Chapter Six.The School-Room.Mrs Rowland was mortified that the Greys had been beforehand with her in the idea of a cowslip-gathering. From the moment of Matilda’s asking leave to accompany them, she resolved to have such an expedition from her house as her neighbours should not be able to eclipse. Like Lear, she did not yet know what her deed was to be; but it should be the wonder and terror of the place: she would do such things as should strike the strangers with admiration. When she heard an account of it from her little daughter, she found this had been a very poor beginning,—a mere walk in the meadows, and home again to tea;—no boiling the kettle in the woods,—not even a surprise of early strawberries. She could not call this being forestalled; it could not give the young ladies any idea of a proper country excursion, with four or five carriages, or a boat with an awning. As soon as Mr Rowland came home in the evening, she consulted him about the day, the place, the mode, and the numbers to be invited. Mr Rowland was so well pleased to find his lady in the mood to be civil to her neighbours, that he started no difficulties, and exerted himself to overcome such as could not be overlooked. All the planning prospered so well, that notes to the Grey family and to the Miss Ibbotsons lay on Mr Grey’s breakfast-table the next morning, inviting the whole party to dine with Mrs Rowland in Dingleford woods, that day week—the carriages to be at the door at ten o’clock.The whole village rang with the preparations for this excursion; and the village was destined to ring with other tidings before it took place. Mrs Rowland often said that she had the worst luck in the world; and it seemed as if all small events fell out so as to plague her. She had an unusual fertility in such sensible suppositions and reasonable complaints; and her whole diversity of expressions of this kind was called into play about this expedition to Dingleford woods. The hams were actually boiled, and the chicken-pies baked, when clouds began to gather in the sky; and on the appointed morning, pattens clinked in the village street, Miss Young’s umbrella was wet through in the mere transit from the farrier’s gate to the schoolroom; the gravel-walk before Mr Grey’s house was full of yellow pools, and the gurgling of spouts or drips from the trees was heard on every side. The worst of it was, this rain came after a drought of many weeks, which had perilled the young crops, and almost destroyed the hopes of hay; the ladies and children had been far from sufficiently sorry to hear that some of the poorer wheat lands in the county had been ploughed up, and that there was no calculating what hay would be a ton the next winter. They were now to receive the retribution of their indifference; rain had set in, and the farmers hoped that it might continue for a month. It would not be wise to fix any country excursion for a few weeks to come. Let the young people enjoy any fine afternoon that they might be able to turn to the account of a walk, or a drive, or a sail on the river; but picnic parties must be deferred till settled weather came. There was every hope that the middle of the summer would be fine and seasonable, if the rains came down freely now.This course of meteorological events involved two great vexations to Mrs Rowland. One was, that the neighbours, who could pretend to entertain the strangers only in a quiet way at home, took the opportunity of the rainy weather to do so, hoping, as they said, not to interfere with any more agreeable engagements. Mrs Rowland really never saw anything so dissipated as the Greys; they were out almost every evening when they had not company at home. It was impossible that Sophia’s studies could go on as they ought to do. What with taking a quiet cup of tea with one acquaintance, and being at a merry reading party at another’s, and Mrs Enderby’s little dance, and dinner at the Levitts’, there were few evenings left; and on those few evenings they were never content to be alone. They were always giving the young men encouragement to go in. Mr Hope made quite a home house of Mr Grey’s; and as for Philip, he seemed now to be more at Mr Grey’s than even at his own mother’s or sister’s. Mrs Grey ought to remember how bad all this was for a girl of Sophia’s age. It would completely spoil the excursion to Dingleford woods. The young people knew one another so well by this time, that the novelty was all worn off, and they would have nothing left to say to each other. It was provoking that Mr Rowland had promised that the excursion should take place whenever the weather should be settled enough. It might so fairly have been given up! and now it must be gone on with, when every one was tired of the idea, and the young people must almost be weary of one another, from being always together!The other vexation was, that there were frequent short intervals of fine weather, which were immediately taken advantage of for a drive, or a walk, or a sail; and it came out one day from the children, who had learned it in the schoolroom, that the Miss Ibbotsons had been in Dingleford woods. There had been no such intention when the party set out; they had not designed to go nearly so far; but they had been tempted on by the beauty of the evening and of the scenery, till they had found it the shortest way to come home through the Dingleford woods. Mrs Rowland pronounced this abominable; and she was not appeased by hearing that her brother had been the proposer of this mode of return, and the guide of the party. Philip forgot everything, she declared, in his fancy for these girls; it was always his fault that he was carried away by the people he was with: he had got the name of a flirt by it, and a flirt he was; but she had never known him so possessed as he seemed to be by these strangers. She must speak to Mr Rowland about it; the matter might really become serious; and if he should ever be entrapped into marrying into the Grey connections, among people so decidedly objectionable, it would be a terrible self-reproach to her as long as she lived, that she had not interfered in time. She should speak to Mr Rowland.Meanwhile she kept a watchful eye on her brother’s proceedings. She found from the children that their Uncle Philip had fulfilled his promise of going to see the schoolroom, and had been so much better than his word, that he had been there very often. When he went, it was always when the Miss Ibbotsons were there, learning German, or drawing, or talking with Miss Young. It was impossible to pick a quarrel with Miss Young about this; for she always sent her visitors away the moment the clock struck the school hour. The summer-house was Mr Grey’s property, too; so that Mrs Rowland could only be angry at the studies which went on in it, and had no power to close the doors against any of the parties.The rainy weather had indeed been very propitious to the study of German. For a fortnight Margaret had spent some hours of each day with Miss Young; and over their books they had learned so much of one another’s heart and mind, that a strong regard had sprung up between them. This new friendship was a great event to Miss Young;—how great, she herself could scarcely have believed beforehand. Her pupils found that Miss Young was now very merry sometimes. Mr Grey observed to his wife that the warmer weather seemed to agree with the poor young woman, as she had some little colour in her cheeks at last; and Margaret herself observed a change in the tone of the philosophy she had admired from the beginning. There was somewhat less of reasoning in it, and more of impulse; it was as sound as ever, but more genial. While never forgetting the constancy of change in human affairs, she was heartily willing to enjoy the good that befell her, while it lasted. It was well that she could do so; for the good of this new friendship was presently alloyed.She was not aware, and it was well that she was not, that Hester was jealous of her, almost from the hour of Margaret’s learning what a vast number of irregular verbs there is in the German. Each sister remembered the conversation by the open window, on the night of their arrival at Deerbrook. Remembering it, Margaret made Hester a partaker in all her feelings about Maria Young; her admiration, her pity, her esteem. Reserving to herself any confidence which Maria placed in her (in which, however, no mention of Mr Enderby ever occurred), she kept not a thought or feeling of her own from her sister. The consequence was, that Hester found that Maria filled a large space in Margaret’s mind, and that a new interest had risen up in which she had little share. She, too, remembered the conversation, but had not strength to act up to the spirit of it. She had then owned her weakness, and called it wickedness, and fancied that she could never mistrust her sister again. She was now so ashamed of her own consciousness of being once more jealous, that she strove to hide the fact from herself; and was not therefore likely to tell it to Margaret. She struggled hourly with herself, rebuking her own temper, and making appeals to her own generosity. She sat drawing in the little blue parlour, morning after morning, during Sophia’s reading or practising, telling herself that Margaret and Miss Young had no secrets, no desire to be alwaystête-à-tête; that they had properly invited her to learn German; and that she had only to go at any moment, and offer to join them, to be joyfully received. She argued with herself,—how mean it would be to do so; to agree to study at last, in order to be a sort of spy upon them, to watch over her own interests; as if Margaret—the most sincere and faithful of living beings—were not to be trusted with them. She had often vowed that she would cure the jealousy of her temper; now was the occasion, and she would meet it; she would steadily sit beside Sophia or Mrs Grey every morning, when Margaret was not with her, and never let her sister know how selfish she could be.This was all very well; but it could not make Margaret suppose her sister happy when she was not. She could not be certain what was the matter, but she saw that something was wrong. At times, Hester’s manner was so unboundedly affectionate, that it was impossible to suppose that unkind feelings existed towards herself; though a few pettish words were at other times let drop. Hester’s moods of magnanimity and jealousy were accounted for in other ways by her sister. Margaret believed, after a course of very close observation, that she had discovered, in investigating the cause of Hester’s discomposure, a secret which was unknown to her sister herself. Margaret was not experienced in love, nor in watching the signs of it; but here was the mind she understood best, discomposed without apparent cause—more fond, more generous to herself than ever, yet not reposing its usual confidence in her—and subject to those starts of delight and disappointment which she had heard and could understand to be the moods of love. She was confirmed in her suspicion by observing that the merits of Mr Hope were becoming daily a less common subject of conversation between them, while it was certain that he had in no degree lost favour with either. They had been charmed with him from the beginning, and had expressed to each other the freest admiration of his truth, his gaiety, his accomplishments, and great superiority to the people amidst whom he lived. He was now spoken of less every day, while his visits grew more frequent, longer, and, Margaret could not but think, more welcome to her sister. The hours when he was sure not to come happened to be those which she spent with Miss Young—the hours in which gentlemen are devoted to their