The Measure of a Man

SHOCK AND SORROW

    There’s not a bonnie flower that springs
      By fountain, shaw, or green,
    There’s not a bonnie bird that sings,
      But minds me of my Jean.

      Only a child of Nature’s rarest making,
    Wistful and sweet—­and with a heart for breaking.

Life is a great school and its lessons go on continually.  Now and then perhaps we have a vacation—­a period in which all appears to be at rest—­but in this very placidity there are often bred the storms that are to trouble and perhaps renew us.  For some time after the departure of Harry and his bride, John’s life appeared to flow in a smooth but busy routine.  Between the mill and Harlow House, he found the days all too short for the love and business with which they were filled.  And Mrs. Hatton missed greatly the happy and confidential conversations that had hitherto made her life with her son so intimate and so affectionate.

Early in the spring John began the building of his own home, and this necessarily required some daily attention, especially as he had designs in his mind which were unusual to the local builders, and which seemed to them well worthy of being quietly passed over.  For the house was characteristic of the man and the man was not of a common type.

There was nothing small or mean about John’s house.  The hill on which it stood was the highest ground on the Hatton Manor.  It commanded a wide vista of meadows, interspersed with peacefully flowing waters, until the horizon on every hand was closed by ranges of lofty mountains.  On this hill the house stood broadly facing the east.  It was a large, square Georgian mansion, built of some white stone found in Yorkshire.  Its rooms were of extraordinary size and very lofty, their windows being wide and high and numerous.  Its corridors were like streets, its stairways broad enough for four people to ascend them abreast.  Light, air, space were throughout its distinguishing qualities, and its furnishings were not only very handsome, they had in a special manner that honest size, solidity, and breadth which make English household belongings so comfortable and satisfactory.  The grounds were full of handsome forest trees and wonderful grassy glades and just around the house the soil had been enriched and planted with shrubbery and flowers.

Its great proportions in every respect suited both John Hatton and the woman for whom it was built.  Both of them appeared to gain a positive majesty of appearance in the splendid reaches of its immense rooms.  Certainly they would have dwarfed small people, but John and Jane Hatton were large enough to appropriate and become a part of their surroundings.  John felt that he had realized his long, long dream of a modern home, and Jane knew that its spacious, handsome rooms would give to her queenly figure and walk the space and background that was most charming and effective.

In about a year after Harry’s marriage it was completely finished and furnished; then John Hatton and Jane Harlow were married in London at Lord Harlow’s residence.  Harry’s invitation did not include his wife, and John explained that it was impossible for him to interfere about the people Lord and Lady Harlow invited to their house or did not invite.  “I wish the affair was over,” he exclaimed, “for no matter who is there I shall miss you, Harry.”

“And Lucy?”

“Yes; but I will tell you what will be far better.  Suppose you and Lucy run over to Paris and see the new paintings in the Salon—­and all the other sights?”

“I cannot afford it, John.”

“The affording is my business.  I will find the guineas, Harry.  You know that.  And Lucy will not have to spend them in useless extravagant dress.”

“All right, John!  You are a good brother, and you know how to heal a slight.”

So John’s marriage took place without his brother’s presence, and John missed him and had a heartache about it.  Subsequently he told his mother so, upon which the Lady of Hatton Manor answered,

“Harry managed very well to do without either mother or brother at his own wedding.  You know that, John; and I was none sorry to miss him at yours.  When you have to take a person you love with a person you don’t love, it is like taking a spoonful of bitterness with a spoonful of jelly after it.  I never could tell which spoonful I hated the worst.”

After the marriage John and his wife came directly to their own home.  John could not leave his mill and his business, and Lord and Lady Harlow considered his resolution a wise proceeding.  Jane was also praised for her ready agreement to her husband’s business exigencies.  But really the omission of the customary wedding-journey gave Jane no disappointment.  To take possession of her splendid home, to assume the social distinction it gave her, and to be near to the mother she idolized were three great compensations, superseding abundantly the doubtful pleasures of railway travel and sightseeing.

Jane’s mother had caused a pleasant surprise at her daughter’s wedding, for the past year’s efforts at Harlow House had amply proved Mrs. Harlow’s executive abilities in its profitable management; and she was so sure of this future result that she did not hesitate to buy a rich and fashionable wedding-garment or to bring to the light once more the beautiful pearls she had worn at her own bridal.  There were indeed few ladies at John’s wedding more effectively gowned than his mother-in-law—­except his mother.

Mrs. Hatton’s splendid health set off her splendid beauty, fine carriage, and sumptuous gown of silver-gray brocaded satin, emphasized by sapphires of great luster and value.

