You have really no bad news of our L?titia? She left us hurriedly this morning, without any leave-taking, except a word to one of the maids, that your condition required her immediate presence.'
'My condition! And now her door is locked to me! We have spoken through the door, and that is all. I stand sick and stupefied between two locked doors, neither of which will open, it appears, to give me the enlightenment I need more than medicine.'
'Dear me!' cried Dr. Middleton, 'I am struck by your description of your position, Mr. Dale. It would aptly apply to our humanity of the present generation; and were these the days when I sermonized, I could propose that it should afford me an illustration for the pulpit. For my part, when doors are closed I try not their locks; and I attribute my perfect equanimity, health even, to an uninquiring acceptation of the fact that they are closed to me. I read my page by the light I have. On the contrary, the world of this day, if I may presume to quote you for my purpose, is heard knocking at those two locked doors of the secret of things on each side of us, and is beheld standing sick and stupefied because it has got no response to its knocking. Why, sir, let the world compare the diverse fortunes of the beggar and the postman: knock to give, and it is opened unto you: knock to crave, and it continues shut. I say, carry a letter to your locked door, and you shall have a good reception: but there is none that is handed out. For which reason…'
Mr. Dale swept a perspiring forehead, and extended his hand in supplication. 'I am an invalid, Dr. Middleton,' he said. 'I am unable to cope with analogies. I have but strength for the slow digestion of facts.'
'For facts, we are bradypeptics to a man, sir. We know not yet if nature be a fact or an effort to master one. The world has not yet assimilated the first fact it stepped on. We are still in the endeavour to make good blood of the fact of our being.' Pressing his hands at his temples, Mr. Dale moaned: 'My head twirls; I did unwisely to come out. I came on an impulse; I trust, honourable. I am unfit — I cannot follow you, Dr. Middleton. Pardon me.'
'Nay, sir, let me say, from my experience of my countrymen, that if you do not follow me and can abstain from abusing me in consequence, you are magnanimous,' the Rev. Doctor replied, hardly consenting to let go the man he had found to indemnify him for his gallant service of acquiescing as a mute to the ladies, though he knew his breathing robustfulness to be as an East wind to weak nerves, and himself an engine of punishment when he had been torn for a day from his books.
Miss Eleanor said: 'The enlightenment you need, Mr. Dale? Can we enlighten you?'
'I think not,' he answered, faintly. 'I think I will wait for Sir Willoughby… or Mr. Whitford. If I can keep my strength. Or could I exchange — I fear to break down — two words with the young lady who is, was…'
'Miss Middleton, my daughter, sir? She shall be at your disposition; I will bring her to you.' Dr. Middleton stopped at the window. 'She, it is true, may better know the mind of Miss Dale than I. But I flatter myself I know the gentleman better. I think, Mr. Dale, addressing you as the lady's father, you will find me a persuasive, I could be an impassioned, advocate in his interests.'
Mr. Dale was confounded; the weakly sapling caught in a gust falls back as he did.
'Advocate?' he said. He had little breath.
'His impassioned advocate, I repeat; for I have the highest opinion of him. You see, sir, I am acquainted with the circumstances. I believe,' Dr. Middleton half turned to the ladies, 'we must, until your potent inducements, Mr. Dale, have been joined to my instances, and we overcome what feminine scruples there may be, treat the circumstances as not generally public. Our Strephon may be chargeable with shyness. But if for the present it is incumbent on us, in proper consideration for the parties, not to be nominally precise, it is hardly requisite in this household that we should be. He is now for protesting indifference to the state. I fancy we understand that phase of amatory frigidity. Frankly, Mr. Dale, I was once in my life myself refused by a lady, and I was not indignant, merely indifferent to the marriage-tie.'
'My daughter has refused him, sir?'
'Temporarily it would appear that she has declined the proposal.'
'He was at liberty?… he could honourably?…'
'His best friend and nearest relative is your guarantee.'
'I know it; I hear so; I am informed of that: I have heard of the proposal, and that he could honourably make it. Still, I am helpless, I cannot move, until I am assured that my daughter's reasons are such as a father need not underline.'
'Does the lady, perchance, equivocate?'
'I have not seen her this morning; I rise late. I hear an astounding account of the cause for her departure from Patterne, and I find her door locked to me — no answer.'
'It is that she had no reasons to give, and she feared the demand for them.'
'Ladies!' dolorously exclaimed Mr. Dale.
'We guess the secret, we guess it!' they exclaimed in reply; and they looked smilingly, as Dr. Middleton looked.
'She had no reasons to give?' Mr. Dale spelled these words to his understanding. 'Then, sir, she knew you not adverse?'
'Undoubtedly, by my high esteem for the gentleman, she must have known me not adverse. But she would not consider me a principal. She could hardly have conceived me an obstacle. I am simply the gentleman's friend. A zealous friend, let me add.'
Mr. Dale put out an imploring hand; it was too much for him.
'Pardon me; I have a poor head. And your daughter the same, sir?'
'We will not measure it too closely, but I may say, my daughter the same, sir. And likewise — may I not add — these ladies.'
Mr. Dale made sign that he was overfilled. 'Where am I! And L?titia refused him?'
'Temporarily, let us assume. Will it not partly depend on you, Mr. Dale?'
'But what strange things have been happening during my daughter's absence from the cottage!' cried Mr. Dale, betraying an elixir in his veins. 'I feel that I could laugh if I did not dread to be thought insane. She refused his hand, and he was at liberty to offer it? My girl! We are all on our heads. The fairy-tales were right and the lesson- books were wrong. But it is really, it is really very demoralizing. An invalid — and I am one, and no momentary exhilaration will be taken for the contrary — clings to the idea of stability, order. The slightest disturbance of the wonted course of things unsettles him. Why, for years I have been prophesying it! and for years I have had everything against me, and now when it is confirmed, I am wondering that I must not call myself a fool!'
'And for years, dear Mr. Dale, this union, in spite of counter-currents and human arrangements, has been our Willoughby's constant preoccupation,' said Miss Eleanor.
'His most cherished aim,' said Miss Isabel.
'The name was not spoken by me,' said Dr. Middleton.
'But it is out, and perhaps better out, if we would avoid the chance of mystifications. I do not suppose we are seriously committing a breach of confidence, though he might have wished to mention it to you first himself. I have it from Willoughby that last night he appealed to your daughter, Mr. Dale — not for the first time, if I apprehend him correctly; and unsuccessfully. He despairs. I do not: supposing, that is, your assistance vouchsafed to us. And I do not despair, because the gentleman is a gentleman of worth, of acknowledged worth. You know him well enough to grant me that. I will bring you my daughter to help me in sounding his praises.'
Dr Middleton stepped through the window to the lawn on an elastic foot, beaming with the happiness he felt charged to confer on his friend Mr. Whitford.
'Ladies! it passes all wonders,' Mr. Dale gasped.
'Willoughby's generosity does pass all wonders,' they said in chorus.
The door opened; Lady Busshe and Lady Culmer were announced.
Chapter XLV
The Patterne Ladies: Mr. Dale: Lady Busshe And Lady Culmer: With Mrs. Mountstuart Jankinson
Lady Busshe and Lady Culmer entered spying to right and left. At the sight of Mr. Dale in the room Lady Busshe murmured to her friend: 'Confirmation!'
Lady Culmer murmured: 'Corney is quite reliable.'