business. Margaret thus witnessed all that passed; and if her conjecture about Hester was right, she could have wished to see Mr Hope’s manner rather different from what it was. He was evidently strongly attracted to the house; and there was some reason to think that Mrs Grey believed that Hester was the attraction. But Margaret had no such impression. She saw that Mr Hope admired her sister’s beauty, listened to her conversation with interest, and was moved at times by the generosity of her tone of moral feeling; but this, though much, was not enough for the anxious sister’s full satisfaction; and the one thing besides which she would fain have discerned she could not perceive. These were early days yet, however; so early that, in the case of any one whom she knew, except her sister, she should have supposed her own conjectures wild and almost improper; but Hester’s was one of those natures to which time and circumstance minister more speedily and more abundantly than to the generality. By the strength of her feelings, and the activity of her affections, time was made more comprehensive, and circumstance more weighty than to others. A day would produce changes in her which the impressions of a week would not effect in less passionate natures; and what were trifling incidents to the minds about her, were great events to her.Margaret began to consider what was to be done. The more she thought, the more plainly she perceived that there was nothing to be done but to occupy Hester, simply and naturally, with as many interests as possible. This was safe practice, be the cause of her occasional discomposure what it might. It was particularly desirable that she should not continue the habit of sitting in silence for a considerable part of every morning.One day, just after the voices of the children had been heard in the hall, giving token that school was over, Hester, sitting in the little blue parlour alone, with her head on her hand, was apparently contemplating the drawing on her board, but really considering that Margaret was now beginning to be happy with her friend, and asking why Margaret should not be happy with her friend, when Margaret herself entered.“Do you want Sophia?” said Hester. “She is up-stairs.”“No; I want you.”“Indeed!”There was an ironical tone of surprise in the one word she spoke, which let fall a weight upon Margaret’s heart;—an old feeling, but one to which she had made no progress towards being reconciled.“I cannot help you with your German, you know. How can you pretend to want me?”“It is not about the German at all that I want you. Maria has found a Spenser at last, and I am going to read her the ‘Hymn of Heavenly Beauty,’ I know you never can hear that often enough; so come!”“Perhaps Miss Young had rather not. I should be sorry to intrude myself upon her. But, however,” continued she, observing Margaret’s look of surprise, “I will come. Do not wait for me, dear. I will come the moment I have put up my drawing.”Margaret did wait, running over the keys of the open piano meanwhile.“Shall I call Sophia too?” asked Hester, as she took up her work-bag. “I dare say she never read any of Spenser.”“I dare say not,” replied Margaret; “and she would not care about it now. If you think we ought, we will call her. If not—”Hester smiled, nodded, and led the way to the schoolroom without calling Sophia. She had not been two minutes in the cordial presence of her sister and Maria, before she felt the full absurdity of the feelings which had occupied her so lately, and was angry with herself to her own satisfaction. Her companions looked at each other with a smile as they observed at the same moment the downcast attitude of her moistened eyes, the beautiful blush on her cheek, and the expression of meek emotion on her lips. They thought that it was the image of heavenly beauty which moved her thus.Before they had quite finished the Hymn, the door was burst open, and the children entered, dragging in Mr Enderby. Mr Enderby rebuked them, good-naturedly, for introducing him with so little ceremony, and declared to the ladies that Matilda had promised to knock before she opened the door. Hester advised Mary and Fanny to be more quiet in their mode of entrance, observing that they had made Miss Young start with their hurry.Matilda was glad her uncle remembered to come sometimes. He had promised it several weeks before he came at all; even when he said he was going away in a fortnight.“And if I had gone away in a fortnight,” said he, “I should not have seen your schoolroom. But this is not the first time I have seen it, as you remember very well. I have been here often lately.”“But you never attend to me here, uncle! And I want so to show you my desk, where I keep my copy-book, and the work-box you gave me on my birthday.”“Well, you can show me now, cannot you? So, this is your desk! It seems convenient enough, whatever we may think of its beauty. I suppose it will hold all the knowledge you will want to have put into your head for some time to come. Now show me which is George’s desk, and which Fanny’s; and now Mary’s,—a nice row of desks! Now,” whispering to her, “can you show me which is Miss Margaret’s desk?”The little girl giggled as she answered, that Miss Margaret was too old to be a school-girl.“So she is: but she learns of Miss Young, and I know she keeps some of her books here. Can you show me where?”There was a desk rather larger than the rest, the lid of which now happened to be standing open. Matilda slyly pointed to it. While the ladies were engaged with the other children, Mr Enderby cast a glance into this desk, saw a book which he knew to be Margaret’s, laid something upon it from his pocket, and softly closed the lid; the whole passing, if it was observed at all, as a survey of the children’s desks. He then pretended to look round for the rod.“No rod!” said he to the laughing children. “Oh, I should like to learn here very much, if there is no rod. Miss Margaret, do you not find it very pleasant learning here?”The children were shouting, “Miss Young, Miss Young, do let uncle Philip come and learn with us. He says he will be a very good boy,—won’t you, uncle Philip? Miss Young, when may uncle Philip come and learn his lessons?”Margaret saw that there was constraint in the smile with which Maria answered the children. Little as she knew, it struck her that in his fun with the children, Mr Enderby was relying quite sufficiently on the philosophy he had professed to admire in Miss Young. Mr Enderby drew a chair to the window round which the ladies were sitting, and took up the volume Margaret had just laid down.“Go, go, children!” said he; “run away to your gardens! I cannot spare you any more play to-day.”“Oh, but uncle, we want to ask you a question.”“Well, ask it.”“But it is a secret. You must come into the corner with Fanny, and Mary, and me.”For peace and quiet he went into the corner with them, and they whispered into each ear a question, how many burnt almonds and gingerbread-buttons, and how much barley-sugar, two shillings and threepence halfpenny would buy? The cowslips were now ready to make tea of, and the feast on the dolls’ dishes might be served any day. Mr Enderby promised to inquire at the confectioner’s, and not to tell anybody else; and at last the children were got rid of.“Now that we have done with mysteries,” said he, as he resumed his seat by the window, “that is, with children’s mysteries that we can see to the bottom of, let us look a little into the poet’s mysteries. What were you reading? Show me, and I will be your reader. Who or what is this Heavenly Beauty? We have not done with mysteries yet, I see.”“I was wondering,” said Margaret smiling, “whether you take up Spenser because you are tired of mysteries. In such a case, some other poet might suit you better.”“What other?”“Some one less allegorical, at least.”“I do not know that,” said Hester. “The most cunning allegory that ever was devised is plain and easy in comparison with the simplest true story,—fully told: and a man is a poet in proportion as he fully tells a simple true story.”“A story of the mind, you mean,” said Mr Enderby, “not of the mere events of life?”“Of the mind, of course, I mean. Without the mind the mere life is nothing.”“Is not allegory a very pretty way of telling such a story of the mind, under the appearance of telling a story of a life?”“Yes,” said Margaret; “and that is the reason why so many like allegory. There is a pleasure in making one’s way about a grotto in a garden; but I think there is a much higher one in exploring a cave on the sea-shore, dim and winding, where you never know that you have come to the end,—a much higher pleasure in exploring a life than following out an allegory.”“You are a true lover of mystery, Miss Margaret. You should have lived a thousand years ago.”“Thank you: I am very glad I did not. But why so long ago? Are there not mysteries enough left?”“And will there not be enough a thousand years hence?” said Hester.“I am afraid not. You and I cannot venture to speak upon what the Germans may be doing. But these two ladies can tell us, perhaps, whether they are not clearing everything up very fast;—making windows in your cave, Miss Margaret, till nobody will be afraid to look into every cranny of it.”“And then our complaint,” said Miss Young, “will be like Mrs Howell’s, when somebody told her that we were to have the Drummond light on every church steeple. ‘Oh dear, ma’am!’ said she, ‘we shall not know how in the world to get any darkness.’”“You speak as if you agreed that the Germans really are the makers of windows that Mr Enderby supposes them,” observed Margaret; “but you do not think we are any nearer the end of mysteries than ever, do you?”“Oh, no; not till we have struck our stone to the bottom of the universe, and walked round it: and I am not aware that the Germans pretend to be able to do that, any more than other people. Indeed, I think there are as many makers of grottoes as explorers of caves among them. What do you want, my dear?”This last was addressed to George, whose round face, red with exertion, appeared at a back window. The little girls were hoisting him up, that he might call out once more, “Uncle Philip, be sure you remember not to tell.”“It would be a pity that mysteries should come to an end,” observed Mr Enderby, “when they seem to please our human tastes so well. See there, how early the love of mystery begins! and who can tell where it ends? Is there one of your pupils, Miss Young, in whom you do not find it?”“Not one; but is there not a wide difference between the love of making mysteries, and a taste for finding them out?”“Do you not find both in children, and up into old age?”“In children, one usually finds both: but I think the love of mystery-making and surprises goes off as people grow wiser. Fanny and Mary were plotting all last week how to take their sister Sophia by surprise with a piece of India-rubber, a token of fraternal affection, as they were pleased to call it; and you see George has a secret to-day: but they will have fewer hidings and devices every year: and, if they grow really wise, they will find that, amidst the actual business of life, there is so much more safety, and ease, and blessing in perfect frankness than in any kind of concealment, that they will give themselves the liberty and peace of being open as the daylight. Such is my hope for them. But all this need not prevent their delighting in the mysteries which are not of man’s making.”“They will be all the more at leisure for them,” said Margaret, “from having their minds free from plots and secrets.”