“I hevn’t worn them since father died, thou knowest,” she had said to John the day before the wedding, as she stood before him with the gems in her hands, “but tomorrow he will expect me to wear them both for his sake and thine, thou dear, dear lad!” And she looked up at her son and down at the jewels and her eyes were dim with tears.  Presently she continued, “Jane was here this afternoon.  I dare say thou art going to the train with her tonight, and may be she will tell thee what she is going to wear.  She didn’t offer to tell me, and I wouldn’t ask her—­not I!”

“What for?”

“I thought she happen might be a bit superstitious about talking of her wedding fineries.  You can talk the luck out of anything, you know, John.”

“Nay, nay, mother!”

“To be sure, you can. Why-a! Your father never spoke of any business he wanted to come to a surety, and if I asked him about an offer or a contract he would answer, ’Be quiet, Martha, dost ta want to talk it to death?’”

“I will keep mind of that, mother.”

“Happen it will be worth thy while to do so.”

“Father was a shrewd man.”

“Well, then, he left one son able to best him if so inclined.”

“You will look most handsome, mother.  I shall be proud of you.  There will be none like you at the London house.”

“I think that is likely, John.  Jane’s mother will look middling well, but I shall be a bit beyond her.  She showed me her gown, and her pearls.  They were not bad, but they might hev been better—­so they might!”

It was thus John Hatton’s marriage came off.  There was a dull, chill service in St. Margaret’s, every word of which was sacred to John, a gay wedding-breakfast, and a laughing crowd from whom the bride and bridegroom stole away, reaching their own home late in the afternoon.  They were as quiet there as if they had gone into a wilderness.  Mrs. Hatton remained in London for two weeks, with an old school companion, and Mrs. Harlow was hospitably entertained by Lord and Lady Harlow, who thoroughly respected her successful efforts to turn Harlow House into more than a respectable living.

Perhaps she was a little proud of her work, and a little tiresome in explaining her methods, but that was a transient trial to be easily looked over, seeing that its infliction was limited to a short period.  On the whole she was praised and pleased, and she told Mrs. Hatton when they met again, that it was the first time her noble brother-in-law had ever treated her with kindness and respect.

So the days grew to months, and the months to more than four years, and the world believed that all was prosperous with the Hattons.  Perhaps in Harry Hatton’s case expectations had been a little bettered by realities.  At least in a great measure he had realized the things he had so passionately desired when he resigned his share in the mill and gave life up to love, music, and painting.  He certainly possessed one of those wonderful West Riding voices, whose power and sweetness leaves an abiding echo in memory.  And in London he had found such good teachers and good opportunities that John was now constantly receiving programs of musical entertainments in which Harry Hatton had a prominent part.  Indeed, John had gone specially to the last Leeds musical event, and had been greatly delighted with the part assigned Harry and the way in which he rendered it.

Afterwards he described to Harry’s mother the popularity of her son.  “Why, mother,” he said, “the big audience were most enthusiastic when Harry stepped forward.  He looked so handsome and his smile and bearing were so charming, that you could not wonder the people broke into cheers and bravos.  I was as enthusiastic as anyone present.  And he sang, yes, he sang like an angel.  Upon my word, mother, one could not expect a soul who had such music in it to be silent.”

“I’m sure I don’t know where he got the music.  His father never sang a note that I know of, and though I could sing a cradle song when a crying child needed it, nobody ever offered me money to do it; and your father has said more than often when so singing, ‘Be quiet, Martha!’ So his father and mother did not give Harry Hatton any such foolish notions and ways.”

“Every good gift is from God, mother, and we ought not to belittle them, ought we, now?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, John.  I’ve been brought up with cotton-spinners, and it is little they praise, if it be not good yarns and warps and wefts and big factories with high, high chimneys.”

“Well, then, cotton-spinners are mostly very fine singers.  You know that, mother.”

“To be sure, but they don’t make a business of singing, not they, indeed!  They work while they sing.  But to see a strapping young man in evening dress or in some other queer make of clothes, step forward before a crowd and throw about his arms and throw up his eyes and sing like nothing that was ever heard in church or chapel is a stunningly silly sight, John.  I saw and heard a lot of such rubbishy singing and dressing when I was in London.”

“Still, I think we ought to be proud of Harry.”

