At His Gates: A Novel. Vol. 2 (of 3)

  CHAPTER VI.

  When Helen and Norah emerged again out of the lights of the littlerailway station to the darkness glimmering with a few lamps of the roadoutside, Mr Burton's phaeton was standing at the gate. The air wastouched with the first frost, there was a soft haze over the distances,the lamps shone with a twinkling glow, and the breath of the horses wasfaintly visible in the sharpened air. Mr Burton was standing talking tosome one on the pathway accompanied by his son Ned, who though he wasbut a year older than Norah was nearly as tall as his father. Helen'slast interview with her cousin had been pleasant enough to tempt her tolinger now for any greeting, and her heart was sore and wroth againsthim. She put her veil down over her face, and hurried past. But MrBurton had seen her, and long before this he had repented of hisrudeness of last night. Had it been successful, had he succeeded inbullying and frightening her, he would have been perfectly satisfiedwith himself; but he had not succeeded, and he was sorry for the crueltywhich had been in vain. It was so much power wasted, and his wisestcourse now was to ignore and disown what he had done. He stopped shortin his conversation, and made a step after her.

  'Ah, Helen! 'he cried, 'you out this cold evening! Wait a moment, I willtake you with me. I am going to pass your door.'

  'Thanks,' said Helen, 'I think we prefer to walk.' And she was goingresolutely on; but she was not to be allowed so easily to make herescape.

  'One moment. I have something to say to you. If you will not drive withme, I will walk with you,' said Mr Burton, in his most genial mood.'Good evening, Tait, we can finish our talk to-morrow. Well, and wherehave you been, you two ladies?--seeing some one off by the train? Ned,see if you can't amuse your cousin Norah while I talk to her mother.Helen, when you and I were that age I think we found more to say.'

  'I do not think we were great friends--at that age,' said Helen.

  She had meant to say at any age; but the gravity of her thoughts madesuch light utterances of her anger impossible. When people are going toserious war with each other, they may denounce and vituperate, but theyrarely gibe.

  'No; I suppose it was at a later period we were friends,' Mr Burtonsaid, with a laugh. 'How strangely circumstances alter! I am afraid Imade myself rather disagreeable last night. When a man is bilious, he isnot accountable for his actions; and I had been worried in town; but itwas too bad to go and put it out on you; what I really wanted to asklast night was if the house was quite in order for the winter? Butsomething brought on the other subject, and I lost my temper like anidiot. I hope you won't think any more of it. And it is really importantto know if the house is in order--if you are prepared to run the risk offrost, and all that. I was speaking to Tait, the carpenter, this moment.I think I shall send him just to look over the house.'

  Helen made no reply; this talk about nothing, this pretence of ease andfamiliarity, was an insult to her. And Norah clung close to her arm,enclosing it with both hands, calling her mother's attention to everynew sentence with a closer pressure. They went on for a few minutesbefore Mr Burton could invent anything more to say, and Ned stalked atNorah's other side with all a boy's helplessness. He certainly was notin a condition to help his father out.

  'Ned has been up to town with me to-day,' said Mr Burton, still morecheerfully. 'It will be a loss, but we must make up our minds to sendhim to school. It is a disadvantage to him being so tall; everybodythinks he is fifteen at least. It is handy for you that Norah is sosmall. You can make a baby of her for three or four years yet.'

  Here Norah squeezed her mother's arm so tight that Helen winced with thepain, yet took a kind of forlorn amusement too from the fury of thechild's indignation.

  'Norah is no baby,' she said, 'happily for me; Norah is my bestcompanion and comfort.'

  'Ah, yes; she is in your confidence; that is charming,' said Mr Burton;'quite like a story-book; whereas Ned, the great blockhead, cares fornothing but his dogs and nonsense. But he shall be packed off to Etondirectly. The house is so full at present, my wife has been regrettingwe have seen nothing of you, Helen. I suppose it is too early to ask youto come to us under present circumstances? But after a while, I hope,when we are alone--And Norah must come before Ned goes away. There isto be a children's party. What did your mother settle about that, Ned?'

  'Don't know,' growled Ned at Norah's other side.

  'Don't know! Well you ought to know, since it's in your honour. Clarawill send you word, Helen. Now, I suppose, I must be off, or I shall nothave time to dress. Why, by Jove, there goes the bell already!' cried MrBurton.

  He looked round, and the bays, which had been impatiently following at afoot-pace, held in with difficulty by the groom, stopped at the sign hemade, while the sonorous dinner-bell, which rang twice every eveningthrough all seasons, sounded its first summons through the darkness.There was something very awe-inspiring in the sound of that bell. That,as much as anything, impressed the village and neighbourhood with asense of the importance of the master of Dura. The old Harcourts hadused it only on very great occasions; but the Burtons used it everyevening. All the cooks in Dura village guided themselves by its sound.'Lord, bless us! there's the bell a-going at the great house, and mychickens not put down to roast yet,' Mrs Witherspoon at the Rectorywould say, giving herself such 'a turn' as she did not get over all theevening. Mr Burton, too, got 'a turn' when he heard it.