“Surely you are rather hard upon arts and devices,” said Philip. “Without more or fewer of them, we should make our world into a Palace of Truth,—see the Veillées du Château, which Matilda is reading with Miss Young. Who ever read it, that did not think the Palace of Truth the most disagreeable place in the world?”“And why?” asked Margaret. “Not because the people in it spoke truth; but because the truth which they spoke was hatred, and malice, and selfishness.”“And how much better,” inquired Hester, “is the truth that we should speak, if we were as true as the daylight? I hope we shall always be allowed to make mysteries of our own selfish and unkind fancies. There would be little mutual respect left if these things were told.”“I think there would be more than ever,” said Margaret, carefully avoiding to meet her sister’s eye. “I think so many mistakes would be explained, so many false impressions set right, on the instant of their being made, that our mutual relations would go on more harmoniously than now.”“And what would you do with the affairs now dedicated to mystery?” asked Mr Enderby. “How would you deal with diplomacy, and government, and with courtship? You surely would not overthrow the whole art of wooing? You would not doom lovers’ plots and devices?”The ladies were all silent. Mr Enderby, however, was determined to have an answer. He addressed himself particularly to Margaret.“You do not disapprove of the little hidden tokens with which a man may make his feelings secretly known where he wishes them to be understood;—tokens which may meet the eye of one alone, and carry no meaning to any other! You do not disapprove of a more gentle and mysterious way of saying, ‘I love you,’ than looking full in one another’s face, and declaiming it like a Quaker upon affirmation? You do not disapprove—”“As for disapproving,” said Margaret, who chanced to perceive that Maria’s hand shook so that she could not guide her needle, and that she was therefore apparently searching for something in her work-box,—“as for disapproving, I do not pretend to judge for other people—”She stopped short, struck with the blunder she had made. Mr Enderby hastened to take advantage of it. He said, laughing:“Well, then, speak for yourself. Never mind other people’s case.”“What I mean,” said Margaret, with grave simplicity, “is, that all depends upon the person whose regard is to be won. There are silly girls, and weak women, who, liking mysteries in other affairs, are best pleased to be wooed with small artifices;—with having their vanity and their curiosity piqued with sly compliments—”“Sly compliments! What an expression!”“Such women agree, as a matter of course, in the old notion,—suitable enough five centuries ago,—that the life of courtship should be as unlike as possible to married life. But I certainly think those much the wisest and the happiest, who look upon the whole affair as the solemn matter that it really is, and who desire to be treated, from the beginning, with the sincerity and seriousness which they will require after they are married.”“If the same simplicity and seriousness were common in this as are required in other grave transactions,” said Hester, “there would be less of the treachery, delusion, and heart-breaking, which lie heavy upon the souls of many a man and many a woman.”Mr Enderby, happening to be looking out of the window here, as if for something to say, caught the eye of his sister, who was walking in her garden. She beckoned to him, but he took no notice, not desiring to be disturbed at present. Turning again to Margaret, he said:“But you would destroy all the graces of courtship: you would—”“Nay,” said Hester, “what is so graceful as the simplicity of entire mutual trust?—the more entire the more graceful.”“I wish you had left out the word ‘trust.’ You have spoiled something that I was going on to say about the simplicity of drawing lots like the Moravians,—the most sincere courtship of all: but that word ‘trust’ puts my illustration aside. You need not protest. I assure you I am not so dull as not to understand that you think love necessary to the wooing which seems graceful in your eyes;—Oh, yes: love, and mutual knowledge, and mutual reverence, and perfect trust! Oh, yes, I understand it all.”“Philip!” cried a soft, sentimental voice under the window:“Brother, I want your arm for a turn in the shrubbery.”Mrs Rowland’s bonnet was visible as she looked up to the window. She saw the braids of the hair of the young ladies, and her voice was rather less soft as she called again, “Philip, do you hear? I want you.”It was impossible to seem not to hear. Mr Enderby was obliged to go: but he left his hat behind him, as a sort of pledge that he meant to limit himself to the single turn proposed.For various reasons, the young ladies were all disinclined to speak after he had left them. Miss Young was the first to move. She rose to go to her desk for something,—the desk in which Margaret kept the books she used in this place. Ever on the watch to save Maria the trouble of moving about, which was actual pain to her, Margaret flew to see if she could not fetch what was wanted: but Miss Young was already looking into the desk. Her eye caught the pretty new little volume which lay there. She took it up, found it was a volume of Tieck, and saw on the fly-leaf, in the well-known handwriting, “From PE.” One warm beam of hope shot through her heart:— how could it be otherwise,—the book lying in her desk, and thus addressed? But it was only one moment’s joy. The next instant’s reflection, and the sight of Margaret’s German exercise, on which the book had lain, revealed the real case to her. In sickness of heart, she would, upon impulse, have put back the book, and concealed the incident: but she was not sure but that Margaret had seen the volume, and shewassure of what her own duty was. With a smile and a steady voice she held out the book to Margaret, and said:“Here is something for you, Margaret, which looks a little like one of the hidden, and gentle, and mysterious tokens Mr Enderby has been talking about. Here it is, lying among your books; and I think it was not with them when you last left your seat.”Margaret blushed with an emotion which seemed to the one who knew her best to be too strong to be mere surprise. She looked doubtful for a moment about the book being meant for her. Its German aspect was conclusive against its being designed for Hester: but Miss Young,—was it certain that the volume was not hers? She asked this; but Maria replied, as her head was bent over her desk:“There is no doubt about it. I am sure. It is nobody’s but yours.”Some one proposed to resume the reading. The ‘Hymn to Heavenly Beauty’ was finished, but no remark followed. Each was thinking of something else. More common subjects suited their present mood better. It was urged upon Hester that she should be one of the daily party; and, her lonely fancies being for the hour dispersed, she agreed.“But,” she observed, “other people’s visits alter the case entirely. I do not see how study is to go on if any one may come in from either house, as Mr Enderby did to-day. It is depriving Miss Young of her leisure, too, and making use of her apartment in a way that she may well object to.”“I am here, out of school hours, only upon sufferance,” replied Miss Young. “I never call the room mine without this explanation.”“Besides,” said Margaret, “it is a mere accident Mr Enderby’s coming in to-day. If he makes a habit of it, we have only to tell him that we want our time to ourselves.”Miss Young knew better. She made no reply; but she felt in her inmost soul that her new-born pleasures were, from this moment, to be turned into pains. She knew Mr Enderby; and knowing him, foresaw that she was to be a witness of his wooings of another, whom she had just begun to take to her heart. This was to be her fate if she was strong enough for it,—strong enough to be generous in allowing to Margaret opportunities which could not without her be enjoyed, of fixing the heart of one whom she could not pronounce to have been faulty towards herself. His conversation today had gone far to make her suppose him blameless, and herself alone in fault; so complete had seemed his unconsciousness with regard to her. Her duty then was clearly to give them up to each other, with such spirit of self-sacrifice as she might be capable of. If not strong enough for this, the alternative was a daily painful retreat to her lodging, whence she might look out on the heaps of cinders in the farrier’s yard, her spirit abased the while with the experience of her own weakness. Neither alternative was very cheering.
Mrs Rowland was mortified that the Greys had been beforehand with her in the idea of a cowslip-gathering. From the moment of Matilda’s asking leave to accompany them, she resolved to have such an expedition from her house as her neighbours should not be able to eclipse. Like Lear, she did not yet know what her deed was to be; but it should be the wonder and terror of the place: she would do such things as should strike the strangers with admiration. When she heard an account of it from her little daughter, she found this had been a very poor beginning,—a mere walk in the meadows, and home again to tea;—no boiling the kettle in the woods,—not even a surprise of early strawberries. She could not call this being forestalled; it could not give the young ladies any idea of a proper country excursion, with four or five carriages, or a boat with an awning. As soon as Mr Rowland came home in the evening, she consulted him about the day, the place, the mode, and the numbers to be invited. Mr Rowland was so well pleased to find his lady in the mood to be civil to her neighbours, that he started no difficulties, and exerted himself to overcome such as could not be overlooked. All the planning prospered so well, that notes to the Grey family and to the Miss Ibbotsons lay on Mr Grey’s breakfast-table the next morning, inviting the whole party to dine with Mrs Rowland in Dingleford woods, that day week—the carriages to be at the door at ten o’clock.
The whole village rang with the preparations for this excursion; and the village was destined to ring with other tidings before it took place. Mrs Rowland often said that she had the worst luck in the world; and it seemed as if all small events fell out so as to plague her. She had an unusual fertility in such sensible suppositions and reasonable complaints; and her whole diversity of expressions of this kind was called into play about this expedition to Dingleford woods. The hams were actually boiled, and the chicken-pies baked, when clouds began to gather in the sky; and on the appointed morning, pattens clinked in the village street, Miss Young’s umbrella was wet through in the mere transit from the farrier’s gate to the schoolroom; the gravel-walk before Mr Grey’s house was full of yellow pools, and the gurgling of spouts or drips from the trees was heard on every side. The worst of it was, this rain came after a drought of many weeks, which had perilled the young crops, and almost destroyed the hopes of hay; the ladies and children had been far from sufficiently sorry to hear that some of the poorer wheat lands in the county had been ploughed up, and that there was no calculating what hay would be a ton the next winter. They were now to receive the retribution of their indifference; rain had set in, and the farmers hoped that it might continue for a month. It would not be wise to fix any country excursion for a few weeks to come. Let the young people enjoy any fine afternoon that they might be able to turn to the account of a walk, or a drive, or a sail on the river; but picnic parties must be deferred till settled weather came. There was every hope that the middle of the summer would be fine and seasonable, if the rains came down freely now.
