Robert Elsmere
live in Whindale; I am not somebody else and needn't earn my bread; and
art is not religion; and----'
'Wheels!' exclaimed Agnes. 'Catherine, I suppose, home from
Whinborough.'
Rose got up and peered through the rhododendron bushes at the top of the
wall which shut them off from the road.
'Catherine, and an unknown. Catherine driving at a foot's pace, and the
unknown walking beside her. Oh, I see, of course--Mr. Elsmere. He will
come in to tea, so I'll go for a cup. It is his duty to call on us
to-day.'
When Rose came back in the wake of her mother, Catherine and Robert
Elsmere were coming up the drive. Something had given Catherine more
colour than usual, and as Mrs. Leyburn shook hands with the young
clergyman her mother's eyes turned approvingly to her eldest daughter.
'After all, she is as handsome as Rose,' she said to herself--'though it
_is_ quite a different style.'
Rose, who was always tea-maker, dispensed her wares; Catherine took her
favourite low seat beside her mother, clasping Mrs. Leyburn's thin
mittened hand awhile tenderly in her own; Robert and Agnes set up a
lively gossip on the subject of the Thornburghs' guests, in which Rose
joined, while Catherine looked smiling on. She seemed apart from the
rest, Robert thought; not, clearly, by her own will, but by virtue of a
difference of temperament which could not but make itself felt. Yet once
as Rose passed her, Robert saw her stretch out her hand and touch her
sister caressingly, with a bright upward look and smile as though she
would say, 'Is all well? have you had a good time this afternoon,
Roeschen?' Clearly the strong contemplative nature was not strong enough
to dispense with any of the little wants and cravings of human
affection. Compared to the main impression she was making on him, her
suppliant attitude at her mother's feet and her caress of her sister
were like flowers breaking through the stern March soil and changing the
whole spirit of the fields.
Presently he said something of Oxford, and mentioned Merton. Instantly
Mrs. Leyburn fell upon him. Had he ever seen Mr. S---- who had been a
Fellow there, and Rose's godfather?
'I don't acknowledge him,' said Rose, pouting. 'Other people's
godfathers give them mugs and corals. Mine never gave me anything but a
Concordance.'
Robert laughed, and proved to their satisfaction that Mr. S---- had been
extinct before his day. But could they ask him any other questions? Mrs.
Leyburn became quite animated, and, diving into her memory, produced a
number of fragmentary reminiscences of her husband's Queen's friends,
asking him for information about each and all of them. The young man
disentangled all her questions, racked his brains to answer, and showed
all through a quick friendliness, a charming deference as of youth to
age, which confirmed the liking of the whole party for him. Then the
mention of an associate of Richard Leyburn's youth, who had been one of
the Tractarian leaders, led him into talk of Oxford changes and the
influences of the present. He drew for them the famous High Church
preacher of the moment, described the great spectacle of his Bampton
Lectures, by which Oxford had been recently thrilled, and gave a
dramatic account of a sermon on evolution preached by the hermit-veteran
Pusey, as though by another Elias returning to the world to deliver a
last warning message to men. Catherine listened absorbed, her deep eyes
fixed upon him. And though all he said was pitched in a vivacious
narrative key and addressed as much to the others as to her, inwardly it
seemed to him that his one object all through was to touch and keep her
attention.
Then, in answer to inquiries about himself, he fell to describing St.
Anselm's with enthusiasm,--its growth, its Provost, its effectiveness as
a great educational machine, the impression it had made on Oxford and
the country. This led him naturally to talk of Mr. Grey, then, next to
the Provost, the most prominent figure in the college; and once
embarked on this theme he became more eloquent and interesting than
ever. The circle of women listened to him as to a voice from the large
world. He made them feel the beat of the great currents of English life
and thought; he seemed to bring the stir and rush of our central English
society into the deep quiet of their valley. Even the bright-haired
Rose, idly swinging her pretty foot, with a head full of dreams and
discontent, was beguiled, and for the moment seemed to lose her restless
self in listening.
He told an exciting story of a bad election riot in Oxford which had
been quelled at considerable personal risk by Mr. Grey, who had gained
his influence in the town by a devotion of years to the policy of
breaking down as far as possible the old venomous feud between city and
university.
When he paused, Mrs. Leyburn said, vaguely, 'Did you say he was a canon
of somewhere?'
'Oh no,' said Robert, smiling, 'he is not a clergyman.'
'But you said he preached,' said Agnes.
'Yes--but lay sermons--addresses. He is not one of us even, according to
your standard and mine.'
'A Nonconformist?' sighed Mrs. Leyburn. 'Oh, I know they have let in
everybody now.'
'Well, if you like,' said Robert. 'What I meant was that his opinions
are not orthodox. He could not be a clergyman, but he is one of the
noblest of men!'
He spoke with affectionate warmth. Then suddenly Catherine's eyes met
his, and he felt an involuntary start. A veil had fallen over them; her
sweet moved sympathy was gone; she seemed to have shrunk into herself.
She turned to Mrs. Leyburn. 'Mother, do you know, I have all sorts of
messages from Aunt Ellen'--and in an under-voice she began to give Mrs.
Leyburn the news of her afternoon expedition.
Rose and Agnes soon plunged young Elsmere into another stream of talk.
