to hinder them, andhad tried in vain. He had not loved the two agents in question, to beginwith; and now at this later stage of events he was more innocent thanever of bearing them anything but the most sincere ill-will. He was moreutterly exasperated with them than he would probably have been if hisone great passion had been for public virtue. Jermyn, with his JohnJohnson, had added this ugly, dirty business of the Treby election toall the long-accumulating list of offences, which Harold was resolved tovisit on him to the utmost. He had seen some handbills carrying theinsinuation that there was a discreditable indebtedness to Jermyn onthe part of the Transomes. If any such notions existed apart fromelectioneering slander, there was all the more reason for letting theworld see Jermyn severely punished for abusing his power over the familyaffairs, and tampering with the family property. And the world certainlyshould see this with as little delay as possible. The cool, confident,assuming fellow should be bled to the last drop in compensation, and allconnection with him be finally got rid of. Now that the election wasdone with, Harold meant to devote himself to private affairs, tilleverything lay in complete order under his supervision.
This morning he was seated as usual in his private room, which had nowbeen handsomely fitted up for him. It was but the third morning afterthe first Christmas he had spent in his English home for fifteen years,and the home looked like an eminently desirable one. The white frost wasnow lying on the broad lawn, on the many-formed leaves of the evergreensand on the giant trees at a distance. Logs of dry oak blazed on thehearth; the carpet was like warm moss under his feet; he had breakfastedjust according to his taste, and he had the interesting occupations of alarge proprietor to fill the morning. All through the house now stepswere noiseless on carpets or on fine matting; there was warmth in halland corridors; there were servants enough to do everything, and to do itat the right time. Skilful Dominic was always at hand to meet hismaster's demands, and his bland presence diffused itself like a smileover the household, infecting the gloomy English mind with the beliefthat life was easy, and making his real predominance seem as soft andlight as a down quilt. Old Mr. Transome had gathered new courage andstrength since little Harry and Dominic had come, and since Harold hadinsisted on his taking drives. Mrs. Transome herself was seen on a freshbackground with a gown of rich new stuff. And if, in spite of this, shedid not seem happy, Harold either did not observe it, or kindly ignoredit as the necessary frailty of elderly women whose lives have had toomuch of dullness and privation. Our minds get tricks and attitudes asour bodies do, thought Harold, and age stiffens them intounalterableness. "Poor mother! I confess I should not like to be anelderly woman myself. One requires a good deal of the purring cat forthat, or else of the loving gran-dame. I wish she would take more tolittle Harry. I suppose she has her suspicions about the lad's mother,and is as rigid in those matters as in her Toryism. However, I do whatI can; it would be difficult to say what there is wanting to her in theway of indulgence and luxury to make up for the old niggardly life."
And certainly Transome Court was now such a home as many women wouldcovet. Yet even Harold's own satisfaction in the midst of its elegantcomfort needed at present to be sustained by the expectation ofgratified resentment. He was obviously less bright and enjoying thanusual, and his mother, who watched him closely without daring to askquestions, had gathered hints and drawn inferences enough to make herfeel sure that there was some storm gathering between him and Jermyn.She did not dare to ask questions, and yet she had not resisted thetemptation to say something bitter about Harold's failure to getreturned as a Radical, helping, with feminine self-defeat, to excludeherself more completely from any consultation by him. In this way poorwomen, whose power lies solely in their influence, make themselves likemusic out of tune, and only move men to run away.
This morning Harold had ordered his letters to be brought to him at thebreakfast-table, which was not his usual practice. His mother could seethat there were London business letters about which he was eager, andshe had found out that the letter brought by a clerk the day before wasto make an appointment with Harold for Jermyn to come to Transome Courtat eleven this morning. She observed Harold swallow his coffee and pushaway his plate with an early abstraction from the business of breakfastwhich was not at all after his usual manner. She herself ate nothing:her sips of tea seemed to excite her; her cheeks flushed, and her handswere cold. She was still young and ardent in her terrors; the passionsof the past were living in her dread.
When Harold left the table she went into the long drawing-room, whereshe might relieve her restlessness by walking up and down, and catch thesound of Jermyn's entrance into Harold's room, which was close by. Hereshe moved to and fro amongst the rose-colored satin of chairs andcurtains--the
great story of this world reduced for her to the littletale of her own existence--dull obscurity everywhere, except where thekeen light fell on the narrow track of her own lot, wide only for awoman's anguish. At last she heard the expected ring and footstep, andthe opening and closing door. Unable to walk about any longer, she sankinto a large cushioned chair, helpless and prayerless. She was notthinking of God's anger or mercy, but of her son's. She was thinking ofwhat might be brought, not by death, but by life.