The Head of the House of Coombe by Frances Hodgson Burnett (best life changing books .TXT) đ
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âI must come, dear,â she answered.
âNanny thinks she is lovely,â he announced. âShe says I am in love with her. Am I, mother?â
âYou are too young to be in love,â she said. âAnd even when you are older you must not fall in love with people you know nothing about.â
It was an unconscious bit of Scotch cautiousness which she at once realized was absurd and quite out of place. Butâ!
She realized it because he stood up and squared his shoulders in an odd young-mannish way. He had not flushed even faintly before and now a touch of colour crept under his fair skin.
âBut I DO love her,â he said. âI DO. I canât stop.â And though he was quite simple and obviously little boy-like, she actually felt frightened for a moment.
On the afternoon of the day upon which this occurred, Coombe was standing in Featherâs drawing-room with a cup of tea in his hand and wearing the look of a man who is given up to reflection.
âI saw Mrs. Muir today for the first time for several years,â he said after a silence. âShe is in London with the boy.â
âIs she as handsome as ever?â
âQuite. Hers is not the beauty that disappears. It is line and bearing and a sort of splendid grace and harmony.â
âWhat is the boy like?â
Coombe reflected again before he answered.
âHe isâamazing. One so seldom sees anything approaching physical perfection that it strikes one a sort of blow when one comes upon it suddenly face to face.â
âIs he as beautiful as all that?â
âThe Greeks used to make statues of bodies like his. They often called them godsâbut not always. The Creative Intention plainly was that all human beings should be beautiful and he is the expression of it.â
Feather was pretending to embroider a pink flower on a bit of gauze and she smiled vaguely.
âI donât know what you mean,â she admitted with no abasement of spirit, âbut if ever there was any Intention of that kind it has not been carried out.â Her smile broke into a little laugh as she stuck her needle into her work. âIâm thinking of Henry,â she let drop in addition.
âSo was I, it happened,â answered Coombe after a second or so of pause.
Henry was the next of kin who wasâto Coombeâs great objectionâhis heir presumptive, and was universally admitted to be a repulsive sort of person both physically and morally. He had brought into the world a weakly and rickety framework and had from mere boyhood devoted himself to a life which would have undermined a Hercules. A relative may so easily present the aspect of an unfortunate incident over which one has no control. This was the case with Henry. His character and appearance were such that even his connection with an important heritage was not enough to induce respectable persons to accept him in any form. But if Coombe remained without issue Henry would be the Head of the House.
âHow is his cough?â inquired Feather.
âFrightful. He is an emaciated wreck and he has no physical cause for remaining alive.â
Feather made three or four stitches.
âDoes Mrs. Muir know?â she said.
âIf Mrs. Muir is conscious of his miserable existence, that is all,â he answered. âShe is not the woman to inquire. Of course she cannot help knowing thatâwhen he is done withâher boy takes his place in the line of succession.â
âOh, yes, sheâd know that,â put in Feather.
It was Coombe who smiled nowâvery faintly.
âYou have a mistaken view of her,â he said.
âYou admire her very much,â Feather bridled. The figure of this big Scotch creature with her âlineâ and her âsplendid grace and harmonyâ was enough to make one bridle.
âShe doesnât admire me,â said Coombe. âShe is not proud of me as a connection. She doesnât really want the position for the boy, in her heart of hearts.â
âDoesnât want it!â Featherâs exclamation was a little jeer only because she would not have dared a big one.
âShe is Scotch Early Victorian in some things and extremely advanced in others,â he went on. âShe has strong ideas of her own as to how he shall be brought up. Sheâs rather Greek in her feeling for his being as perfect physically and mentally as she can help him to be. She believes things. It was she who said what you did not understandâabout the Creative Intention.â
âI suppose she is religious,â Feather said. âScotch people often are but their religion isnât usually like that. Creative Intentionâs a new name for God, I suppose. I ought to know all about God. Iâve heard enough about Him. My father was not a clergyman but he was very miserable, and it made him so religious that he was ALMOST one. We were every one of us christened and catechized and confirmed and all that. So Godâs rather an old story.â
âQueer how oldâfrom Greenlandâs icy mountains to Indiaâs coral strand,â said Coombe. âItâs an ancient searchâthat for the Ideaâwhether it takes form in metal or wood or stone.â
âWell,â said Feather, holding her bit of gauze away from her the better to criticize the pink flower. âAs ALMOST a clergymanâs daughter I must say that if there is one tiling God didnât do, it was to fill the world with beautiful people and things as if it was only to be happy in. It was made to-to try us by suffering and-that sort of thing. Itâs a-a-what dâye call it? Something beginning with P.â
âProbation,â suggested Coombe regarding her with an expression of speculative interest. Her airy bringing forth of her glib time-worn little scraps of orthodoxyâas one who fished them out of a bag of long-discarded remnants of rubbishâwas so true to type that it almost fascinated him for a moment.