“Such nonsense!  I’m more than a bit ashamed of him.  I am that!  You can’t respect people who amuse you, like you do men who put their hands to the world’s daily work.  No, you can not, John.  I would have been better suited if Harry had stuck to his painting business.  He could have done that in his own house, shut up and quiet like; but when I was in London I saw pictures of Henry Hatton, of our Harry, mind ye, singing in all makes and manners of fool dresses.  I hope to goodness his father does not know a Hatton man is exhibiting himself to gentle and simple in such disreputable clothes.  I have been wondering your father hasn’t been to see me about it.”

“To see you, mother?”

“To be sure.  If there’s anything wrong at Hatton, he generally comes and gives me his mind on the same.”

“You mean that you dream he does?”

“You may as well call it ‘dreaming’ as anything else.  The name you give it doesn’t matter, does it?”

“Not much, mother.  I brought home with me two of Harry’s paintings.  They are fine copies of famous pictures.  I gave him fifty pounds for them and thought them cheap at that.”

“Well, then, if I was buying Harry’s work, I would not count on its cheapness.  I’ll be bound that you bought them as an excuse for giving him money.  I would buy or give away, one or the other.  I hate make-believes—­I do that!—­of all kinds and for all reasons, good or bad.”

“There was nothing like pretending in the transaction, mother.  The pictures were good, I paid their value and no more or less, because they were only copies.  Harry’s technique is perfect, and his feeling about color and atmosphere wonderful, but he cannot create a picture.  He has not the imagination.  I am sorry for it.”

“Be sorry if you like, John.  I have a poor opinion of imagination, except in religious matters.  However, Harry has chosen his own way:  I don’t approve of it.  I won’t praise him, and I won’t quarrel with him.  You can do as you like.  One thing is sure—­he is more than good enough for the girl he married.”

“He is very fond of her and I do believe she keeps Harry straight.  He does just as she thinks best about most things.”

“Does he?  Then he ought to be ashamed of himself to take orders from her.  Many times he sneaked round my orders and even his father’s, and then to humble a Hatton to obey the orders of a poor Welsh girl!  It’s a crying shame!  It angers me, John!  It would anger anyone, it would.  You can’t say different, John.”

“Yes, I can, mother.  I assure you that Lucy is just the wife Harry needs.  And they have two fine little lads.  I wish the eldest—­called Stephen after my father—­was my own son.  I do that!”

“Nay, my dear.  There’s no need for such a wish.  There are sons and daughters for Hatton, no doubt of that.  Thy little Martha is very dear to my heart.”

“To mine also, mother.”

“Then be thankful—­and patient.  I’m going upstairs to get a letter I want posted.  Will you take it to the mail for me?”

Then Mrs. Hatton left the room and John looked wistfully after her.  “It is always so,” he thought.  “If I name children, she goes.  What does it mean?”

He looked inquiringly into his mother’s face when she returned and she smiled cheerfully back, but it was with the face of an angry woman she watched him to the gate, muttering words she would not have spoken had there been anyone to hear them nearby.  And John’s attitude was one of uncertain trouble.  He carried himself intentionally with a lofty bearing, but in spite of all his efforts to appear beyond care, he was evidently in the grip of some unknown sorrow.

That it was unknown was in a large degree the core of his anxiety.  He had noticed for a long time that his mother was apparently very unsympathetic when his wife was suffering from violent attacks of sickness which made her physician tread softly and look grave, and that even Jane’s mother, though she nursed her daughter carefully, was reticent and exceedingly nervous. What could it mean?

He had just passed through an experience of this kind, and as he thought of Jane and her suffering the hurry of anxious love made him quicken his steps and he went rapidly home, so rapidly that he forgot the letter with which he had been intrusted.  He knew by the light in Jane’s room that she was awake and he hastened there.  She was evidently watching and listening for his coming, for as soon as the door was partly open, she half-rose from the couch on which she was lying and stretched out her arms to him.

In an instant he was kneeling at her side.  “My darling,” he whispered.  “My darling!  Are you better?”

“I am quite out of pain, John, only a little weak.  In a few days I shall be all right.”  But John, looking into the white face that had once been so radiant, only faintly admitted the promise of a few days putting all right.

“I have been lonely today dear, so lonely!  My mother did not come, and Mother Hatton has not even sent to ask whether I was alive or dead.”

“Yet she is very unhappy about your condition.  Jane, my darling Jane!  What is it that induces these attacks?  Does your medical man know?”

“If so, he does not tell me.  I am a little to blame this time, John.  On the afternoon I was taken sick, I went in the carriage to the village.  I ought not to have gone.  I was far from feeling well, and as soon as I reached the market-house, I met two men helping a wounded girl to the hospital.  Do you remember, John?”

“I remember.  Her hand was caught in some machinery and torn a good deal.  I sent the men with her to the village.”