This course of meteorological events involved two great vexations to Mrs Rowland. One was, that the neighbours, who could pretend to entertain the strangers only in a quiet way at home, took the opportunity of the rainy weather to do so, hoping, as they said, not to interfere with any more agreeable engagements. Mrs Rowland really never saw anything so dissipated as the Greys; they were out almost every evening when they had not company at home. It was impossible that Sophia’s studies could go on as they ought to do. What with taking a quiet cup of tea with one acquaintance, and being at a merry reading party at another’s, and Mrs Enderby’s little dance, and dinner at the Levitts’, there were few evenings left; and on those few evenings they were never content to be alone. They were always giving the young men encouragement to go in. Mr Hope made quite a home house of Mr Grey’s; and as for Philip, he seemed now to be more at Mr Grey’s than even at his own mother’s or sister’s. Mrs Grey ought to remember how bad all this was for a girl of Sophia’s age. It would completely spoil the excursion to Dingleford woods. The young people knew one another so well by this time, that the novelty was all worn off, and they would have nothing left to say to each other. It was provoking that Mr Rowland had promised that the excursion should take place whenever the weather should be settled enough. It might so fairly have been given up! and now it must be gone on with, when every one was tired of the idea, and the young people must almost be weary of one another, from being always together!
The other vexation was, that there were frequent short intervals of fine weather, which were immediately taken advantage of for a drive, or a walk, or a sail; and it came out one day from the children, who had learned it in the schoolroom, that the Miss Ibbotsons had been in Dingleford woods. There had been no such intention when the party set out; they had not designed to go nearly so far; but they had been tempted on by the beauty of the evening and of the scenery, till they had found it the shortest way to come home through the Dingleford woods. Mrs Rowland pronounced this abominable; and she was not appeased by hearing that her brother had been the proposer of this mode of return, and the guide of the party. Philip forgot everything, she declared, in his fancy for these girls; it was always his fault that he was carried away by the people he was with: he had got the name of a flirt by it, and a flirt he was; but she had never known him so possessed as he seemed to be by these strangers. She must speak to Mr Rowland about it; the matter might really become serious; and if he should ever be entrapped into marrying into the Grey connections, among people so decidedly objectionable, it would be a terrible self-reproach to her as long as she lived, that she had not interfered in time. She should speak to Mr Rowland.
Meanwhile she kept a watchful eye on her brother’s proceedings. She found from the children that their Uncle Philip had fulfilled his promise of going to see the schoolroom, and had been so much better than his word, that he had been there very often. When he went, it was always when the Miss Ibbotsons were there, learning German, or drawing, or talking with Miss Young. It was impossible to pick a quarrel with Miss Young about this; for she always sent her visitors away the moment the clock struck the school hour. The summer-house was Mr Grey’s property, too; so that Mrs Rowland could only be angry at the studies which went on in it, and had no power to close the doors against any of the parties.
The rainy weather had indeed been very propitious to the study of German. For a fortnight Margaret had spent some hours of each day with Miss Young; and over their books they had learned so much of one another’s heart and mind, that a strong regard had sprung up between them. This new friendship was a great event to Miss Young;—how great, she herself could scarcely have believed beforehand. Her pupils found that Miss Young was now very merry sometimes. Mr Grey observed to his wife that the warmer weather seemed to agree with the poor young woman, as she had some little colour in her cheeks at last; and Margaret herself observed a change in the tone of the philosophy she had admired from the beginning. There was somewhat less of reasoning in it, and more of impulse; it was as sound as ever, but more genial. While never forgetting the constancy of change in human affairs, she was heartily willing to enjoy the good that befell her, while it lasted. It was well that she could do so; for the good of this new friendship was presently alloyed.
She was not aware, and it was well that she was not, that Hester was jealous of her, almost from the hour of Margaret’s learning what a vast number of irregular verbs there is in the German. Each sister remembered the conversation by the open window, on the night of their arrival at Deerbrook. Remembering it, Margaret made Hester a partaker in all her feelings about Maria Young; her admiration, her pity, her esteem. Reserving to herself any confidence which Maria placed in her (in which, however, no mention of Mr Enderby ever occurred), she kept not a thought or feeling of her own from her sister. The consequence was, that Hester found that Maria filled a large space in Margaret’s mind, and that a new interest had risen up in which she had little share. She, too, remembered the conversation, but had not strength to act up to the spirit of it. She had then owned her weakness, and called it wickedness, and fancied that she could never mistrust her sister again. She was now so ashamed of her own consciousness of being once more jealous, that she strove to hide the fact from herself; and was not therefore likely to tell it to Margaret. She struggled hourly with herself, rebuking her own temper, and making appeals to her own generosity. She sat drawing in the little blue parlour, morning after morning, during Sophia’s reading or practising, telling herself that Margaret and Miss Young had no secrets, no desire to be alwaystête-à-tête; that they had properly invited her to learn German; and that she had only to go at any moment, and offer to join them, to be joyfully received. She argued with herself,—how mean it would be to do so; to agree to study at last, in order to be a sort of spy upon them, to watch over her own interests; as if Margaret—the most sincere and faithful of living beings—were not to be trusted with them. She had often vowed that she would cure the jealousy of her temper; now was the occasion, and she would meet it; she would steadily sit beside Sophia or Mrs Grey every morning, when Margaret was not with her, and never let her sister know how selfish she could be.
This was all very well; but it could not make Margaret suppose her sister happy when she was not. She could not be certain what was the matter, but she saw that something was wrong. At times, Hester’s manner was so unboundedly affectionate, that it was impossible to suppose that unkind feelings existed towards herself; though a few pettish words were at other times let drop. Hester’s moods of magnanimity and jealousy were accounted for in other ways by her sister. Margaret believed, after a course of very close observation, that she had discovered, in investigating the cause of Hester’s discomposure, a secret which was unknown to her sister herself. Margaret was not experienced in love, nor in watching the signs of it; but here was the mind she understood best, discomposed without apparent cause—more fond, more generous to herself than ever, yet not reposing its usual confidence in her—and subject to those starts of delight and disappointment which she had heard and could understand to be the moods of love. She was confirmed in her suspicion by observing that the merits of Mr Hope were becoming daily a less common subject of conversation between them, while it was certain that he had in no degree lost favour with either. They had been charmed with him from the beginning, and had expressed to each other the freest admiration of his truth, his gaiety, his accomplishments, and great superiority to the people amidst whom he lived. He was now spoken of less every day, while his visits grew more frequent, longer, and, Margaret could not but think, more welcome to her sister. The hours when he was sure not to come happened to be those which she spent with Miss Young—the hours in which gentlemen are devoted to their business. Margaret thus witnessed all that passed; and if her conjecture about Hester was right, she could have wished to see Mr Hope’s manner rather different from what it was. He was evidently strongly attracted to the house; and there was some reason to think that Mrs Grey believed that Hester was the attraction. But Margaret had no such impression. She saw that Mr Hope admired her sister’s beauty, listened to her conversation with interest, and was moved at times by the generosity of her tone of moral feeling; but this, though much, was not enough for the anxious sister’s full satisfaction; and the one thing besides which she would fain have discerned she could not perceive. These were early days yet, however; so early that, in the case of any one whom she knew, except her sister, she should have supposed her own conjectures wild and almost improper; but Hester’s was one of those natures to which time and circumstance minister more speedily and more abundantly than to the generality. By the strength of her feelings, and the activity of her affections, time was made more comprehensive, and circumstance more weighty than to others. A day would produce changes in her which the impressions of a week would not effect in less passionate natures; and what were trifling incidents to the minds about her, were great events to her.
Margaret began to consider what was to be done. The more she thought, the more plainly she perceived that there was nothing to be done but to occupy Hester, simply and naturally, with as many interests as possible. This was safe practice, be the cause of her occasional discomposure what it might. It was particularly desirable that she should not continue the habit of sitting in silence for a considerable part of every morning.
One day, just after the voices of the children had been heard in the hall, giving token that school was over, Hester, sitting in the little blue parlour alone, with her head on her hand, was apparently contemplating the drawing on her board, but really considering that Margaret was now beginning to be happy with her friend, and asking why Margaret should not be happy with her friend, when Margaret herself entered.
“Do you want Sophia?” said Hester. “She is up-stairs.”
“No; I want you.”
“Indeed!”
There was an ironical tone of surprise in the one word she spoke, which let fall a weight upon Margaret’s heart;—an old feeling, but one to which she had made no progress towards being reconciled.
“I cannot help you with your German, you know. How can you pretend to want me?”
“It is not about the German at all that I want you. Maria has found a Spenser at last, and I am going to read her the ‘Hymn of Heavenly Beauty,’ I know you never can hear that often enough; so come!”
“Perhaps Miss Young had rather not. I should be sorry to intrude myself upon her. But, however,” continued she, observing Margaret’s look of surprise, “I will come. Do not wait for me, dear. I will come the moment I have put up my drawing.”
Margaret did wait, running over the keys of the open piano meanwhile.
“Shall I call Sophia too?” asked Hester, as she took up her work-bag. “I dare say she never read any of Spenser.”
“I dare say not,” replied Margaret; “and she would not care about it now. If you think we ought, we will call her. If not—”
Hester smiled, nodded, and led the way to the schoolroom without calling Sophia. She had not been two minutes in the cordial presence of her sister and Maria, before she felt the full absurdity of the feelings which had occupied her so lately, and was angry with herself to her own satisfaction. Her companions looked at each other with a smile as they observed at the same moment the downcast attitude of her moistened eyes, the beautiful blush on her cheek, and the expression of meek emotion on her lips. They thought that it was the image of heavenly beauty which moved her thus.
