The Mountain Girl Part 53

"David, you sacrificed yourself to ideals, but you are still a boy and have much to learn. When men try to set new laws for themselves and get out of the ordinary, they are more than apt to make fools of themselves, and may do positive harm. What is it now?"

"Can't you get over the ground any faster, John?" he cried, thrusting his head again out of the window. "These horses are overfed and lazy, like all the English people. Why was the machine out of order? Hicks is a fool--I say!" He put his hand inside his collar and pulled and worked it loose. "We are all hidebound here. Even our clothes choke us."

"David, tell me the truth."

"I am telling you the truth. I am a cad, I say. And you--you, too, are a part of the system that makes cads of us all."

"I am your mother, David," said Lady Thryng, reprovingly.

"You have reason to be proud of your son! Oh! curse me! I won't be more of a cad than I am now by laying the blame on you. I could have helped it, but you couldn't. We are born and bred that way, over here. The petty lines of distinction our ancestors drew for us,--we bow down and wors.h.i.+p them, and say G.o.d drew them. Over here a man hides the sun with his own hand and then cries out, 'Where is it?'"

"I would comfort you if I could, but this sounds very much like ranting.

I thought you had outlived that sort of thing, my son."

"Thank G.o.d, no. I've been very hard pressed of late, but I've not outlived it."

"You will tell me this trouble--now--before you leave me? You must, dear boy." He took the hand she put out to him, and held it in silence; then, incoherently, in a voice humbled and low,--almost lost in the rumbling of the carriage,--he told her. It was a revelation of the soul, and as the mother listened she too suffered and wept, but did not relent.

Ca.s.sandra's cry, "I am a strangah!" sounded in her ears, but her sorrow was for her son. Yes, she was a stranger, and had wisely taken herself back to her own place; what else could she do? Was it not in the nature of a Providence that David had been delayed until after her departure?

The duty now devolved upon herself to comfort him without further reproof, but nevertheless to make him see and do his duty in the position he had been called to fill.

"Of course she has charm, David, and evidently good sense as well."

"How do you mean?"

"To perceive the inevitable and return without fuss or complaint to her own station in life."

For an instant he sat stunned, and ere he could give utterance to his rage, she resumed, "Naturally, marriage now, in your own cla.s.s can't be; you'll simply have to live as a bachelor." David groaned. "Why, my son, many do, of their own choice, and you have managed to be happy during this year."

He glanced at his watch. "Eleven o'clock,--can't--"

"There's no use urging the horses so; we can't make it."

"We may, mother, we may." He half rose as if he would leap from the vehicle. "I could go faster on foot. There's a quarter of an hour yet before the Liverpool express. John, can't we get on faster than this?"

"No, my lord. One of the 'orses has picked up a stone. If you'll 'old 'em I'll dig it out in 'alf a minute, my lord."

David sprang out and took the reins. "Where's the footman?" he asked testily.

"You left 'im behind, my lord. He was 'elping Lady Laura cut roses."

"David, this is useless. The last train from London went through an hour ago and we haven't ten minutes for the next. Order him to return and we'll consider calmly."

David laughed bitterly, and only sprang into the coach and shut the door with a crash. "Drive on, John," he shouted through the window, and again they were off at a mad gallop.

His mother turned and looked at him astounded. "Let me read what she has written you, my son," she implored, half frightened at his frenzy.

"It's of no use for you to read it. We can't talk now, not rationally."

"Then tell him not to drive so furiously, so we can hear each other."

"I would avoid useless discussion, mother, but you force it." An instant he paused, and his teeth ground together and his jaw set rigidly, then he continued with a savage force that appalled her, throwing out short sentences like daggers. "Lord H---- brings home an American wife. His family are well pleased. She is every where received. Her father is a rich brewer. Her brother has turned out his millions from the business of pork packing. The stench from his establishment pollutes miles of country, but does not reach England--why? Because of the disinfectant process of trans.m.u.ting their greasy American dollars into golden English sovereigns. There's justice."

"Be reasonable, David. Their estates were involved to the last degree and those sovereigns saved the family. Without them they would have pa.s.sed out of their possession utterly, and been divided among our rich tradespeople, and the family would have descended rapidly to the undergrades. It goes to show the value of birth, what is more, and how those Americans, who made a pretence long ago of scorning birth and t.i.tle and casting it all off, are glad enough now to buy their way back again, if not for themselves, for their children. But, David, for a man to voluntarily degrade his family by marrying beneath him, with no such need as that of Lord H----, of ultimately by that very means lifting it up is--is--inexpressible--why--! In the case of Lord H---- there was a certain n.o.bility in marrying beneath him."