  He cried, 'Good night, Helen! Ned, come along,' and jumped into hisphaeton.

  'I'll walk,' shouted Ned.

  And then there was a jingle, a flash, a dart, and the two bays flew, asif something had stung them, along the frosty road.

  'It will be a long walk for you up that dark avenue,' said Helen, whenthe boy, with his hands in his pockets, stood by them at the door of theGatehouse, hesitating with the awkwardness natural to his kind.

  'Oh, I don't mind,' said Ned.

  'Will you come in--and have some tea?'

  Never was an invitation more reluctantly given. When his mother heard ofit, it flashed through her mind that Mrs Drummond had constructed thefirst parallel, and that already the siege of Ned, the heir of Dura, hadbegun; but Helen had no such idea. And Norah squeezed her arm with aforce of indignation which once more, though she was not merry, made hermother smile.

  'Mamma, how could you?' Norah cried, when the boy had come in, and hadbeen left by the bright little fire in the drawing-room to watch theflickering of the lights while his entertainers took off their bonnets;'how could you? It is I who will have to talk to him and amuse him. Itwas selfish of you, mamma!'

  And Ned sat by the drawing-room fire alone, repenting himself that hehad been seduced, in his big boots, with mud on his stockings, into thisunknown place. It was not actually unknown to him; he had broken the oldchina cups and thumped upon the piano, and done his best to put hisfingers through the old curtains more than once while the place wasempty. But he did not understand the change that had passed upon it now.He sat by the fire confused; wondering how he had ever had the courageto come in; wondering if Mrs Drummond would think him dirty, and whatNorah would say. He would not have to put himself into velvet and silkstockings and show himself in the drawing-room at home, that was acomfort. But what unknown mazes of conversation, what awful abysses ofself-betrayal might there be before him here! Norah came in first, whichat once frightened and relieved him. And the room was pretty--the oldhomely neutral-tinted room, with the lively gleam of firelight lightingit up, and all the darkness made rosy in the corners, which was sodifferent from the drawing room at the great house, with its gildingand grandeur, its masses of flowers and floods of light. Ned's head feltvery much confused by the difference; but the strangeness awed him inspite of himself.

  'I am always frightened in this room,' said Norah, drawing the biggestchair into the circle of the firelight, and putting herself into it likea little queen. She was so small that her one foot which hung down didnot reach the floor; the other, I am sorry to say, so regardless wasNorah of decorum, was tucked under her in the big chair.

  'What a fu
nny girl you are! Why?'

  'Do you see that cupboard?' said Norah. 'I know there is an old womanwho lives there, and spins and spins, and keeps looking at me, till Idaren't breathe. Oh, I think sometimes if I look up it will turn me tostone, that eye of hers. If you weren't here I shouldn't dare to say it;I am most frightened for her in the day, when the light comes in at allthe windows, and all the pictures and things say, 'What's that littlegirl doing here?' And then the mirror up on the wall--There's two peoplein it I know, now. You will say its you and me; but it isn't you and me.It's our ghosts, perhaps, sitting so still, and looking at each otherand never saying a word.'

  Ned felt a shiver run over him as he listened. He thought of the darkavenue which he had to go through all by himself, and wished he haddriven with his father instead. And there where he was sitting he justcaught that curious little round mirror, and there were two people init--never moving, never speaking, just as Norah said.

  'There is always a feeling as if somebody were by in this house,' Norahwent on, 'somebody you can't see. Oh, it is quite true. You can't goanywhere, up or down, but they always keep looking and looking at you. Ibear it as long as I can, and then I get up and run away. I should notmind so much if I could see them, or if they were like the ladies thatwalk about and rustle with long silk trains going over the floor, asthey do in some old houses. But the ones here are so still; they justlook at you for hours and hours together, till you get into such adreadful fright, and feel you can't bear it any longer and rush away.'

  Just then there was the sound of a little fall of ashes from the firewhich made Ned start; and then he laughed hoarsely, frightened, butdefiant.

  'You are making it all up out of your own head to frighten a fellow,' hesaid.

  'To frighten--a fellow!' said Norah, with gentle but ineffablecontempt. 'What have I to do with--fellows? It frightens _me_.'

  And she gave a little shudder in her big chair, and shook her head,waving her brown hair about her shoulders. Perhaps the colour in herhair would not have showed so much but for the black frock with itslittle white frill that came to the throat; and the firelight found outNorah's eyes, and kindled two lamps in them. She was all made up ofblackness and brightness, a shadow child, not much of her apparentexcept the pale face and the two lights in her eyes--unless, indeed, itwere that one leg, hanging down from under the black frock, with a whitestocking on it, and a varnished, fire-reflecting shoe.