But he kept his feeling of perplexity. His experience of other women
seemed to give him nothing to go upon with regard to Miss Leyburn.
Presently Catherine got up and drew her plain little black cape round
her again.
'My dear!' remonstrated Mrs. Leyburn. 'Where are you off to now?'
'To the Backhouses, mother,' she said in a low voice; 'I have not been
there for two days. I must go this evening.'
Mrs. Leyburn said no more. Catherine's 'musts' were never disputed. She
moved towards Elsmere with outstretched hand. But he also sprang up.
'I, too, must be going,' he said; 'I have paid you an unconscionable
visit. If you are going past the vicarage, Miss Leyburn, may I escort
you so far?'
She stood quietly waiting while he made his farewells. Agnes, whose eye
fell on her sister during the pause, was struck with a passing sense of
something out of the common. She could hardly have defined her
impression, but Catherine seemed more alive to the outer world, more
like other people, less nun-like, than usual.
When they had left the garden together, as they had come into it, and
Mrs. Leyburn, complaining of chilliness, had retreated to the
drawing-room, Rose laid a quick hand on her sister's arm.
'You say Catherine likes him? Owl! what is a great deal more certain is
that he likes her.'
'Well,' said Agnes calmly,--'well, I await your remarks.'
'Poor fellow! said Rose grimly, and removed her hand.
Meanwhile Elsmere and Catherine walked along the valley road towards the
Vicarage. He thought, uneasily, she was a little more reserved with him
than she had been in those pleasant moments after he had overtaken her
in the pony-carriage; but still she was always kind, always courteous.
And what a white hand it was, hanging ungloved against her dress! what a
beautiful dignity and freedom, as of mountain winds and mountain
streams, in every movement!
'You are bound for High Ghyll?' he said to her as they neared the
vicarage gate. Is it not a long way for you? You have been at a meeting
already, your sister said, and teaching this morning!'
He looked down on her with a charming diffidence as though aware that
their acquaintance was very young, and yet with a warm eagerness of
feeling piercing through. As she paused under his eye the slightest
flush rose to Catherine's cheek. Then she looked up with a smile. It was
amusing to be taken care of by this tall stranger!
'It is most unfeminine, I am afraid,' she said, 'but I couldn't be tired
if I tried.'
Elsmere grasped her hand.
'You make me feel myself more than ever a shocking example,' he said,
letting it go with a little sigh. The smart of his own renunciation was
still keen in him. She lingered a moment, could find nothing to say,
threw him a look all shy sympathy and lovely pity, and was gone.
In the evening Robert got an explanation of that sudden stiffening in
his auditor of the afternoon, which had perplexed him. He and the vicar
were sitting smoking in the study after dinner, and the ingenious young
man managed to shift the conversation on to the Leyburns, as he had
managed to shift it once or twice before that day, flattering himself,
of course, on each occasion that his manoeuvres were beyond detection.
The vicar, good soul, by virtue of his original discovery, detected them
all, and with a sense of appropriation in the matter, not at all unmixed
with a sense of triumph over Mrs. T., kept the ball rolling merrily.
'Miss Leyburn seems to have very strong religious views,' said Robert,
_a propos_ of some remark of the vicar's as to the assistance she was to
him in the school.
'Ah, she is her father's daughter,' said the vicar genially. He had his
oldest coat on, his favourite pipe between his lips, and a bit of
domestic carpentering on his knee at which he was fiddling away; and,
being perfectly happy, was also perfectly amiable. 'Richard Leyburn was
a fanatic--as mild as you please, but immovable.'
'What line?'
'Evangelical, with a dash of Quakerism. He lent me Madame Guyon's Life
once to read. I didn't appreciate it. I told him that for all her
religion she seemed to me to have a deal of the vixen in her. He could
hardly get over it: it nearly broke our friendship. But I suppose he was
very like her, except that, in my opinion, his nature was sweeter. He
was a fatalist--saw leadings of Providence in every little thing. And
such a dreamer! When he came to live up here just before his death, and
all his active life was taken off him, I believe half his time he was
seeing visions. He used to wander over the fells and meet you with a
start, as though you belonged to another world than the one he was
walking in.'
'And his eldest daughter was much with him?'
'The apple of his eye. She understood him. He could talk his soul out to
her. The others, of course, were children; and his wife--well, his wife
was just what you see her now, poor thing. He must have married her when
she was very young and very pretty. She was a squire's daughter
somewhere near the school of which he was master--a good family, I
believe--she'll tell you so, in a ladylike way. He was always fidgety
about her health. He loved her, I suppose, or had loved her. But it was
Catherine who had his mind; Catherine who was his friend. She adored
him. I believe there was always a sort of pity in her heart for him too.
But at any rate he made her and trained her. He poured all his ideas and
convictions into her.'
'Which were strong?'
'Uncommonly. For all his gentle, ethereal look, you could neither bend
nor break him. I don't believe anybody but Richard Leyburn could have
gone through Oxford at the height of the Oxford Movement, and, so to
speak, have known nothing about it, while living all the time for
religion. He had a great deal in common with the Quakers, as I said; a
great deal in common with the Wesleyans; but he was very loyal to the
Church all the same. He regarded it as the golden mean. George Herbert