Эдвард Бульвер-Литтон - Night and Morning, Complete

“It was a very handsome offer on our part; some folks never know when they are well off.”

“That is very true, my dear, and you are a very sensible person. Kate herself might have been an honest woman, and, what is more, a very rich woman, by this time. She might have married Spencer, the young brewer—an excellent man, and well to do!”

“Spencer! I don’t remember him.”

“No: after she went off, he retired from business, and left the place. I don’t know what’s become of him. He was mightily taken with her, to be sure. She was uncommonly handsome, my sister Catherine.”

“Handsome is as handsome does, Mr. Morton,” said the wife, who was very much marked with the small-pox. “We all have our temptations and trials; this is a vale of tears, and without grace we are whited sepulchers.”

Mr. Morton mixed his brandy and water, and moved his chair into its customary corner.

“You saw your brother’s letter,” said he, after a pause; “he gives young Philip a very good character.”

“The human heart is very deceitful,” replied Mrs. Morton, who, by the way, spoke through her nose. “Pray Heaven he may be what he seems; but what’s bred in the bone comes out in the flesh.”

“We must hope the best,” said Mr. Morton, mildly; “and—put another lump into the grog, my dear.”

“It is a mercy, I’m thinking, that we didn’t have the other little boy. I dare say he has never even been taught his catechism: them people don’t know what it is to be a mother. And, besides, it would have been very awkward, Mr. M.; we could never have said who he was: and I’ve no doubt Miss Pryinall would have been very curious.”

“Miss Pryinall be –!” Mr. Morton checked himself, took a large draught of the brandy and water, and added, “Miss Pryinall wants to have a finger in everybody’s pie.”

“But she buys a deal of flannel, and does great good to the town; it was she who found out that Mrs. Giles was no better than she should be.”

“Poor Mrs. Giles!—she came to the workhouse.”

“Poor Mrs. Giles, indeed! I wonder, Mr. Morton, that you, a married man with a family, should say, poor Mrs. Giles!”

“My dear, when people who have been well off come to the workhouse, they may be called poor:—but that’s neither here nor there; only, if the boy does come to us, we must look sharp upon Miss Pryinall.”

“I hope he won’t come,—it will be very unpleasant. And when a man has a wife and family, the less he meddles with other folks and their little ones, the better. For as the Scripture says, ‘A man shall cleave to his wife and—‘”

Here a sharp, shrill ring at the bell was heard, and Mrs. Morton broke off into:

“Well! I declare! at this hour; who can that be? And all gone to bed! Do go and see, Mr. Morton.”

Somewhat reluctantly and slowly, Mr. Morton rose; and, proceeding to the passage, unbarred the door. A brief and muttered conversation followed, to the great irritability of Mrs. Morton, who stood in the passage—the candle in her hand.

“What is the matter, Mr. M.?”

Mr. Morton turned back, looking agitated.

“Where’s my hat? oh, here. My sister is come, at the inn.”

“Gracious me! She does not go for to say she is your sister?”

“No, no: here’s her note—calls herself a lady that’s ill. I shall be back soon.”

“She can’t come here—she sha’n’t come here, Mr. M. I’m an honest woman—she can’t come here. You understand—”

Mr. Morton had naturally a stern countenance, stern to every one but his wife. The shrill tone to which he was so long accustomed jarred then on his heart as well as his ear. He frowned:

“Pshaw! woman, you have no feeling!” said he, and walked out of the house, pulling his hat over his brows. That was the only rude speech Mr. Morton had ever made to his better half. She treasured it up in her heart and memory; it was associated with the sister and the child; and she was not a woman who ever forgave.

Mr. Morton walked rapidly through the still, moon-lit streets, till he reached the inn. A club was held that night in one of the rooms below; and as he crossed the threshold, the sound of “hip-hip-hurrah!” mingled with the stamping of feet and the jingling of glasses, saluted his entrance. He was a stiff, sober, respectable man,—a man who, except at elections—he was a great politician—mixed in none of the revels of his more boisterous townsmen. The sounds, the spot, were ungenial to him. He paused, and the colour of shame rose to his brow. He was ashamed to be there—ashamed to meet the desolate and, as he believed, erring sister.

A pretty maidservant, heated and flushed with orders and compliments, crossed his path with a tray full of glasses.

“There’s a lady come by the Telegraph?”

“Yes, sir, upstairs, No. 2, Mr. Morton.”

Mr. Morton! He shrank at the sound of his own name.

“My wife’s right,” he muttered. “After all, this is more unpleasant than I thought for.”

The slight stairs shook under his hasty tread. He opened the door of No. 2, and that Catherine, whom he had last seen at her age of gay sixteen, radiant with bloom, and, but for her air of pride, the model for a Hebe,—that Catherine, old ere youth was gone, pale, faded, the dark hair silvered over, the cheeks hollow, and the eye dim,—that Catherine fell upon his breast!

“God bless you, brother! How kind to come! How long since we have met!”

“Sit down, Catherine, my dear sister. You are faint—you are very much changed—very. I should not have known you.”

“Brother, I have brought my boy; it is painful to part from him—very—very painful: but it is right, and God’s will be done.” She turned, as she spoke, towards a little, deformed rickety dwarf of a sofa, that seemed to hide itself in the darkest corner of the low, gloomy room; and Morton followed her. With one hand she removed the shawl that she had thrown over the child, and placing the forefinger of the other upon her lips—lips that smiled then—she whispered,—“We will not wake him, he is so tired. But I would not put him to bed till you had seen him.”

And there slept poor Sidney, his fair cheek pillowed on his arm; the soft, silky ringlets thrown from the delicate and unclouded brow; the natural bloom increased by warmth and travel; the lovely face so innocent and hushed; the breathing so gentle and regular, as if never broken by a sigh.

Mr. Morton drew his hand across his eyes.

There was something very touching in the contrast between that wakeful, anxious, forlorn woman, and the slumber of the unconscious boy. And in that moment, what breast upon which the light of Christian pity—of natural affection, had ever dawned, would, even supposing the world’s judgment were true, have recalled Catherine’s reputed error? There is so divine a holiness in the love of a mother, that no matter how the tie that binds her to the child was formed, she becomes, as it were, consecrated and sacred; and the past is forgotten, and the world and its harsh verdicts swept away, when that love alone is visible; and the God, who watches over the little one, sheds His smile over the human deputy, in whose tenderness there breathes His own!

“You will be kind to him—will you not?” said Mrs. Morton; and the appeal was made with that trustful, almost cheerful tone which implies, ‘Who would not be kind to a thing so fair and helpless?’ “He is very sensitive and very docile; you will never have occasion to say a hard word to him—never! you have children of your own, brother.”

“He is a beautiful boy—beautiful. I will be a father to him!”

As he spoke,—the recollection of his wife—sour, querulous, austere—came over him, but he said to himself, “She must take to such a child,—women always take to beauty.” He bent down and gently pressed his lips to Sidney’s forehead: Mrs. Morton replaced the shawl, and drew her brother to the other end of the room.