âYes. Thatâs itâprobation,â she answered. âI knew it began with a P. It means âthorny pathsâ and âseas of bloodâ and, if you are religious, you âtread them with bleeding feetââ or swim them as the people do in hymns. And you praise and glorify all the time youâre doing it. Of course, Iâm not religious myself and I canât say I think itâs pleasantâbut I do KNOW! Every body beautiful and perfect indeed! Thatâs not religionâitâs being irreligious. Good gracious, think of the cripples and lepers and hunchbacks!â
âAnd the idea is that God made them allâby way of entertaining himself?â he put it to her quietly.
âWell, who else did?â said Feather cheerfully.
âI donât know,â he said. âCertain things I heard Mrs. Muir say suggested to one that it might be interesting to think it out.â
âDid she talk to you about God at afternoon tea?â said Feather. âItâs the kind of thing a religious Scotch woman might do.â
âNo, she did not talk to me. Perhaps that was her mistake. She might have reformed me. She never says more to me than civility demands. And it was not at tea. I accidentally dropped in on the Bethunes and found an Oriental had been lecturing there. Mrs. Muir was talking to him and I heard her. The man seemed to be a scholar and a deep thinker and as they talked a group of us stood and listened or asked questions.â
âHow funny!â said Feather.
âIt was not funny at all. It was astonishingly calm and seriousâand logical. The logic was the new note. I had never thought of reason in that connection.â
âReason has nothing to do with it. You must have faith. You must just believe what youâre told not think at all. Thinking is wickednessâunless you think what you hear preached.â Feather was even a trifle delicately smug as she rattled off her orthodoxyâbut she laughed after she had done with it. âBut it MUST have been funnyâa Turk or a Hindoo in a turban and a thing like a tea gown and Mrs. Muir in her Edinburgh looking clothes talking about God.â
âYou are quite out of it,â Coombe did not smile at all as he said it. âThe Oriental was as physically beautiful as Donal Muir is. And Mrs. Muirâno other woman in the room compared with her. Perhaps people who think grow beautiful.â
Feather was not often alluring or coquettish in her manner to Coombe but she tilted her head prettily and looked down at her flower through lovely lashes.
âI donât think,â she said. âAnd I am not so bad looking.â
âNo,â he answered coldly. âYou are not. At times you look like a young angel.â
âIf Mrs. Muir is like that,â she said after a brief pause, âI should like to know what she thinks of me?â
âNo, you would notâneither should Iâif she thinks at all,â was his answer. âBut you remember you said you did not mind that sort of thing.â
âI donât. Why should I? It canât harm me.â Her hint of a pout made her mouth entrancing. âBut, if she thinks good looks are the result of religiousness I should like to let her see Robinâand compare her with her boy. I saw Robin in the park last week and sheâs a perfect beauty.â
âLast week?â said Coombe.
âShe doesnât need anyone but Andrews. I should bore her to death if I went and sat in the Nursery and stared at her. No one does that sort of thing in these days. But I should like to see Mrs. Muir to see the two children together!â âThat could not easily be arranged, I am afraid,â he said.
âWhy not?â
His answer was politely deliberate.
âShe greatly disapproves of me, I have told you. She is not proud of the relationship.â
âShe does not like ME you mean?â
âExcuse me. I mean exactly what I said in telling you that she has her own very strong views of the boyâs training and surroundings. They may be ridiculous but that sort of thing need not trouble you.â
Feather held up her hand and actually laughed.
âIf Robin meets him in ten years from now-THAT for her very strong views of his training and surroundings!â
And she snapped her fingers.
Mrs. Muirâs distaste for her sonâs unavoidable connection the man he might succeed had a firm foundation. She had been brought up in a Scottish Manse where her father dominated as an omnipotent and almost divine authority. As a child of imagination she had not been happy but she had been obedient. In her girlhood she had varied from type through her marriage with a young man who was a dreamer, an advanced thinker, an impassioned Greek scholar and a lover of beauty. After he had from her terrors of damnation, they had been profoundly happy. They were young and at ease and they read and thought together ardently. They explored new creeds and cults and sometimes found themselves talking nonsense and sometimes discovering untrodden paths of wisdom. They were youthful enough to be solemn about things at times, and clever enough to laugh at their solemnity when they awakened to it. Helen Muir left the reverent gloom of the life at the Manse far behind despite her respect for certain meanings they beclouded.
âI live in a new structure,â she said to her husband, âbut it is built on a foundation which is like a solid subterranean chamber. I donât use the subterranean chamber or go into it. I donât want to. But now and then echoesâalmost noisesâmake themselves heard in it. Sometimes I find I have listened in spite of myself.â
She had always been rather grave about her little son and when her husbandâs early death left him and his
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