The Daughters of Danaus. Mona Caird
“You mean to tell me that this is the little girl who used to take me for walks, and who had such an inordinate appetite for stories! Good heavens, it is incredible!”
He held out a thin, finely-formed hand, with a kind smile.
“They change so much at that age, in a short time,” said Mrs. Fullerton, with a glance of pride; for her daughter was looking brilliantly handsome, as she stood before them, with flushed cheeks and a soft expression, which the mere tones of the Professor’s voice had power to summon in most human faces. He looked at her thoughtfully, and then rousing himself, he brought up a chair for her, and the group settled again before the fire.
“Do you know,” said the Professor, “I was turning into a French sweet-shop the other day, to buy my usual tribute for the children, when I suddenly remembered that they would no longer be children, and had to march out again, crestfallen, musing on the march of time and the mutability of things human—especially children.”
“It’s ridiculous,” cried Mr. Fullerton. “I am always lecturing them about it, but they go on growing just the same.”
“And how they make you feel an old fogey before you know where you are! And I thought I was quite a gay young fellow, upon my word!”
“You, my dear Chantrey! why you’d be a gay young fellow at ninety!” said Mr. Fullerton.
The Professor laughed and shook his head.
“And so this is really my little playfellow!” he exclaimed, nodding meditatively. “I remember her so well; a queer, fantastic little being in those days, with hair like a black cloud, and eyes that seemed to peer out of the cloud, with a perfect passion of enquiry. She used to bewilder me, I remember, with her strange, wise little sayings! I always prophesied great things from her! Ernest, too, I remember: a fine little chap with curly, dark hair—rather like a young Italian, but with features less broadly cast; drawn together and calmed by his northern blood. Yes, yes; it seems but yesterday,” he said, with a smile and a sigh; “and now my little Italian is at college, with a bored manner and a high collar.”
“Oh, no; Ernest’s a dear boy still,” cried Hadria. “Oxford hasn’t spoilt him a bit. I do wish he was at home for you to see him.”
“Ah! you mustn’t hint at anything against Ernest in Hadria’s presence!” cried Mr. Fullerton, with an approving laugh.
“Not for the world!” rejoined the Professor. “I was only recalling one or two of my young Oxford acquaintances. I might have known that a Fullerton had too much stuff in him to make an idiot of himself in that way.”
“The boy has distinguished himself too,” said Mr. Fullerton.
“Everyone says he will do splendidly,” added the mother; “and you can’t think how modest he is about himself, and how anxious to do well, and to please us by his success.”
“Ah! that’s good.”
The Professor was full of sympathy. Hadria was astonished to see how animated her mother had become under his influence.
They fell again to recalling old times; little trivial incidents which had seemed so unimportant at the moment, but now carried a whole epoch with them, bringing back, with a rush, the genial memories. Hadria remembered that soon after his last visit, the Professor had married a beautiful wife, and that about a year or so later, the wife had died. It was said that she had killed herself. This set Hadria speculating.
The visitor reminded his companions of various absurd incidents of the past, sending Mr. Fullerton into paroxysms of laughter that made the whole party laugh in sympathy. Mrs. Fullerton too was already wiping her streaming eyes as the Professor talked on in his old vein, with just that particular little humourous manner of his that won its way so surely to the hearts of his listeners. For a moment, in the midst of the bright talk and the mirth that he had created, the Professor lost the thread, and his face, as he stared into the glowing centre of the fire, had a desolate look; but it was so quick to pass away that one might have thought oneself the victim of a fancy. His was the next chuckle, and “Do you remember that day when——?” and so forth, Mr. Fullerton’s healthy roar following, avalanche-like, upon the reminiscence.
“We thought him a good and kind magician when we were children,” was Hadria’s thought, “and now one is grown up, there is no disillusion. He is a good and kind magician still.”
He seemed indeed to have the power to conjure forth from their hiding-places, the finer qualities of mind and temperament, which had lain dormant, perhaps for years, buried beneath daily accumulations of little cares and little habits. The creature that had once looked forth on the world, fresh and vital, was summoned again, to his own surprise, with all his ancient laughter and his tears.
“This man,” Hadria said to herself, drawing a long, relieved breath, “is the best and the most generous human being I have ever met.”
She went to sleep, that night, with a sweet sense of rest and security, and an undefined new hope. If such natures were in existence, then there must be a great source of goodness and tenderness somewhere in heaven or earth, and the battle of life must be worth the fighting.
CHAPTER IX.
THE Professor’s presence in the house had a profound influence on the inmates, one and all. The effect upon his hostess was startling. He drew forth her intellect, her sense of humour, her starved poetic sense; he probed down among the dust and rust of years, and rescued triumphantly the real woman, who was being stifled to death, with her own connivance.
Hadria was amazed to see how the new-comer might express any idea he pleased, however heterodox, and her mother only applauded.
His manner to her was exquisitely courteous. He seemed to understand all that she had lost in her life, all its disappointments and sacrifices.
On hearing that Miss Du Prel was among the Professor’s oldest friends, Mrs. Fullerton became suddenly cordial to that lady, and could not show her enough attention. The evenings were often spent in music, Temperley being sometimes of the party. He was the only person not obviously among the Professor’s admirers.
“However cultivated or charming a person may be,” Temperley said to Hadria, “I never feel that I have found a kindred spirit, unless the musical instinct is strong.”
“Nor I.”
“Professor Fortescue has just that one weak point.”
“Oh, but he is musical, though his technical knowledge is small.”
But Temperley smiled dubiously.
The Professor, freed from his customary hard work, was like a schoolboy. His delight in the open air, in the freshness of the hills, in the peace of the mellow autumn, was never-ending.
He loved to take a walk before breakfast, so as to enjoy the first sweetness of the morning; to bathe in some clear pool of the river; to come into healthy contact with Nature. Never was there a brighter or a wholesomer spirit. Yet the more Hadria studied this clear, and vigorous, and tender nature, the more she felt, in him, the absence of that particular personal hold on life which so few human beings are without, a grip usually so hard to loosen, that only the severest experience, and the deepest sorrow have power to destroy it.
Hadria’s letters to her sister, at this time, were full of enthusiasm. “You cannot imagine what it is, or perhaps you can imagine what it is to have the society of three such people as I now see almost every day.
“You say I represent them as impossible angels, such as earth never beheld, but you are wrong. I represent them as they are. I suppose the Professor has faults—though he does not show them to us—they must be of the generous kind, at any rate. Father says that he never could