Before they had quite finished the Hymn, the door was burst open, and the children entered, dragging in Mr Enderby. Mr Enderby rebuked them, good-naturedly, for introducing him with so little ceremony, and declared to the ladies that Matilda had promised to knock before she opened the door. Hester advised Mary and Fanny to be more quiet in their mode of entrance, observing that they had made Miss Young start with their hurry.
Matilda was glad her uncle remembered to come sometimes. He had promised it several weeks before he came at all; even when he said he was going away in a fortnight.
“And if I had gone away in a fortnight,” said he, “I should not have seen your schoolroom. But this is not the first time I have seen it, as you remember very well. I have been here often lately.”
“But you never attend to me here, uncle! And I want so to show you my desk, where I keep my copy-book, and the work-box you gave me on my birthday.”
“Well, you can show me now, cannot you? So, this is your desk! It seems convenient enough, whatever we may think of its beauty. I suppose it will hold all the knowledge you will want to have put into your head for some time to come. Now show me which is George’s desk, and which Fanny’s; and now Mary’s,—a nice row of desks! Now,” whispering to her, “can you show me which is Miss Margaret’s desk?”
The little girl giggled as she answered, that Miss Margaret was too old to be a school-girl.
“So she is: but she learns of Miss Young, and I know she keeps some of her books here. Can you show me where?”
There was a desk rather larger than the rest, the lid of which now happened to be standing open. Matilda slyly pointed to it. While the ladies were engaged with the other children, Mr Enderby cast a glance into this desk, saw a book which he knew to be Margaret’s, laid something upon it from his pocket, and softly closed the lid; the whole passing, if it was observed at all, as a survey of the children’s desks. He then pretended to look round for the rod.
“No rod!” said he to the laughing children. “Oh, I should like to learn here very much, if there is no rod. Miss Margaret, do you not find it very pleasant learning here?”
The children were shouting, “Miss Young, Miss Young, do let uncle Philip come and learn with us. He says he will be a very good boy,—won’t you, uncle Philip? Miss Young, when may uncle Philip come and learn his lessons?”
Margaret saw that there was constraint in the smile with which Maria answered the children. Little as she knew, it struck her that in his fun with the children, Mr Enderby was relying quite sufficiently on the philosophy he had professed to admire in Miss Young. Mr Enderby drew a chair to the window round which the ladies were sitting, and took up the volume Margaret had just laid down.
“Go, go, children!” said he; “run away to your gardens! I cannot spare you any more play to-day.”
“Oh, but uncle, we want to ask you a question.”
“Well, ask it.”
“But it is a secret. You must come into the corner with Fanny, and Mary, and me.”
For peace and quiet he went into the corner with them, and they whispered into each ear a question, how many burnt almonds and gingerbread-buttons, and how much barley-sugar, two shillings and threepence halfpenny would buy? The cowslips were now ready to make tea of, and the feast on the dolls’ dishes might be served any day. Mr Enderby promised to inquire at the confectioner’s, and not to tell anybody else; and at last the children were got rid of.
“Now that we have done with mysteries,” said he, as he resumed his seat by the window, “that is, with children’s mysteries that we can see to the bottom of, let us look a little into the poet’s mysteries. What were you reading? Show me, and I will be your reader. Who or what is this Heavenly Beauty? We have not done with mysteries yet, I see.”
“I was wondering,” said Margaret smiling, “whether you take up Spenser because you are tired of mysteries. In such a case, some other poet might suit you better.”
“What other?”
“Some one less allegorical, at least.”
“I do not know that,” said Hester. “The most cunning allegory that ever was devised is plain and easy in comparison with the simplest true story,—fully told: and a man is a poet in proportion as he fully tells a simple true story.”
“A story of the mind, you mean,” said Mr Enderby, “not of the mere events of life?”
“Of the mind, of course, I mean. Without the mind the mere life is nothing.”
“Is not allegory a very pretty way of telling such a story of the mind, under the appearance of telling a story of a life?”
“Yes,” said Margaret; “and that is the reason why so many like allegory. There is a pleasure in making one’s way about a grotto in a garden; but I think there is a much higher one in exploring a cave on the sea-shore, dim and winding, where you never know that you have come to the end,—a much higher pleasure in exploring a life than following out an allegory.”
“You are a true lover of mystery, Miss Margaret. You should have lived a thousand years ago.”
“Thank you: I am very glad I did not. But why so long ago? Are there not mysteries enough left?”
“And will there not be enough a thousand years hence?” said Hester.
“I am afraid not. You and I cannot venture to speak upon what the Germans may be doing. But these two ladies can tell us, perhaps, whether they are not clearing everything up very fast;—making windows in your cave, Miss Margaret, till nobody will be afraid to look into every cranny of it.”
“And then our complaint,” said Miss Young, “will be like Mrs Howell’s, when somebody told her that we were to have the Drummond light on every church steeple. ‘Oh dear, ma’am!’ said she, ‘we shall not know how in the world to get any darkness.’”
“You speak as if you agreed that the Germans really are the makers of windows that Mr Enderby supposes them,” observed Margaret; “but you do not think we are any nearer the end of mysteries than ever, do you?”
“Oh, no; not till we have struck our stone to the bottom of the universe, and walked round it: and I am not aware that the Germans pretend to be able to do that, any more than other people. Indeed, I think there are as many makers of grottoes as explorers of caves among them. What do you want, my dear?”
This last was addressed to George, whose round face, red with exertion, appeared at a back window. The little girls were hoisting him up, that he might call out once more, “Uncle Philip, be sure you remember not to tell.”
“It would be a pity that mysteries should come to an end,” observed Mr Enderby, “when they seem to please our human tastes so well. See there, how early the love of mystery begins! and who can tell where it ends? Is there one of your pupils, Miss Young, in whom you do not find it?”
“Not one; but is there not a wide difference between the love of making mysteries, and a taste for finding them out?”
“Do you not find both in children, and up into old age?”
“In children, one usually finds both: but I think the love of mystery-making and surprises goes off as people grow wiser. Fanny and Mary were plotting all last week how to take their sister Sophia by surprise with a piece of India-rubber, a token of fraternal affection, as they were pleased to call it; and you see George has a secret to-day: but they will have fewer hidings and devices every year: and, if they grow really wise, they will find that, amidst the actual business of life, there is so much more safety, and ease, and blessing in perfect frankness than in any kind of concealment, that they will give themselves the liberty and peace of being open as the daylight. Such is my hope for them. But all this need not prevent their delighting in the mysteries which are not of man’s making.”
“They will be all the more at leisure for them,” said Margaret, “from having their minds free from plots and secrets.”
“Surely you are rather hard upon arts and devices,” said Philip. “Without more or fewer of them, we should make our world into a Palace of Truth,—see the Veillées du Château, which Matilda is reading with Miss Young. Who ever read it, that did not think the Palace of Truth the most disagreeable place in the world?”
“And why?” asked Margaret. “Not because the people in it spoke truth; but because the truth which they spoke was hatred, and malice, and selfishness.”
“And how much better,” inquired Hester, “is the truth that we should speak, if we were as true as the daylight? I hope we shall always be allowed to make mysteries of our own selfish and unkind fancies. There would be little mutual respect left if these things were told.”
“I think there would be more than ever,” said Margaret, carefully avoiding to meet her sister’s eye. “I think so many mistakes would be explained, so many false impressions set right, on the instant of their being made, that our mutual relations would go on more harmoniously than now.”
“And what would you do with the affairs now dedicated to mystery?” asked Mr Enderby. “How would you deal with diplomacy, and government, and with courtship? You surely would not overthrow the whole art of wooing? You would not doom lovers’ plots and devices?”
The ladies were all silent. Mr Enderby, however, was determined to have an answer. He addressed himself particularly to Margaret.
“You do not disapprove of the little hidden tokens with which a man may make his feelings secretly known where he wishes them to be understood;—tokens which may meet the eye of one alone, and carry no meaning to any other! You do not disapprove of a more gentle and mysterious way of saying, ‘I love you,’ than looking full in one another’s face, and declaiming it like a Quaker upon affirmation? You do not disapprove—”
“As for disapproving,” said Margaret, who chanced to perceive that Maria’s hand shook so that she could not guide her needle, and that she was therefore apparently searching for something in her work-box,—“as for disapproving, I do not pretend to judge for other people—”
She stopped short, struck with the blunder she had made. Mr Enderby hastened to take advantage of it. He said, laughing:
“Well, then, speak for yourself. Never mind other people’s case.”
“What I mean,” said Margaret, with grave simplicity, “is, that all depends upon the person whose regard is to be won. There are silly girls, and weak women, who, liking mysteries in other affairs, are best pleased to be wooed with small artifices;—with having their vanity and their curiosity piqued with sly compliments—”
“Sly compliments! What an expression!”
“Such women agree, as a matter of course, in the old notion,—suitable enough five centuries ago,—that the life of courtship should be as unlike as possible to married life. But I certainly think those much the wisest and the happiest, who look upon the whole affair as the solemn matter that it really is, and who desire to be treated, from the beginning, with the sincerity and seriousness which they will require after they are married.”
“If the same simplicity and seriousness were common in this as are required in other grave transactions,” said Hester, “there would be less of the treachery, delusion, and heart-breaking, which lie heavy upon the souls of many a man and many a woman.”
