‘miserably brought up,’ had never had a
chance of finding their proper place, of understanding
that they were just two callow young things, for whom
Life had some fearful knocks in store. She could
even feel now that she had meant that saying:
’I am sorry for you two!’ She
was
sorry for them, sorry for their want of manners and
their point of view, neither of which they could help,
of course, with a mother like that. For all
her gentleness and sensibility, there was much practical
directness about Mildred Malloring; for her, a page
turned was a page turned, an idea absorbed was never
disgorged; she was of religious temperament, ever trimming
her course down the exact channel marked out with
buoys by the Port Authorities, and really incapable
of imagining spiritual wants in others that could
not be satisfied by what satisfied herself. And
this pathetic strength she had in common with many
of her fellow creatures in every class. Sitting
down at the writing-table from which she had been
disturbed, she leaned her thin, rather long, gentle,
but stubborn face on her hand, thinking. These
Gaunts were a source of irritation in the parish,
a kind of open sore. It would be better if they
could be got rid of before quarter day, up to which
she had weakly said they might remain. Far better
for them to go at once, if it could be arranged.
As for the poor fellow Tryst, thinking that by plunging
into sin he could improve his lot and his poor children’s,
it was really criminal of those Freelands to encourage
him. She had refrained hitherto from seriously
worrying Gerald on such points of village policy—his
hands were so full; but he must now take his part.
And she rang the bell.
“Tell Sir Gerald I’d like to see him,
please, as soon as he gets back.”
“Sir Gerald has just come in, my lady.”
“Now, then!”
Gerald Malloring—an excellent fellow, as
could be seen from his face of strictly Norman architecture,
with blue stained-glass windows rather deep set in—had
only one defect: he was not a poet. Not
that this would have seemed to him anything but an
advantage, had he been aware of it. His was
one of those high-principled natures who hold that
breadth is synonymous with weakness. It may
be said without exaggeration that the few meetings
of his life with those who had a touch of the poet
in them had been exquisitely uncomfortable.
Silent, almost taciturn by nature, he was a great
reader of poetry, and seldom went to sleep without
having digested a page or two of Wordsworth, Milton,
Tennyson, or Scott. Byron, save such poems as
‘Don Juan’ or ‘The Waltz,’
he could but did not read, for fear of setting a bad
example. Burns, Shelley, and Keats he did not
care for. Browning pained him, except by such
things as: ‘How They Brought the Good News
from Ghent to Aix’ and the ‘Cavalier Tunes’;
while of ‘Omar Khayyam’ and ‘The
Hound of Heaven’ he definitely disapproved.
For Shakespeare he had no real liking, though he
concealed this, from humility in the face of accepted
opinion. His was a firm mind, sure of itself,
but not self-assertive. His points were so
good, and he had so many of them, that it was only
when he met any one touched with poetry that his limitations
became apparent; it was rare, however, and getting
more so every year, for him to have this unpleasant
experience.