by George Moore
A beautiful sunset prospect, I admit it to be, Hugh said, but it is by no means striking by moonlight or starlight, and a miserable one at dawn.
III
Whilst listening to Percy talking to her about his vocation Mrs. Monfert remembered that Hugh had taken Dr. Knight away with him and might be telling him at that moment that his mother wished him to marry at once, to choose any one of the women who came down to spend week-ends at Wotton Hall, thereby enlisting Dr. Knight’s sympathies against her; and she regretted that she had allowed the priest to go away with Hugh, leaving her with this tiresome boy, who did not know whether he was going to be a priest or an artist. But it was too late now to go out and find them on the lawn and interrupt their talk; she must bear with this boy and wait until to-morrow to have her talk with Dr. Knight, for during the evening Hugh would like to see Percy’s drawings. At last she formed a plan to send them both to the Barn, for Percy would like to see the armour and the books, and in their absence she would be able to pick out from Dr. Knight what Hugh had said to him on the lawn. But after dinner Percy brought down his drawings; Hugh must have his mother consider them, and when the last drawing was returned to the portfolio Dr. Knight fell to talking of his daughter Beatrice, saying that she was a perfect match of Percy in appearance and in temperament, both being drawn equally to the arts and religion. To Mrs. Monfert’s question whether Beatrice contemplated remaining in the convent, taking vows, of course, Dr. Knight answered that he would not venture to give an opinion upon such a point before seeing Beatrice; and when all that could be said about her had been said he asked if he might retire to his room, saying that he felt tired after his journey. And Mrs. Monfert retired to hers, seeking a speck of comfort and finding one; the deference with which Hugh listened to the President of Stanislaus College encouraged her to believe that if she could convince Dr. Knight that marriage was the only safeguard in certain cases (she need not speak of her husband — it would be enough to say that though some young men might not like ladies they might like common women), the priest’s knowledge of the world would enable him to understand her point of view; and if he chose to exercise his influence Hugh might be persuaded, if not into an immediate marriage, at least to look upon marriage as his duty. And so convincing did the story that she had prepared seem to her that she slept quietly that night, and came down next morning to breakfast with all her plans for a conference ready in her head.
As soon as the meal was over she asked Hugh to show the Barn to Percy, who no doubt would like to see his collection of armour, and then turning to Dr. Knight she asked if he would like to see the garden, the farm, and the stables. When the horses that the grooms were bidden to unsheet were admired, they repaired to the garden, and the gardener called attention to carnations as big as small cauliflowers and to the grapes overhead. But Dr. Knight said he only liked little flowers, a remark that Mrs. Monfert thought savoured of Hugh, and the gardener visibly demurred when the priest said that hothouse grapes were but a poor substitute for grapes grown in the open air, and that the almost skinless, sweet, white grapes of Fontainebleau were the best. Mrs. Monfert liked the thick-skinned, gluey, hot-house grapes of England, and after this first exchange of differences of opinion they walked round the fields through woods till they came to the farm. The byres seemed to interest Dr. Knight more than the stables or the garden, and Mrs. Monfert wearied a little of his talk with Crogby about swine and yoes and rams, and perceiving that he was putting her past her patience he explained that Stanislaus had a farm and that he was glad of a chance to put to the test some of the stories his bailiff had told him. Mrs. Monfert answered that she too was glad to hear Crogby talk his trade. He comes from your country, somewhere north of the Tweed, she said. Dr. Knight was from Yorkshire, but he let the remark go by without comment and listened to Mrs. Monfert’s praise of her bailiff, who had just returned from the north with cattle — Which we are fattening for the home market.