“While I was speaking to her, Mrs. Mark Levy drove up.  She insisted on taking what she called ‘the poor victim’ to the hospital in her carriage; and before I could interfere the two men lifted the girl into Mrs. Levy’s carriage and they were off like lightning without a word to me.  I was so angry.  I turned sick and faint and was obliged to come home as quickly as possible and send for Dr. Sewell.”

“O Jane!  Why did you care?”

“I was shocked by that woman’s interference.”

“She meant it kindly.  I suppose——­”

“But what right had she to meddle with your hands?  If the girl required to be taken in a carriage to the hospital, there was my carriage.  I think that incident helped to make me sick.”

“You should have lifted the injured girl at once, Jane, and then Mrs. Levy would have had no opportunity to take your place.”

“She is such an interfering woman.  Her fingers are in everyone’s way and really, John, she has got the charitable affairs of Hatton town in her hands.  The girls’ clubs rely on her for everything, and she gives without any consideration, John.  How much is her husband worth?  Is he very rich?  She appears to have no end of money—­and John, dear, she is always in my way.  I don’t know how she manages it, but she is.  I wish you would get them out of our town, dear.”

“I cannot, Jane.  Levy is a large property-owner.  He is not indigent.  He is not lazy.  He is not in any way immoral.  He has become a large taxpayer, and has of late political aspirations.  He annoys me frequently, but money is now everything.  And he has money—­plenty of it.  Until he came, we were the richest family in Hatton.  Father and I have really built Hatton.  We have spent thousands of pounds in making it a model community, but we have received little gratitude.  I think, Jane, that men have more respect for those who make money, than for those who give it away.”

“You don’t like Mr. Levy, do you, John?”

“He annoys me very frequently.  It is not easy to like people who do that.”

“His wife annoys me.  Cannot we make up some plan to put them down a peg or two?”

“We can do nothing against them, my dear.”

“Why, John?”

“Because ‘God beholdeth mischief and spite to requite it.’  And after all, these Levys are only trying to win public respect and that by perfectly honorable means.  True they are pushing, but no one can push Yorkshire men and women beyond their own opinions and their own interests.  In the meantime, they are helpful to the town.”

“Mrs. Swale, of Woodleigh, told me she had heard that Mrs. Levy came from the Lake District and is a Christian.  Do you believe that, John?”

“Not for a minute.  Mr. Levy is a Hebrew of long and honorable descent.  His family came from Spain to England in the time of Henry the Seventh.  Such Jews never marry Christian women.  I do not believe either love or money could make them do it.  I have no doubt that Mrs. Levy has a family record as ancient and as honorable as her husband’s.  She is a kind-hearted woman and really handsome.  She has four beautiful sons.  I tell you, Jane, when she stands in the midst of them she is a sight worth looking at.”

Jane laughed scornfully, and Jane’s husband continued with decided emotion, “Yes, indeed, when you see Mrs. Levy with her four sons you see a woman in her noblest attribute.  You see her as the mother of men.”

“What is Mr. Levy’s business?  Who knows?”

“Everyone in Hatton knows that he is an importer of Spanish wines and fine tobaccos.”

“Oh!  The ladies generally thought he was a money lender.”

“He may be—­it is not unlikely.”

“Mrs. Swale said so.”

“I dare say Mrs. Swale’s husband knows.”

“Well, John, the Levys cannot touch me.  The Harlows have been in Yorkshire before the Romans came and my family is not only old, it is noble, or John Hatton would not have married me.”

“John Hatton would have married you if you had been a beggar-maid.  There is no woman in the world to him, but his own sweet Jane.”  Then Jane took his hands and kissed them, and there was a few moments of most eloquent silence—­a silence just touched with happy tears.

John spoke first.  “Jane, my darling,” he said, “do you think a few months in the south would do you good?  If you could lie out in the warm breeze and the sunshine—­if you were free of all these little social worries—­if you took your mother with you—­if you——­”

“John, my dear one, I have an invitation from Lady Harlow to spend a few weeks with her.  Surrey is much warmer than Yorkshire.  I might go there.”

“Yes,” answered John, but his voice was reluctant and dissenting, and in a few moments he said, “There is little Martha—­could you take her with you?”

“Oh dear me!  What would be the good of my going away to rest, if I drag a child with me?  You know Martha is spoiled and wilful.”

“Is she?  I am sorry to hear that.  She would, however, have her maid, and she is now nearly three years old.”

“It would be useless for me to go away, unless I go alone.  I suggested Surrey because I thought you could come to see me every Saturday.”