Mr Enderby, happening to be looking out of the window here, as if for something to say, caught the eye of his sister, who was walking in her garden. She beckoned to him, but he took no notice, not desiring to be disturbed at present. Turning again to Margaret, he said:
“But you would destroy all the graces of courtship: you would—”
“Nay,” said Hester, “what is so graceful as the simplicity of entire mutual trust?—the more entire the more graceful.”
“I wish you had left out the word ‘trust.’ You have spoiled something that I was going on to say about the simplicity of drawing lots like the Moravians,—the most sincere courtship of all: but that word ‘trust’ puts my illustration aside. You need not protest. I assure you I am not so dull as not to understand that you think love necessary to the wooing which seems graceful in your eyes;—Oh, yes: love, and mutual knowledge, and mutual reverence, and perfect trust! Oh, yes, I understand it all.”
“Philip!” cried a soft, sentimental voice under the window:
“Brother, I want your arm for a turn in the shrubbery.”
Mrs Rowland’s bonnet was visible as she looked up to the window. She saw the braids of the hair of the young ladies, and her voice was rather less soft as she called again, “Philip, do you hear? I want you.”
It was impossible to seem not to hear. Mr Enderby was obliged to go: but he left his hat behind him, as a sort of pledge that he meant to limit himself to the single turn proposed.
For various reasons, the young ladies were all disinclined to speak after he had left them. Miss Young was the first to move. She rose to go to her desk for something,—the desk in which Margaret kept the books she used in this place. Ever on the watch to save Maria the trouble of moving about, which was actual pain to her, Margaret flew to see if she could not fetch what was wanted: but Miss Young was already looking into the desk. Her eye caught the pretty new little volume which lay there. She took it up, found it was a volume of Tieck, and saw on the fly-leaf, in the well-known handwriting, “From PE.” One warm beam of hope shot through her heart:— how could it be otherwise,—the book lying in her desk, and thus addressed? But it was only one moment’s joy. The next instant’s reflection, and the sight of Margaret’s German exercise, on which the book had lain, revealed the real case to her. In sickness of heart, she would, upon impulse, have put back the book, and concealed the incident: but she was not sure but that Margaret had seen the volume, and shewassure of what her own duty was. With a smile and a steady voice she held out the book to Margaret, and said:
“Here is something for you, Margaret, which looks a little like one of the hidden, and gentle, and mysterious tokens Mr Enderby has been talking about. Here it is, lying among your books; and I think it was not with them when you last left your seat.”
Margaret blushed with an emotion which seemed to the one who knew her best to be too strong to be mere surprise. She looked doubtful for a moment about the book being meant for her. Its German aspect was conclusive against its being designed for Hester: but Miss Young,—was it certain that the volume was not hers? She asked this; but Maria replied, as her head was bent over her desk:
“There is no doubt about it. I am sure. It is nobody’s but yours.”
Some one proposed to resume the reading. The ‘Hymn to Heavenly Beauty’ was finished, but no remark followed. Each was thinking of something else. More common subjects suited their present mood better. It was urged upon Hester that she should be one of the daily party; and, her lonely fancies being for the hour dispersed, she agreed.
“But,” she observed, “other people’s visits alter the case entirely. I do not see how study is to go on if any one may come in from either house, as Mr Enderby did to-day. It is depriving Miss Young of her leisure, too, and making use of her apartment in a way that she may well object to.”
“I am here, out of school hours, only upon sufferance,” replied Miss Young. “I never call the room mine without this explanation.”
“Besides,” said Margaret, “it is a mere accident Mr Enderby’s coming in to-day. If he makes a habit of it, we have only to tell him that we want our time to ourselves.”
Miss Young knew better. She made no reply; but she felt in her inmost soul that her new-born pleasures were, from this moment, to be turned into pains. She knew Mr Enderby; and knowing him, foresaw that she was to be a witness of his wooings of another, whom she had just begun to take to her heart. This was to be her fate if she was strong enough for it,—strong enough to be generous in allowing to Margaret opportunities which could not without her be enjoyed, of fixing the heart of one whom she could not pronounce to have been faulty towards herself. His conversation today had gone far to make her suppose him blameless, and herself alone in fault; so complete had seemed his unconsciousness with regard to her. Her duty then was clearly to give them up to each other, with such spirit of self-sacrifice as she might be capable of. If not strong enough for this, the alternative was a daily painful retreat to her lodging, whence she might look out on the heaps of cinders in the farrier’s yard, her spirit abased the while with the experience of her own weakness. Neither alternative was very cheering.
Chapter Seven.Family Confidence.“When do you leave us, Philip?” inquired Mrs Rowland, putting her arm within her brother’s, and marching him up the gravel-walk.“Do you wish me to go?” replied he, laughing. “Is this what you were so anxious to say?”“Why, we understood, six weeks since, that you meant to leave Deerbrook in a fortnight: that is all.”“So I did: but my mother is kind enough to be pleased that I am staying longer; and since I am equally pleased myself, it is all very well. I rather think, too, that the children consider Uncle Philip a good boy, who deserves a holiday.”“My mother! Oh, she always supposes everything right that you do; and that is the reason why Mr Rowland and I—”“The reason why Rowland and I agree so well,” interrupted the brother. “Yes, that is one reason, among many. Rowland’s wish is to see the old lady happy; and she is naturally happiest when she has both her children with her; and for every merry hour of hers, your good husband looks the more kindly upon me.”“Of course; all that is a matter of course; though you are not aware, perhaps, of the fatigue it is to my mother to have any one with her too long a time. She will not tellyou; but you have no idea how low she is for some time after you go away, if you have stayed more than a few days, from exhaustion—from pure exhaustion. Ah! you do not perceive it, because the excitement keeps her up while you are here; and she naturally makes an effort, you know. But if you were to see her as we do after you are gone;—you cannot think how it sets the Greys talking about her low spirits.”“Poor soul! I wish I could be always with her. I will try whether I cannot; for some time to come, at least. But, sister, how does it happen that neither you nor Rowland ever told me this before?”“Oh, we would not distress you unnecessarily. We knew it was an unavoidable evil. You cannot always be here, and you must—”“Yes, I must sometimes come: that is an unavoidable evil; and always will be, sister, while I have a good old mother living here.”“My dear Philip, how you do misunderstand one! I never heard anything so odd.”“Why odd? Have you not been giving me to understand, all this time, that you do not wish to have me here,—that you want me to go away? If not this, I do not know what you have been talking about.”“What an idea! My only brother! What can you be thinking of? Why upon earth should I wish you anywhere else?”“That you may manage my mother and her affairs all your own way, I imagine.”Mrs Rowland had nothing to oppose to this plain speech but exclamations. When she had exhausted all she could muster, she avowed that the only consideration which could reconcile her to the sacrifice of her dear brother’s society was anxiety for his happiness.“Then, supposing I am happiest here, we are all satisfied.” And Uncle Philip would have made a diversion from the path to give George his favourite swing, quite up to the second branch of the great pear-tree.“Pray let George swing himself for once, brother. Hold your tongue, George! You are a very troublesome boy, and your uncle and I are busy. It is about your own affairs, brother, that I want to open my mind to you. As for your always remaining here, as you kindly hinted just now—”“I did not mean to hint,” said Philip; “I thought I had spoken quite plainly.”“Well, well. We all know how to appreciate the kindness of your intentions, I am sure: but your happiness must not be sacrificed to the good of any of us here. We can take care of one another: but, as it is impossible that you should find a companion for life here, and as it is time you were thinking of settling, we must not be selfish, and detain you among us when you should be creating an interest elsewhere. Mr Rowland and I are extremely anxious to see you happily married, brother; and indeed we feel it is time you were thinking about it.”“I am glad of that, sister. I am somewhat of the same opinion myself.”“I rejoice to hear it,” replied the lady, in a rather uneasy tone. “We have been delighted to hear of these frequent visits of yours to the Buchanans’. There is a strong attraction there, I fancy, Philip.”“Joe Buchanan is the attraction to me there. If you mean Caroline, she has been engaged these three years to her brother’s friend, Annesley.”“You do not say so! But you did not know it?”“I have known it these two years, under the seal of secrecy. Ah! sister, I have had many an hour’s amusement at your schemes on my behalf about Caroline Buchanan.”“I have been quite out, I see. When do you go to the Bruces’, to make the visit you were disappointed of at Christmas?”“When they return from the Continent, where they are gone for three years. Miss Mary is out of reach for three years, sister.”“Out of reach! You speak as if Paris,—or Rome, if you will,—was in Australia. And even in Australia one can hardly speak of people being out of reach.”“If one wishes to overtake them,” said Mr Enderby: “whereas, I can wait very well for the Bruces till they come home again. Now, no more, sister! I cannot stand and hear the young ladies of my acquaintance catalogued as a speculation for my advantage. I could not look them in the face again after having permitted it.”“There is somebody in the schoolroom, I declare!” cried the lady, as if astonished. And she stood looking from afar at the summer-house, in which three heads were distinctly visible.“Were you not aware of that before? Did you suppose I was asleep there, or writing poetry all alone, or what? The Miss Ibbotsons are there, and Miss Young.”“You remind me,” said the lady, “of something that I declared to Mr Rowland that I would speak to you about. My dear brother, you should have some compassion on the young ladies you fall in with.”“I thought your great anxiety just now was that the young ladies should have compassion upon me.”“One, Philip; the right one. But you really have no mercy. You are too modest to be aware of the mischief you may be doing. But let me entreat you not to turn the head of a girl whom you cannot possibly think seriously of.”