The priest asked many questions and Mrs. Monfert was glad to answer them, for she wished to create an atmosphere of sympathy and to dispel the memory of the mistake she had made in pledging her faith to hot-house grapes rather than to those Dr. Knight preferred. It was necessary for her to do this, for the priest had already spoken of the heat of the day, saying that a bright September sun blazing in a cloudless sky was harder to bear than any July or August one, for the world was not then baked. You must have had very little rain here, he said, for the fields are like cast-iron; these clods make walking difficult. We shall soon be under trees, Mrs. Monfert answered, and they climbed a steep stubble field, keeping within the shade of the high hedges, and by many paths and stiles finding their way at last through a gate into an oak wood where there was shade in plenty under the great bronze leaves, but the wood was so thick that they had to follow a broad path open to the sun. In winter the rain collects in these ruts, forming deep puddles, said Mrs. Monfert; the walking is hard till the shooting season, but at least one walks dry shod. Dr. Knight had tried the middle of the road and both sides, but everywhere the ruts were baked, and he walked painfully, thinking that he would prefer to get his feet wet rather than to have them hurt. The shooters are posted in these rides, Mrs. Monfert continued. Hugh goes out with them, but he seldom carries a gun now. A cock pheasant rising out of the scrub flew down the hillside with a great crowing and a whir of wings, and anon their voices disturbed a bird who went away chattering. The wood seems full of game, Dr. Knight said, for it seemed to him a suitable remark to make, and their talk turned to the breeding of pheasants. The keeper’s house is higher up the hillside, she said, and now that I come to think of it I am sorry that we did not pass that way. You would like to have seen his cottage and the dogs, but it is too far to return. Dr. Knight acquiesced and asked her if the chattering bird they had just seen flying through the wood was a hen pheasant, and she answered no, that it was a yaffle. And the word not being familiar to the priest, she added: The large woodpecker is known in these parts as the yaffle.
At that moment the long red body of a fox crossed the ride some fifty or sixty yards ahead of them, and they began to talk of the hunting season, Mrs. Monfert telling that Hugh cared more for hunting than shooting, and that the hunting in Essex was not what it was in the Shires. Dr. Knight answered her with talk about certain packs of hounds in the north of England, the conversation getting no nearer the subject they had come out to talk about, till at last Mrs. Monfert could bear it no longer and said at the end of a pause: — I wonder into whose hands this beautiful place will fall; and anxious to avail himself of the opportunity, Dr. Knight murmured that it could pass into no other hands but Hugh’s. I am thinking of who will come after him. You see, he is the last, and if he doesn’t marry the family dies with him. The priest answered, that in due course Hugh would take to himself a wife, to which polite hope Mrs. Monfert replied that Hugh did not show himself more prone to matrimony than his father, who did not marry until he was sixty. And if he delays so long I shall not see my grandchildren growing up. But there is no reason to fear that he will delay unduly, Mrs. Monfert. It may be as you say, and I trust it will. He is but two-and-twenty, the priest said. But at two-and-twenty a man should know his own mind, she answered quickly. Your son Percy is only seventeen and he already knows that he is called to the priesthood. What I am afraid of, Dr. Knight, is — hut of the dead let us speak nothing but good and I certainly will never speak evil of my husband, who was a good husband to me as long as he lived. I have got no complaint; I married him with my eyes open, knowing that he had had mistresses, unfortunately girls from the village; it would have been better if he had gone further afield. Dr. Knight, what keeps me awake at night is that Hugh may follow his father’s footsteps. An early marriage is a great safeguard. I know Hugh very well, the priest answered, and I think have some insight into his character, having spent several years with him at Stanislaus (Mrs. Monfert knew that Dr. Knight was her son’s confessor and waited eagerly for the next words), and unless I am altoge