  Never in Ned's life had he experienced anything like this before; thedelicious thrill of visionary terror made the actual pleasantness of thewarm corner he sat in all the pleasanter; he had thought himself pastthe age to have stories told to him; but nothing like Norah's visionshad ever come in his way. No happiness, however, is perfect in thisworld. The dark avenue would come across him by moments with a thrill ofterror. But the old woman could not sit and spin, that was certain, inthe dark, windy, lonely avenue; there would be no mirror there toreflect his passing figure; and he would run; and if the dogs wereabout they would come to meet him; so the boy took courage and permittedhimself to enjoy this moment, which was a novelty in his life. Then MrsDrummond came in with her black dress like Norah's, and the long whitestreamers to her cap, which looked like wings, he thought. Her sorrowfullook, her soft voice, that air about her of something subdued andstilled, which had not always been so, impressed the boy's imagination.Ned was an honest, single-hearted boy, and he looked with awe upon anysuffering which he could understand. He explained afterwards that Helenlooked as if she were very sorry about something. 'Awfully sorry--butnot bothering,' he said, and the look of self-control impressed him,though he could not tell why. Altogether it was so different from home;so much more attractive to the imagination. There was no dimness, noshadows, at the great house. There nobody ever sat in the firelight, nor'took things into their heads;' and here everything was so shadowy, sosoft, so variable; the firelight gleaming suddenly out now and then, theair so full of mystery. Everything that is strange is attractive to theyoung fancy to begin with; and there was more than simple novelty here.

  Helen brought the lamp in her hand and set it down on the table, whichto some extent disturbed his picture; and then she came and sat down bythe children, while Susan--old Susan, who was a landmark to Ned, keepinghim to reality in the midst of all this wonderfulness--brought in andarranged the tea.

  'Are you sure they will not be anxious?' said Helen. 'I am afraid yourmother will be unhappy about you when she finds you don't come.'

  'Oh, she'll never find out,' said Ned. 'Unhappy! I don't suppose mammawould be unhappy for that; but I'll get home before they come out fromdinner. I sha'n't dress though, it would be absurd, at nine o'clock.'

  'It will be a dark walk for you up the avenue,' said Helen kindly; andwhen she said this Ned shrank into his corner and shivered slightly. Sheadded, 'You are not afraid?'

  'Oh no--I should hope not!' said Ned.

  'I should be afraid,' said Norah tranquilly; 'the wind in the treesalways makes me feel strange. It sounds so moaning and dreary, as if itwere complaining. We don't do it any harm that it should complain. It islike something that is in prison and wants to get out. Do you know anystories about forest spirits? I don't like them very much; they arealways dwarfs, or trolls, or something grim--funny little men, hairy allover, that sit under the trees with their long arms, and dart out whenyou pass.'

  Ned gave another suppressed shiver in his corner, and Helen came to hisaid.

  'Norah has read nothing but fairy tales all her life,' she said; 'but Idare say you know a great deal more than she does, and don't care forsuch foolish things. You are going to Eton? I was once there when allthe boats were out, and there were fireworks at night. It was so pretty.I dare say when you are there you will get into the boats.'

  'I shall try,' said Ned, lighting up. 'I mean to be very good atathletics if I can. It does not matter if I work very hard, for I amgoing into papa's business, where I sha'n't want it. I am not going toEton to work, but to get among a good set, and to do what other peopledo.'

  'Ah!' said Helen, with a smile. She took but a languid interest in Ned,and she was scarcely sorry that Mr. Burton's son showed no likelihood ofdistinguishing himself. She accepted it quite quietly, without anyinterest in the matter, which somehow troubled Ned, he could not havetold why.

  'At least, they say you're not obliged to work,' he said, a littleabashed. 'I shall do as much as I can at that too.'

  And then there was a momentary silence, broken only by the ring of theteacups as Susan put them down. Ned had a feeling that no very profoundinterest was shown in his prospect and intentions, but he was used tothat. He sat quite quiet, feeling very shy, and sadly troubled to findthat Susan had placed the lamp where it threw its strongest light uponhimself. He drew his muddy boots and stockings as much as he could underhis chair, and hoped Mrs Drummond would not notice them; how foolish hehad been to come, making an exhibition of himself! and yet it was verypleasant, too.