“Whom do you mean?”“You may be making even more mischief than flattering the poor girl with vain hopes. If you once let it get into the heads of the Greys that any one belonging to us could think of marrying into their connection, you do not know the trouble you will impose upon Mr Rowland and me.”“Does Rowland say so?”“Does he say so? one would think—Dear me! brother, there is nothing one might not think from your manner. You terrify me.”“Have you a pocket-mirror about you?” asked Philip. “I should like to see what this terrible manner of mine is like.”“Now, pray, no joking, Philip. I declare my nerves will not bear it. But I tell you what, Philip: if you let your old admiration of beauty carry you away, and make you forget yourself so far as to dream of marrying into that connection, you will repent it as long as you live. I shall never forgive you; and you will kill our poor dear mother.”“I will ask her whether she thinks so,” said Philip, “and I give you my word of honour that I will not kill my mother.”“Girls seem to think that beauty is everything,” continued the angry lady, “and so do their connections for them. I declare Mrs Grey sits winking at my mother when Miss Ibbotson has a colour, as if nobody ever saw a good complexion before. I declare it makes me sick. Now, Philip, you have been fairly warned; and if you fall into the trap, you will not deserve any consideration from me.”“I have let you lay down the law to me, sister, in your own way, because I know your way. Say what you please to me of myself and my affairs, and a joke is the worst that will come of it. But I tell you gravely, that I will not hear of traps—I will not hear imputations like those you have just spoken against these young ladies or their connections, without rebuke. You can know nothing of the Miss Ibbotsons which can justify this conversation.”“I shall soon believe you are in love,” cried the lady, in high resentment.“Only take care what grounds you go upon before you speak and act, sister. In my turn, I give you fair warning how you take any measures against them, even in your own inmost mind, without being quite sure what you are about.”“You do not say now that you do not mean to have that girl?” cried Mrs Rowland, fixing her fiery eyes upon her brother’s face.“Why should I? You have not set about obtaining my confidence in any way which could succeed. If I am in love, it would not be easy to own it upon such unwarrantable pressure. If I am not in love—”“Ah! If you are not—”“In that case I am disinclined to make my not caring for them the condition on which those young ladies may receive your civilities. These civilities are due to them, whatever I may feel or intend; and my respect for them is such that I shall keep my mind to myself.”“At least,” said the lady, somewhat humbled, “do not be so much with them. For my sake, do not go into the schoolroom again.”“I am sorry I cannot oblige you,” said he, smiling, “but I must go at this moment:— not to sit down,—not to speak five words, however,—but only to get my hat. I have to go into the village, on an errand for the children. Can I do anything for you in the village?”“She thinks only of Hester, it is plain,” thought he. “If I am to have any more lectures and advice, I hope they will proceed on the same supposition: it will make my part easier, and save my being driven to assert my own will, and so plunging poor Priscilla into hysterics. I can bear her interference, as long as Margaret’s name is not on her lips. The moment she casts an evil eye on her, I shall speak to Rowland; which I had much rather avoid. It would be delicious, too, to beherprotector, without her knowing it,—to watch over her as she walks in her bright innocence,—to shield her—but from whom? From my own sister? No! no! better keep her out of suspicion: better let it pass that it is really Hester. Hester has plenty of friends to stand by her. The Greys are so proud of her beauty, they have no eyes or ears but for her. People who meddle with concerns they have no business with, are strangely blind,—they make odd mistakes, from running away with notions of their own, prepared beforehand. Here is everybody determined that we shall all fall in love with Hester. Priscilla has jumped to her conclusion at once,—perhaps in emulation of Mrs Grey. Mrs Grey has clearly given Hester to Hope, in her own mind. I rather think Hope would be obliged to her if she would not show so plainly what is in her thoughts. I fear so,—I may be jealous,—but I am afraid Hope and I are too much of the same mind about these girls. I will stand up for Mrs Grey, as long as I live, if she proves right here. She shall wink and nod for evermore, and I will justify her, if Hope turns out to be in love with Hester. I will be the first to congratulate him, if he succeeds with her: and really he would be a happy fellow. She is a lovely creature; and how she will love whenever she does love! She would be a devoted wife. Why cannot he see the matter so, and leave my Margaret to me? Now, how will she look up as I go in?”His vision of Margaret’s looks remained a vision. No one was in the schoolroom but Miss Young, writing a letter.“They are not here!” said Mr Enderby.“No; they are gone with Mrs Grey into the village, I believe.”“Oh, well, I only came for my hat. You are in the children’s secret, of course, Miss Young?”“About their feast. Yes, I believe I know all about it.”“I am going to ask some important questions for them at the confectioner’s. You will not object to my bringing them a few good things?”“I? Oh, no.”“I would not act in so serious a matter without asking you. Can I be of any use to you in the village? Or perhaps you may want some pens mended before I go?”“No, I thank you.”“Then I will not interrupt your letter any longer. Good morning.”It was a wonder that the letter was written at all. When Maria had done leaning back in her chair, and had taken up her pen again, she was disturbed by painful sounds from Mrs Rowland’s garden. The lady’s own Matilda, and precious George, and darling Anna, were now pronounced to be naughty, wilful, mischievous, and, finally, to be combined together to break their mamma’s heart. It was clear that they were receiving the discharge of the wrath which was caused by somebody else. Now a wail, now a scream of passion, went to Maria’s heart. She hastened on with her letter, in the hope that Mrs Rowland would presently go into the house, when the little sufferers might be invited into the schoolroom, to hear a story, or have their ruffled tempers calmed by some other such simple means.“What a life of discipline this is!” thought Maria. “We all have it, sooner or later. These poor children are beginning early. If one can but help them through it! There she goes in, and shuts the door behind her! Now I may call them hither, and tell them something or another about Una and her lion.”At the well-known sound of Miss Young’s lame step, the little ones all came about her. One ashamed face was hid on her shoulder; another was relieved of its salt tears; and the boy’s pout was first relaxed, and then forgotten.
“When do you leave us, Philip?” inquired Mrs Rowland, putting her arm within her brother’s, and marching him up the gravel-walk.
“Do you wish me to go?” replied he, laughing. “Is this what you were so anxious to say?”
“Why, we understood, six weeks since, that you meant to leave Deerbrook in a fortnight: that is all.”
“So I did: but my mother is kind enough to be pleased that I am staying longer; and since I am equally pleased myself, it is all very well. I rather think, too, that the children consider Uncle Philip a good boy, who deserves a holiday.”
“My mother! Oh, she always supposes everything right that you do; and that is the reason why Mr Rowland and I—”
“The reason why Rowland and I agree so well,” interrupted the brother. “Yes, that is one reason, among many. Rowland’s wish is to see the old lady happy; and she is naturally happiest when she has both her children with her; and for every merry hour of hers, your good husband looks the more kindly upon me.”
“Of course; all that is a matter of course; though you are not aware, perhaps, of the fatigue it is to my mother to have any one with her too long a time. She will not tellyou; but you have no idea how low she is for some time after you go away, if you have stayed more than a few days, from exhaustion—from pure exhaustion. Ah! you do not perceive it, because the excitement keeps her up while you are here; and she naturally makes an effort, you know. But if you were to see her as we do after you are gone;—you cannot think how it sets the Greys talking about her low spirits.”
“Poor soul! I wish I could be always with her. I will try whether I cannot; for some time to come, at least. But, sister, how does it happen that neither you nor Rowland ever told me this before?”
“Oh, we would not distress you unnecessarily. We knew it was an unavoidable evil. You cannot always be here, and you must—”
“Yes, I must sometimes come: that is an unavoidable evil; and always will be, sister, while I have a good old mother living here.”
“My dear Philip, how you do misunderstand one! I never heard anything so odd.”
“Why odd? Have you not been giving me to understand, all this time, that you do not wish to have me here,—that you want me to go away? If not this, I do not know what you have been talking about.”
“What an idea! My only brother! What can you be thinking of? Why upon earth should I wish you anywhere else?”
“That you may manage my mother and her affairs all your own way, I imagine.”
Mrs Rowland had nothing to oppose to this plain speech but exclamations. When she had exhausted all she could muster, she avowed that the only consideration which could reconcile her to the sacrifice of her dear brother’s society was anxiety for his happiness.
“Then, supposing I am happiest here, we are all satisfied.” And Uncle Philip would have made a diversion from the path to give George his favourite swing, quite up to the second branch of the great pear-tree.
“Pray let George swing himself for once, brother. Hold your tongue, George! You are a very troublesome boy, and your uncle and I are busy. It is about your own affairs, brother, that I want to open my mind to you. As for your always remaining here, as you kindly hinted just now—”
“I did not mean to hint,” said Philip; “I thought I had spoken quite plainly.”
“Well, well. We all know how to appreciate the kindness of your intentions, I am sure: but your happiness must not be sacrificed to the good of any of us here. We can take care of one another: but, as it is impossible that you should find a companion for life here, and as it is time you were thinking of settling, we must not be selfish, and detain you among us when you should be creating an interest elsewhere. Mr Rowland and I are extremely anxious to see you happily married, brother; and indeed we feel it is time you were thinking about it.”
“I am glad of that, sister. I am somewhat of the same opinion myself.”
“I rejoice to hear it,” replied the lady, in a rather uneasy tone. “We have been delighted to hear of these frequent visits of yours to the Buchanans’. There is a strong attraction there, I fancy, Philip.”
