Volume I Part 34 (1/2)
”Withering has seen young Conyers,” she continued, as her eyes ran over the letter ”He called upon him.” Barrington made no rejoinder, though she waited for one. ”The poor lad was in great affliction; some distressing news from India--of what kind Withering could not guess--had just reached him, and he appeared overwhelmed by it.”
”He is very young for sorrow,” said Barrington, feelingly.
”Just what Withering said;” and she read out, ”'When I told him that I had come to make an _amende_ for the reception he had met with at the cottage, he stopped me at once, and said, ”Great grief s are the cure of small ones, and you find me under a very heavy affliction. Tell Miss Barrington that I have no other memories of the 'Fisherman's Home' than of all her kindness towards me.”'”
”Poor boy!” said Barrington, with emotion. ”And how did Withering leave him?”
”Still sad and suffering. Struggling too, Withering thought, between a proud attempt to conceal his grief and an ardent impulse to tell all about it 'Had _you_ been there,' he writes, 'you'd have had the whole story; but I saw that he could n't stoop to open his heart to a man.'”
”Write to him, Dinah. Write and ask him down here for a couple of days.”
”You forget that we are to leave this the day after tomorrow, brother.”
”So I did. I forgot it completely. Well, what if he were to come for one day? What if you were to say come over and wish us good-bye?”
”It is so like a man and a man's selfishness never to consider a domestic difficulty,” said she, tartly. ”So long as a house has a roof over it, you fancy it may be available for hospitalities. You never take into account the carpets to be taken up, and the beds that are taken down, the plate-chest that is packed, and the cellar that is walled up.
You forget, in a word, that to make that life you find so very easy, some one else must pa.s.s an existence full of cares and duties.”
”There 's not a doubt of it, Dinah. There 's truth and reason in every word you 've said.”
”I will write to him if you like, and say that we mean to be at home by an early day in October, and that if he is disposed to see how our woods look in autumn, we will be well pleased to have him for our guest.”
”Nothing could be better. Do so, Dinah. I owe the young fellow a reparation, and I shall not have an easy conscience till I make it.”
”Ah, brother Peter, if your moneyed debts had only given you one-half the torment of your moral ones, what a rich man you might have been to-day!”
Long after his sister had gone away and left him, Peter Barrington continued to muse over this speech. He felt it, felt it keenly too, but in no bitterness of spirit.
Like most men of a lax and easy temper, he could mete out to himself the same merciful measure he accorded to others, and be as forgiving to his own faults as to theirs. ”I suppose Dinah is right, though,” said he to himself. ”I never did know that sensitive irritability under debt which insures solvency. And whenever a man can laugh at a dun, he is pretty sure to be on the high-road to bankruptcy! Well, well, it is somewhat late to try and reform, but I'll do my best!” And thus comforted, he set about tying up fallen rose-trees and removing noxious insects with all his usual zeal.
”I half wish the place did not look in such beauty, just as I must leave it for a while. I don't think that j.a.ponica ever had as many flowers before; and what a season for tulips! Not to speak of the fruit There are peaches enough to stock a market. I wonder what Dinah means to do with them? She 'll be sorely grieved to make them over as perquisites to Darby, and I know she 'll never consent to have them sold. No, that is the one concession she cannot stoop to. Oh, here she comes! What a grand year for the wall fruit, Dinah!” cried he, aloud.
”The apricots have all failed, and fully one-half of the peaches are worm-eaten,” said she, dryly.
Peter sighed as he thought, how she does dispel an illusion, what a terrible realist is this same sister! ”Still, my dear Dinah, one-half of such a crop is a goodly yield.”
”Out with it, Peter Barrington. Out with the question that is burning for utterance. What's to be done with them? I have thought of that already. I have told Polly Dill to preserve a quant.i.ty for us, and to take as much more as she pleases for her own use, and make presents to her friends of the remainder. She is to be mistress here while we are away, and has promised to come up two or three times a week, and see after everything, for I neither desire to have the flower-roots sold, nor the pigeons eaten before our return.”
”That is an admirable arrangement, sister. I don't know a better girl than Polly!”
”She is better than I gave her credit for,” said Miss Barrington, who was not fully pleased at any praise not bestowed by herself. A man's estimate of a young woman's goodness is not so certain of finding acceptance from her own s.e.x! ”And as for that girl, the wonder is that with a fool for a mother, and a crafty old knave for a father, she really should possess one good trait or one amiable quality.” Barrington muttered what sounded like concurrence, and she went on: ”And it is for this reason I have taken an interest in her, and hope, by occupying her mind with useful cares and filling her hours with commendable duties, she will estrange herself from that going about to fine houses, and frequenting society where she is exposed to innumerable humiliations, and worse.”
”Worse, Dinah!--what could be worse?”
”Temptations are worse, Peter Barrington, even when not yielded to; for like a noxious climate, which, though it fails to kill, it is certain to injure the const.i.tution during a lifetime. Take my word for it, she 'll not be the better wife to the Curate for the memory of all the fine speeches she once heard from the Captain. Very old and ascetic notions I am quite aware, Peter; but please to bear in mind all the trouble we take that the roots of a favorite tree should not strike into a sour soil, and bethink you how very indifferent we are as to the daily a.s.sociates of our children!”
”There you are right, Dinah, there you are right,--at least, as regards girls.”
”And the rule applies fully as much to boys. All those manly accomplishments and out-of-door habits you lay such store by, could be acquired without the intimacy of the groom or the friends.h.i.+p of the gamekeeper. What are you muttering there about old-maids' children? Say it out, sir, and defend it, if you have the courage!”