  'Now you must come to the table and have some tea,' said Helen, placinga chair for him with her own hand. Ned knew it was a gentleman's duty todo this for a lady, but he was so confused he did not feel capable ofbehaving like anything but a loutish boy; he turned everything he couldthink of as a pleasant subject of conversation over in his mind, withthe idea of doing what he could to make himself agreeable; but nothingwould come that he could produce. He sat and got through a great deal ofbread and butter while he cudgelled his brains in this way. There wasnot much conversation. Helen was more silent than usual, having so muchto think of; and Norah was amused by the unusual specimen of humanitybefore her, and distracted from the monologue with which she generallyfilled up all vacant places. At last Ned's efforts resolved themselvesinto speech.

  'Oh, Mrs Drummond, please, should you like to have a dog?' he said.

  'I knew he was a doggy sort of a boy,' Norah said to herself, throwing acertain serious pity into her contemplation of him. But yet the offerwas very interesting, and suggested various excitements to com
e.

  'What kind of a dog?' said Helen, with a smile.

  'Oh, we have two or three different kinds. I was thinking, perhaps, anice little Skye--like Shaggy, but smaller. Or if you would like aretriever, or one of old Dinah's pups.'

  'Thanks,' said Helen. 'I don't know what we should do with it, Ned; butit is very kind of you.'

  'Oh, no,' said the boy with a violent blush. 'It would be a companionfor--_her_, you know. It is so nice to have a dog to play with. Why,Shaggy does everything but talk. He knows every word I say. You mighthave Shaggy himself, if you like, while I am away.'

  'Oh, what a nice boy you are!' said Norah. '_I_ should like it, Ned.Mamma does not want anything to play with; but I do. Give it to me! Ishould take such care of him! And then when you came home for theholidays, I should promise to take him to the station to meet you. Ilove Shaggy--he is such fun. He can't see out of his eyes; and he doesso frisk and jump, and make an object of himself. I never knew you weresuch a nice boy! Give him to me.'

  And then the two fell into the most animated discussion, while Helen satsilent and looked on. She forgot that the boy was her enemy's son. Hewas her cousin's son; some drops of blood-kindred to her ran in hisveins. He was an honest, simple boy. Mrs Drummond brightened upon him,according to her nature. She was not violently fond of children, but shecould not shut her heart against an ingenuous, open face. She scarcelyinterfered with the conversation that followed, except to subdue thewild generosity with which Ned proposed to send everything he couldthink of to Norah. 'There are some books about dogs, that will tell youjust what to do. I'll tell John to bring them down. And there's----Areyou very fond of books? You must have read thousands and thousands, I amsure.'

  'Not so many as that,' Norah said modestly. 'But I have gotthrough--some.'

  'I could lend you--I am sure I could lend you--Papa has got a great biglibrary; I forget how many volumes. They are about everything that bookswere ever written about. We never read them, except mamma, sometimes;but if you would like them----'

  'You must not give her anything more,' said Helen; 'and even the dogmust only come if your people are willing. You are too young to makepresents.'

  'I am not so very young,' cried Ned, who had found his voice. 'I am nearfourteen. When Cyril Rivers was my age, he was captain of fourthform;--he told me himself. But then he is very clever--much clevererthan me. Norah! if I should only be able to send Shaggy's puppy, notShaggy himself, shall you mind?'

  'Are you sure you will not be afraid to walk up the avenue alone?' saidMrs Drummond, rising from the table. 'I fear it will be so very dark;and we have no one to send with you, Ned.'

  'Oh, I don't want any one,' said the boy; and he stumbled up to hisfeet, and put out his hand to say good night, feeling himself dismissed.Norah went to the door with him to let him out. 'Oh, I wish I could gotoo,' said Norah; 'it is so lonely walking in the dark; but then Ishould have to get back. Oh, I do so wish you could stay. Don't youthink you could stay? There are hundreds of rooms we don't use. Well,then, good night. I will tell you what I shall do. I shall stand at thedoor here and watch. If you should be frightened, you can shout, and Iwill shout back; and then you will always know that I am here. It issuch a comfort when one is frightened to know there is some one there.

  'I shan't be frightened,' said Ned boldly. And he walked with the utmostvalour and the steadiest step to the Hall gates, feeling Norah's eyesupon him. Then he stopped to shout--'Good night; all right!'

  'Good night!' rang through the air in Norah's treble. And then, it mustbe allowed, when he heard the door of the Gatehouse shut, and saw by thedarkness of the lodge windows that old John and his daughter had gone tobed, that Ned's heart failed him a little. A wild recollection crossedhis mind of the dwarfs, with their long arms, under the trees; and ofthe old woman spinning, spinning, with eyes that fixed upon you forhours together; and then, with his heart beating, he made one plungeinto the gloom, under the overarching trees.

  This is how Ned and Norah, knowing nothing about it, made, as they eachdescribed the process afterwards, 'real friends.' The bond was cementedby the gift of Shaggy's puppy some days after, and it was made permanentand eternal by the fact that very soon afterwards Ned went away toschool.