Part 89 (2/2)
”You are jesting, I trust?” said Mrs. Dodd anxiously.
”No, mamma. I got the place late last night, and I'm to enter on my duties and put on the livery next Monday. Hurrah!”
Instantly the admirers of fiery heroes at a distance overflowed with grief and mortification at the prospect of one in their own family. They could not speak at all at first: and, when they did, it was only ”Cruel!
cruel!” from Julia; and ”Our humiliation is now complete,” from Mrs.
Dodd.
They soon dashed Edward's spirits, and made him unhappy; but they could not convince him he had done wrong. However, in the heat of remonstrance, they let out at last that they had just begun to hope by dint of scissors and paint-brush to send him back to Oxford. He also detected, under a cloud of tender, loving, soothing, coaxing and equivocating expressions, their idea of a Man: to wit, a tall, strong, ornamental creature, whom the women were to c.o.c.ker up, and pet, and slave for; and be rewarded by basking, dead tired, in an imperial smile or two let fall by their sovereign _protege_ from his arm-chair. And, in fact, good women have often demoralised their idols down to the dirt by this process; to be sure their idols were sorryish clay, to begin.
Edward was anything but flowery, so he paraded no manly sentiments in reply; he just bluntly ridiculed the idea of his consenting to prey on them; and he said humbly, ”I know I can't contribute as much to our living as you two can--the petticoats carry the brains in our family--but, be a burden to you? Not if I know it.”
”Pride! pride! pride!” objected Julia, lifting her grand violet orbs like a pensive Madonna.
”And such pride! The pride that falls into a fire-bucket,” suggested prosaic mamma.
”That is cutting,” said Edward: ”but, _soyons de notre siecle;_ flunkeyism is on the decline. I'll give you something to put in both your pipes:
'Honour and rank from no condition rise.
Act well thy part; in that the honour lies.'”
”Yes, yes,” said Mrs. Dodd, ”only first choose your part; and let your choice be reasonable.”
”Mine was Hobson's, and he never chooses wrong. Come, come,” said he, and appealed calmly to their reason, by which means he made no impression at all. Then he happened to say, ”Besides, I must do something. I own to you I am more cast down than I choose to show.
Mother, I feel like lead ever since she died.” Now on this, their faces filled with sympathy directly. So encouraged he went on to say: ”But when I got my hand on that old duffer's collar, and lowered him to the ladder, and the fire shot roaring out of the window after him, too late to eat him, and the crowd cheered the fireman and me, I did feel warm about the waistcoat, and, for the first time this ever so long, life seemed not quite ended. I felt there was a little bit of good left, that even a poor dunce like me could do, and she could approve--if she can look down and see me, as I hope she can.”
”There, there,” said Mrs. Dodd tearfully, ”I am disarmed, But, my darling, I do not know what you are talking about: Stay; why, Edward, surely--I hope--you were not the young gentleman in the paper, the one that risked his life so n.o.bly, so foolishly--if it was you.
”Why, mother, didn't I tell you it was me?” said Edward, colouring.
”No, that you did not,” said Julia. ”Was it? was it? oh do be quick and tell one. There, it was.”
”Well, it was: ah, I remember now; that splendiferous account shut me up. Oh, I say, didn't the _'Tiser_ pitch it strong?”
”Not at all,” cried Julia; ”I believe every word, and ever so much more.
Mamma, we have got a hero, and here he is at breakfast with us, like an ordinary mortal.” She rose suddenly with a burst of her old fire and fell upon him and kissed him, and said earnestly how proud she was of him; ”And so is mamma. She may say what she likes.”
”Proud of him! ah, that I am; very proud, and very unhappy. _Heroes are my horror._ How often, and how earnestly have I prayed that my son might not be brave like his father, but stay quietly at home out of harm's way.”
Here remonstrance ended; the members of this family, happy by nature, though unhappy by accident, all knew when to yield to each other.
Unfortunately, in proportion as all these excitements great and small died, and her life became quiet and uniform, the depth of Julia's wound showed itself more and more. She never sang nor hummed, as she used to do, going about the house. She never laughed. She did burst out with fervid sentiments now and then, but very rarely; on the whole, a pensive languor took the place of her lovely impetuosity. Tears rushed in a moment to her eyes with no visible cause. She often stole to the window, and looked all up and down the street; and when she was out of doors, she looked down every side street she pa.s.sed; and sometimes, when a quick light step came behind them, or she saw a tall young gentleman at a great distance, her hand twitched her mother's arm or trembled on it.
And, always, when they came home, she lingered a moment at the door-step and looked all round before she went in.
At all these signs one half of Mrs. Dodd's heart used to boil with indignation, and the other half melt with pity. For she saw her daughter was looking for ”the Wretch.” Indeed Mrs. Dodd began to fear she had done unwisely in ignoring ”the Wretch.” Julia's thoughts dwelt on him none the less; indeed all the more as it seemed; so the topic interdicted by tacit consent bade fair to become a barrier between her and Mrs. Dodd, hitherto her bosom friend as well as her mother. This was intolerable to poor Mrs. Dodd: and at last she said one day, ”My darling, do not be afraid of me; rob me of your happy thoughts if you will, but oh, not of your sad ones.”
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