The little compliment pleased John, and he answered, “You shall do just as you wish, darling!  I would give up everything to see you look as you used to look.”

“You are always harping on that one string, John.  It is only four years since we were married.  Have I become an old woman in four years?”

“No, but you have become a sick woman.  I want you to be well and strong.”

Then she lay back on her pillows, and as she closed her eyes some quick, hot tears were on her white face, and John kissed them away, and with a troubled heart, uncertain and unhappy, he bid her good night.

Nothing in the interview had comforted or enlightened him, but there was that measure of the Divine spirit in John Hatton, which enabled him to rise above what he could not go through.  He had found even from his boyhood that for the chasms of life wings had been provided and that he could mount heaven-high by such help and bring back strength for every hour of need.  And he was comforted by the word that came to him, and he fell asleep to the little antiphony he held with his own soul: 

    O Lord how happy is the time—­

       * * * *
When from my weariness I climb,
  Close to thy tender breast.

* * *

    For there abides a peace of Thine,
      Man did not make, and cannot mar.

* * * *

    Perfect I call Thy plan,
      I trust what Thou shalt do.

And in some way and through some intelligence he was counseled as he slept, in two words—­Mark Sewell.  And he wondered that he had not thought of his wife’s physician before.  Yet there was little need to wonder.  He was always at the mill when Doctor Sewell paid his visit, and he took simply and reliably whatever Mrs. Harlow and Jane confided to him.  But when he awoke in the misty daylight, the echo of the two words he had heard was still clear and positive in his mind; consequently he went as soon as possible to Dr. Sewell’s office.

The Doctor met him as if he was an expected client.  “You are come at last, Hatton,” he said.  “I have been expecting you for a long time.”

“Then you know what instruction I have come for?”

“I should say I do.”

“What is the matter with my wife’s health?”

“I ought to send you to her for that information.  She can tell you better than I can.”

“Sewell, what do you mean?  Speak straight.”

“Hatton, there are some women who love children and who will even risk social honor for maternity.  There are other women who hate motherhood and who will constantly risk suicide rather than permit it.  Mrs. Hatton belongs to the latter class.”

John was stupefied at these words.  He could only look into the Doctor’s face and try to assimilate their meaning.  For they fell upon his ears as if each syllable was a blow and he could not gather them together.

“My wife!  Jane—­do you mean?” and he looked helplessly at Sewell and it was some minutes before John could continue the conversation or rather listen to Sewell who then sat down beside him and taking his hand in his own said,

“Do not speak, Hatton.  I will talk for you.  I should have spoken long ago, but I knew not whether you—­you—­forgive me, Hatton, but there are such men.  If I have slandered you in my thought, if I have done you this great wrong——­”

“Oh Doctor, the hope and despair of my married life has been—­the longing for my sons and daughters.”

“Poor lad!  And thee so good and kind to every little one, that comes in thy way.  It is too bad, it is that.  By heaven, I am thankful to be an old bachelor!  Thou must try and understand, John, that women are never the same, and yet that in some great matters, what creation saw them, they are today.  Their endless variety and their eternal similarity are what charm men.  In the days of the patriarchs there were women who would not have children, and there were women also who longed and prayed for them, even as Hannah did.  It is just that way today.  Their reasons then and their reasons now may be different but both are equally powerful.”

“I never heard tell of such women!  Never!”

“They were not likely to come thy road.  Thou wert long in taking a wife, and when thou did so it was unfortunate thou took one bred up in the way she should not go.  I know women who are slowly killing themselves by inducing unnatural diseases through the denial and crucifixion of Nature.  Thy own wife is one of them.  That she hes not managed the business is solely because she has a superabundance of vitality and a perfect constitution.  Physically, Nature intended her for a perfect mother, but—­but she cannot go on as she is doing.  I have told her so—­as plainly as I knew how.  Now I tell thee.  Such ways cannot go on.”

“They will be stopped—­at once—­this day—­this hour.”

“Nay, nay.  She is still very weak and nervous.”

“She wants to go to London.”

“Let her go.”

“But I must speak to her before she goes.”

“In a few days.”

“Sewell, I thank you.  I know now what I have to meet.  It is the grief not sure that slays hope in a man.”

“To be sure.  Does Mrs. Stephen Hatton know of your wife’s practices?”

“No.  I will stake my honor on that.  She may suspect her, but if she was certain she would have spoken to me.”

“Then it is her own mother, and most likely to be so.”

It was noon before John reached Hatton mill.  He had received a shock which left him far below his usual condition, and yet feeling so cruelly hurt and injured that it was difficult to obey the physician’s request to keep his trouble to himself for a few days.