"Beneath him! For me, I married above me, over all of us, when I took my sweet, clean mountain girl. The n.o.bility of Lord H---- is unique. Lady H---- made a poor bargain when she left the mingled stenches of brewing and butchering to step into the moral stench which depleted the Stonebreck estates."

"You are not like my son, David. You are violent."

"Your son has been a cad. Now he is a man, and must either be violent or weep." He looked away from her out at the flying hedgerows, then took up the fruitless discussion again, striving with more patience to arouse in his mother a sense of the utter worldliness of her stand. She met him at every point with the obtuse and age-long arguments of her cla.s.s. When at last he cried out, "But what of my son, mother, my little son, and the heir to all this grandeur which means so much to you?" Her eyelids quivered and she looked down, merely saying, "His mother has offered you a solution to that difficulty which seems to me the only wise one. You say she proposes to keep him a year or two and then send him to us."

"Ah, you are like steel, mother." David spoke pleadingly, "You thought him a beautiful child?"

"I did, and a wholesome one, which goes to show that you may safely trust him with her for a time. Moreover, his mother has a right to him and the comfort she may find in him for a few years. You see I would be quite just to her. I do not accuse her of being designing in marrying you. No doubt it was quite your own fault. It is a position you two young people rushed into romantically and most foolishly, and you must both suffer the consequences. It is sad, but it must be regarded in the light of hard common sense, and my ungrateful task seems to be to place it in that light for both your sakes."

Still David watched the hedgerows with averted face.

"You are listening, David?"

"Yes, mother, yes. Common sense you said."

"Can't you see, that to bring her here, where she does not belong--where she never will be received as belonging, even though she is your wife--will only cause suffering to you both? Eventually misunderstandings will arise, then will come alienation and unhappiness.

Then again, yours must be in a measure a public life, unless you mean to s.h.i.+rk responsibility. Has your country no claim on you?"

"I have no thought of s.h.i.+rking my duty, and am prepared to think and act also--"

"You wish it to be effective? Has it never occurred to you how your avenues will be cut off if you marry a wife beneath your cla.s.s?"

"What in G.o.d's name will my wife have to do with England's African policy? Damme--"

"David!"

"Mother--I beg your pardon--"

"She may have everything to do with it. No man can stand alone and foist his ideas upon such a body of men, without backing. Instead of hampering yourself with an ignorant mountain girl from America, you should have allied yourself to a strong family of position here, if you would be a power in England. What sort of a Lady Thryng will your present wife make? What kind of a leader socially in your own cla.s.s? You might better try to place a girl from the bogs of Ireland at the head of your table."

Again David's rage surged through him in a hot wave, but he controlled himself. "You admitted Ca.s.sandra has both beauty and charm?"

"Would my son have been attracted to her else? Nevertheless, what I say stands. As a help to you--"

"You have done your duty, mother. I will say this for you--that for sophistry undiluted, a woman of the present day who stands where you do, can out-Greek the ancients. How is it we see so differently? Is it that I am like my father? How did he see things?"

"Your father was as much a n.o.bleman as your uncle. Only by the accident of birth was he differently placed. Did I never tell you that but for his death he would have been created bishop of his diocese? So you see--"

"I see. By dying he just escaped a bishopric. Did it make a difference in his reception up above--do you think?"

"Oh, David, David!"

"I'm sorry mother--never mind. We're nearly there and I have something I must say to you before I leave you to end this discussion forever. There are two kinds of men in this world,--one sort is made by his circ.u.mstances, and the other makes his circ.u.mstances. You would respect your son more if he belonged to the first variety, but I tell you no. I will make my own conditions. Before all else, I am a man. My lords.h.i.+p was thrust upon me. Don't interrupt, I beg. I know all you would say, but you do not know all I would say-- My birth gave it to me certainly, but a cruel and b.l.o.o.d.y war was the means by which it came to me. Very well. I will take it and the responsibility which it entails; but the cruelty that brought me my t.i.tle is ended and in no form shall it be continued, social or otherwise. I hold to the rights of my manhood. I will bring to England whom I please as my wife, and my world shall recognize her, and you will receive her because I bring her, and because she will stand head and soul above any one you have here to propose for me. Here we are, mother dear. One kiss? Thank you, thank you. Postpone Laura's coming out until--I return--which will be--when--you know."