ther mistaken I don’t think that you have any need to fear that he will contract any of the highly reprehensible relations to which you allude. I am glad to hear you say so, Mrs. Monfert answered, and I take some credit to myself, for I did not fail to bring him up religiously, keeping the fear of hell always before him, instilling the belief as well as I could that any mortal sin deserved eternal punishment, that God is revengeful. God is merciful, the priest interposed. Merciful, yes, Mrs. Monfert returned, and embarrassed by the theological question they walked a little way in silence, Mrs. Monfert saying at the end of a pause: True, quite true, God is merciful. But you have never noticed anything in Hugh’s conduct that leads you to suspect, to fear that — Oh, nothing, nothing, she answered. I should be sorry to see Hugh fall into sin, to do any girl a wrong, but young men sin and repent and I often ask myself if — Feeling that Mrs. Monfert was about to say that she would sooner Hugh sinned and repented than that he should remain a chaste man, the prelate coughed, thereby saving her from the end of her sentence, if the end of it included the dubious morality that Dr. Knight suspected. Then you have no advice to offer me? You think we can do nothing? We can do nothing, Mrs. Monfert, to persuade Hugh to marry against his will. We can lead where we cannot drive — I see he has been talking to you and won you over to his side. He complained, the priest answered in a tone of reproof: Perhaps I should say he expressed a regret that you were so anxious — To see him married! Mrs. Monfert interjected. But every mother wants to see her son married, especially if he is heir to a great estate and if he be the last. Priests do not take sides, Mrs. Monfert. I know that, Dr. Knight, and you must forgive me if I spoke hastily, in a moment of alarm. You don’t know (he cannot have told you, for he doesn’t know himself) that all my life is at stake. It will be either success or failure, and very soon, for if he doesn’t marry within a few years he will take after his father. You know him well, it is true, but I am his mother and in some ways a mother knows her own son better than anybody else knows him. The bailiffs were in Wotton Hall when I married my husband; it was my money that saved him from bankruptcy, and after his death I lived in three or four rooms with two maidservants upon very little — a few pounds a week, saving whenever I could, with one thought only: the redemption of the estates from mortgages and the rebuilding of Wotton Hall. I gave Hugh a free property when he came of age and a large sum of money in hand. He has been a good son and obedient, I will say that; he abandoned the thought of Oxford, on which his heart was set, and came home to rebuild the Hall, and fifteen thousand pounds were spent, perhaps wasted, for Wotton Hall will be but a vanity if he doesn’t marry. I have heard that expression before, the priest said; he told me that that is how you view Wotton Hall in the event of his not marrying. A step to the marriage bed, she snapped out, that’s how he looks on the sacrament; he doesn’t hesitate to speak his mind plainly. But if he doesn’t marry what is going to happen to him? He is not going to be a soldier nor a sailor nor a barrister, and he doesn’t care for Parliament. He is but two-and-twenty, Mrs. Monfert. But at two-and-twenty a man should know his own mind; your son is only seventeen and already has accepted the priesthood as an end. But you would not wish Hugh to enter the Church, Mrs. Monfert? Enter the Church! But he is the last; and if he should ever speak to you of entering the Church I hope you will tell him that he can be of more service as a layman than as a cleric. Almost the very words you use to me, Mrs. Monfert, I used to him. He answered that he would like to do something for his Church, and that if I thought he could be of more help as a layman than as a cleric, he would accept the laity as his lot. Indeed, he spoke very feelingly. I should have thought that this was an opportunity for you to impress upon him that marriage was his duty. Did you? No, I did not, the prelate answered, for my experience tells me that all attempts at direct influence fail. So there’s nothing for me to do but to cross my hands and wait, she said. We can influence indirectly, Dr. Knight interposed, and that is what I tried to do and what I venture to say you should try to do. Try to lead him — Ah, you have a son and a daughter; you are going to France to bring her home from a convent. Would you like to see her a nun? Mrs. Monfert’s impetuousness embarrassed the priest, and he answered: My children must choose for themselves. As far as any human beings may be said to be uninfluenced, they are. The fact that I chose to take Orders after my wife’s death may have influenced Percy. How can I say? My daughter has shown no signs up to the present of a religious vocation. She is coming home and will live with her aunt till she meet with somebody whom she may care to marry. I think you would like my daughter. Mrs. Monfert answered that she was certain she would. The portrait you drew of her last night allows me to see her through her brother. I conveyed a wrong impression, Dr. Knight replied, if I said anything that led you to think she is as gifted as her brother — Who talks to me, Mrs. Monfert interjected, soliciting my opinions. A little flattery — You’re wrong; I assure you, Mrs.
Monfert, Percy is always sincere; he draws his originality from it. And the President entertained Mrs. Monfert with an amusing account of an opera that his children had composed between them, till they reached the end of the ride, where the trees were distributed sparely, many having been felled for the rebuilding of barns, byres, and farm gates. My object being, said Mrs. Monfert, to save money during Hugh’s minority. The park paling is, I assure you, an expensive item in the running of this demesne.
