A Mere Accident | Page 4

Then you saw a man of about forty, about the
medium height and inclined to stoutness. His face was round and florid,
and it was set with sandy whiskers. His white necktie proclaimed him a
parson, and the grey mud with which his boots were bespattered told of
his long walk. As is generally the case with those of his profession, he
spoke fluently, his voice was melodious, and his rapid answers and his
bright eyes saved him from appearing commonplace. In addressing Mrs
Norton he used her Christian name.
"You are quite right, Lizzie, you are quite right; I shouldn't have done it:
had I known what a state the roads were in, I wouldn't have attempted
it."
"What is the use of talking like that, as if you didn't know what these
roads were like! For twenty years you have been making use of them,
and if you don't know what they are like in winter by this time, all I can
say is that you never will."
"I never saw them in the state they are now; such a slush of chalk and
clay was never seen."
"What can you expect after a month of heavy rain? You are wringing
wet."
"Yes, I was caught in a heavy shower as I was crossing over by
Fresh-Combe-bottom. I am certainly not in a fit state to come into your
dining-room."
"I should think not indeed! I really believe if I were to allow it, you
would sit the whole afternoon in your wet clothes. You'll find
everything ready for you in John's room. I'll give you ten minutes. I'll
tell them to bring up lunch in ten minutes. Stay, will you have a glass
of wine before going upstairs?"
"I am afraid of spoiling your carpet."
"Yes, indeed! not one step further! I'll fetch it for you."

When the parson had drunk the wine, and was following the butler
upstairs, Mrs Norton returned to the dining-room with the empty glass
in her hand. She placed it on the chimney piece; she stirred the fire, and
her thoughts flowed pleasantly as she dwelt on the kindness of her old
friend. "He only got my note this morning," she mused. "I wonder if he
will be able to persuade John to return home." Mrs Norton, in her own
hard, cold way, loved her son, but in truth she thought more of the
power of which he was the representative than of the man himself: the
power to take to himself a wife--a wife who would give an heir to
Thornby Place. This was to be the achievement of Mrs Norton's life,
and the difficulties that intervened were too absorbing for her to think
much whether her son would find happiness in marriage; nor was it
natural to her to set much store on the refining charm and the uniting
influences of mental sympathies. Had she not passed the age when the
sentimental emotions are liveliest? And the fibre was wanting in her to
take into much account the whispering or the silence of passion.
Mrs Norton saw in marriage nothing but the child, and in the child
nothing but an heir--that is to say, a male who would continue the name
and traditions of Thornby Place. This would seem to indicate a material
nature, but such a misapprehension arises from the common habit of
confusing pure thought--thought which proceeds direct from the brain
and lives uncoloured by the material wants of life--with instincts whose
complexity often causes them to appear as mental potentialities,
whereas they are but instincts, inherited promptings, and aversions
more or less modified by physical constitution and the material forces
of the life in which the constitution has grown up; and yet, though pure
thought, that is to say the power of detaching oneself from the webs of
life and viewing men and things from a height, is the rarest of gifts,
many are possessed of sufficient intellectuality to enjoy with the brain
apart from the senses. Mrs Norton was such an one. After five o'clock
tea she would ask Kitty to read to her, and drawing her shawl about her
shoulders, would readily abandon the intellectual side of her nature to
the seductive charm of the romantic story of James of Scotland; and
while to the girl the heroism and chivalry were a little clouded by the
quaint turns of Rossetti's verse, to the woman these were added delights,
which her quiet penetrating understanding followed and took instant

note of.
"Were mother and son ever so different?" was the common remark.
The artistic was the side of Mrs Norton's character that was
unaffectedly kept out of sight, just as young John Norton was careful to
hide from public knowledge his strict business habits, and to expose,
perhaps a