They were now among the last trees, small oaks affording very little shade, and in front of them a rough path descending amidst much rubble between broken hedges, past several well-built cottages. Mrs. Monfert had built these herself, and called at three doors, to speak a few words with the butler’s wife and to pass on for a chat with the gardener’s daughter, who sometimes came to the Hall to do needlework; and she was voluble about the folk who lived in the third cottage till the broken road they were descending entered the smooth high road that wound round the park palings, overshadowed by great trees. You asked me just now, Mrs. Monfert said, about the thinning of the oak wood; if I had not had an oak wood to thin, think how much this paling would have cost me during eighteen years. And leaning over the park paling they looked down into the sunny dells and dingles, filled with tall grasses and withering willow weed, stunted hawthorns, with here and there a wild apple or an ilex, their hearts filled with the exalted melancholy that an autumn park in its transient glory whispers to the transient owner and to the passerby. The road descended steeply and at the bottom of the hill they passed through a gate, and following a path which would lead them to the house, they found themselves for the first time that morning in the impenetrable shade that only the uncouth hornbeam affords; in rugged and grotesque shapes these trees grew in profusion along the park palings and up the hillside on their right, and Dr. Knight looked upon the path as one wholly suitable for the reading of the breviary. But he did not speak what was passing in his mind; Hugh walking here in a cassock, knowing well that a joke on such a subject would prove distasteful to Mrs. Monfert. We lunch at one, she said, and you would perhaps like a little rest before luncheon? Or it may be that you have some letters to write? If so, you will find all that you require in the library. I will postpone my letters unless we are going for a long drive in the afternoon, the priest answered, and beguiled by the leafy quietness of the path they were following they walked in silence till they passed out of the dense wood into the shade of the elms leading to the gate of the garth.
As they passed through the gate the young men ran by them on some project of their own, but on hearing his sister’s name Percy stopped. They are talking of Beatrice, he said to Hugh. Come, let us listen. Hugh has not heard, father, of the play Beatrice and I wrote together — But I have told Mrs. Monfert about it and you can tell Hugh later, Dr. Knight said somewhat drily, and Mrs. Monfert, pitying Percy for the snub that he had received, she thought unnecessarily, asked him at luncheon to tell her how he and his sister had achieved the difficult task of writing together. She showed me what she had written, Percy answere
d, and I altered it. Didn’t you quarrel over the alterations? We did sometimes; but in the end Beatrice saw that she was wrong. Both my children, Dr. Knight interposed, were asked by a London manager to appear nightly, a proposal to which, of course, I could not assent. Which was a great disappointment to you both? asked Mrs. Monfert. At the time, Percy answered, it was; but I am glad now, for two years afterwards I began to perceive in myself intimations of a call to the priesthood. Beatrice, perhaps, said Mrs. Monfert, will be called to the convent. I don’t believe you would think so, replied Dr. Knight, if you knew her, and turning to Percy he asked for his opinion. Percy could not see his sister in a nun’s habit, and Mrs. Monfert took occasion that evening to speak of Beatrice several times and to remind Dr. Knight that it would give her great pleasure to make his daughter’s acquaintance. Dr. Knight saw no reason why not — the dates would fit in, and he agreed to allow Percy to remain at Wotton Hall till the end of the vacation, now drawing to a close. Three weeks, exclaimed Percy, will be enough to finish our work, or at least to get it well in hand. And pray what may your work he? Dr. Knight asked. Hugh began a portrait sketch of me this morning, Percy replied, and I have to consider the illustrations that I am going to do for his poem of Phidias leading Pericles from scaffolding to scaffolding to the top of the Parthenon, explaining the sculptures as they ascend. A splendid subject for a poem, father, isn’t it? A very good one indeed if the poet have wings to rise above his subject, Dr. Knight answered, at which words Hugh’s face fell. I hope, said Mrs. Monfert that you will not shut yourselves up in the Barn, talking of Greek sculpture and mediaevalism all the time. I shall expect you to come down for meals at least and to help to entertain the visitors that are coming for the week-end. Another snub! Hugh said to himself, and he rejoiced, for he felt a strength rising within him that would allow him to withstand his mother.