“Joe Buchanan is the attraction to me there. If you mean Caroline, she has been engaged these three years to her brother’s friend, Annesley.”
“You do not say so! But you did not know it?”
“I have known it these two years, under the seal of secrecy. Ah! sister, I have had many an hour’s amusement at your schemes on my behalf about Caroline Buchanan.”
“I have been quite out, I see. When do you go to the Bruces’, to make the visit you were disappointed of at Christmas?”
“When they return from the Continent, where they are gone for three years. Miss Mary is out of reach for three years, sister.”
“Out of reach! You speak as if Paris,—or Rome, if you will,—was in Australia. And even in Australia one can hardly speak of people being out of reach.”
“If one wishes to overtake them,” said Mr Enderby: “whereas, I can wait very well for the Bruces till they come home again. Now, no more, sister! I cannot stand and hear the young ladies of my acquaintance catalogued as a speculation for my advantage. I could not look them in the face again after having permitted it.”
“There is somebody in the schoolroom, I declare!” cried the lady, as if astonished. And she stood looking from afar at the summer-house, in which three heads were distinctly visible.
“Were you not aware of that before? Did you suppose I was asleep there, or writing poetry all alone, or what? The Miss Ibbotsons are there, and Miss Young.”
“You remind me,” said the lady, “of something that I declared to Mr Rowland that I would speak to you about. My dear brother, you should have some compassion on the young ladies you fall in with.”
“I thought your great anxiety just now was that the young ladies should have compassion upon me.”
“One, Philip; the right one. But you really have no mercy. You are too modest to be aware of the mischief you may be doing. But let me entreat you not to turn the head of a girl whom you cannot possibly think seriously of.”
“Whom do you mean?”
“You may be making even more mischief than flattering the poor girl with vain hopes. If you once let it get into the heads of the Greys that any one belonging to us could think of marrying into their connection, you do not know the trouble you will impose upon Mr Rowland and me.”
“Does Rowland say so?”
“Does he say so? one would think—Dear me! brother, there is nothing one might not think from your manner. You terrify me.”
“Have you a pocket-mirror about you?” asked Philip. “I should like to see what this terrible manner of mine is like.”
“Now, pray, no joking, Philip. I declare my nerves will not bear it. But I tell you what, Philip: if you let your old admiration of beauty carry you away, and make you forget yourself so far as to dream of marrying into that connection, you will repent it as long as you live. I shall never forgive you; and you will kill our poor dear mother.”
“I will ask her whether she thinks so,” said Philip, “and I give you my word of honour that I will not kill my mother.”
“Girls seem to think that beauty is everything,” continued the angry lady, “and so do their connections for them. I declare Mrs Grey sits winking at my mother when Miss Ibbotson has a colour, as if nobody ever saw a good complexion before. I declare it makes me sick. Now, Philip, you have been fairly warned; and if you fall into the trap, you will not deserve any consideration from me.”
“I have let you lay down the law to me, sister, in your own way, because I know your way. Say what you please to me of myself and my affairs, and a joke is the worst that will come of it. But I tell you gravely, that I will not hear of traps—I will not hear imputations like those you have just spoken against these young ladies or their connections, without rebuke. You can know nothing of the Miss Ibbotsons which can justify this conversation.”
“I shall soon believe you are in love,” cried the lady, in high resentment.
“Only take care what grounds you go upon before you speak and act, sister. In my turn, I give you fair warning how you take any measures against them, even in your own inmost mind, without being quite sure what you are about.”
“You do not say now that you do not mean to have that girl?” cried Mrs Rowland, fixing her fiery eyes upon her brother’s face.
“Why should I? You have not set about obtaining my confidence in any way which could succeed. If I am in love, it would not be easy to own it upon such unwarrantable pressure. If I am not in love—”
“Ah! If you are not—”
“In that case I am disinclined to make my not caring for them the condition on which those young ladies may receive your civilities. These civilities are due to them, whatever I may feel or intend; and my respect for them is such that I shall keep my mind to myself.”
“At least,” said the lady, somewhat humbled, “do not be so much with them. For my sake, do not go into the schoolroom again.”
“I am sorry I cannot oblige you,” said he, smiling, “but I must go at this moment:— not to sit down,—not to speak five words, however,—but only to get my hat. I have to go into the village, on an errand for the children. Can I do anything for you in the village?”
“She thinks only of Hester, it is plain,” thought he. “If I am to have any more lectures and advice, I hope they will proceed on the same supposition: it will make my part easier, and save my being driven to assert my own will, and so plunging poor Priscilla into hysterics. I can bear her interference, as long as Margaret’s name is not on her lips. The moment she casts an evil eye on her, I shall speak to Rowland; which I had much rather avoid. It would be delicious, too, to beherprotector, without her knowing it,—to watch over her as she walks in her bright innocence,—to shield her—but from whom? From my own sister? No! no! better keep her out of suspicion: better let it pass that it is really Hester. Hester has plenty of friends to stand by her. The Greys are so proud of her beauty, they have no eyes or ears but for her. People who meddle with concerns they have no business with, are strangely blind,—they make odd mistakes, from running away with notions of their own, prepared beforehand. Here is everybody determined that we shall all fall in love with Hester. Priscilla has jumped to her conclusion at once,—perhaps in emulation of Mrs Grey. Mrs Grey has clearly given Hester to Hope, in her own mind. I rather think Hope would be obliged to her if she would not show so plainly what is in her thoughts. I fear so,—I may be jealous,—but I am afraid Hope and I are too much of the same mind about these girls. I will stand up for Mrs Grey, as long as I live, if she proves right here. She shall wink and nod for evermore, and I will justify her, if Hope turns out to be in love with Hester. I will be the first to congratulate him, if he succeeds with her: and really he would be a happy fellow. She is a lovely creature; and how she will love whenever she does love! She would be a devoted wife. Why cannot he see the matter so, and leave my Margaret to me? Now, how will she look up as I go in?”
His vision of Margaret’s looks remained a vision. No one was in the schoolroom but Miss Young, writing a letter.
“They are not here!” said Mr Enderby.
“No; they are gone with Mrs Grey into the village, I believe.”
“Oh, well, I only came for my hat. You are in the children’s secret, of course, Miss Young?”
“About their feast. Yes, I believe I know all about it.”
“I am going to ask some important questions for them at the confectioner’s. You will not object to my bringing them a few good things?”
“I? Oh, no.”
“I would not act in so serious a matter without asking you. Can I be of any use to you in the village? Or perhaps you may want some pens mended before I go?”
“No, I thank you.”
“Then I will not interrupt your letter any longer. Good morning.”
It was a wonder that the letter was written at all. When Maria had done leaning back in her chair, and had taken up her pen again, she was disturbed by painful sounds from Mrs Rowland’s garden. The lady’s own Matilda, and precious George, and darling Anna, were now pronounced to be naughty, wilful, mischievous, and, finally, to be combined together to break their mamma’s heart. It was clear that they were receiving the discharge of the wrath which was caused by somebody else. Now a wail, now a scream of passion, went to Maria’s heart. She hastened on with her letter, in the hope that Mrs Rowland would presently go into the house, when the little sufferers might be invited into the schoolroom, to hear a story, or have their ruffled tempers calmed by some other such simple means.
“What a life of discipline this is!” thought Maria. “We all have it, sooner or later. These poor children are beginning early. If one can but help them through it! There she goes in, and shuts the door behind her! Now I may call them hither, and tell them something or another about Una and her lion.”
At the well-known sound of Miss Young’s lame step, the little ones all came about her. One ashamed face was hid on her shoulder; another was relieved of its salt tears; and the boy’s pout was first relaxed, and then forgotten.
Chapter Eight.Family Correspondence.From the time of the great event of the arrival of the Miss Ibbotsons, Mr Hope had longed to communicate all connected with it to his family. As often as Hester looked eminently beautiful, he wished his sisters could see her. As often as he felt his spirit moved and animated by his conversations with Margaret, he thought of Frank, and wished that the poor fellow could for a day exchange the heats and fatigues, and vapid society, of which he complained as accompaniments of service in India, for some one of the wood and meadow rambles, or garden frolics, which were the summer pleasures of Deerbrook, now unspeakably enhanced by the addition lately made to its society. Frank wrote that the very names of meadows and kine, of cowslips, trout, and harriers, were a refreshment to a soldier’s fancy, when the heats, and the solitude of spirit in which he was compelled to live, made him weary of the novelties which had at first pleased him in the East. He begged that Edward would go on to write as he did of everything that passed in the village—of everything which could make him for a whole evening fancy himself in Deerbrook, and repose himself in its shacks and quietness. Mr Hope had felt, for a month past, that such a letter was by this time due to Frank, and that he had, for once, failed in punctuality: but he now, for the first time, found it difficult to get time to write. He never dreamed of sending Frank letters, which would be esteemed by others of a moderate length. When he did write, it was an epistle indeed: and during this particular May and June, there was always something happening which prevented his having his hours to himself. In other words, he was always at the Greys’ when not engaged in his professional duties. The arrival of a letter from Frank one day gave him the necessary stimulus, and he sat down on the instant to open his heart to his brother.Frank was his younger and only brother, and the person in the world most deeply indebted to him. Their parents being dead, it was Edward who had been Frank’s dependence as he grew up. It was Edward who had, at great cost and pains, gratified his wish to go into the army, and had procured him the best educational advantages in preparation for a military life. It was Edward who had always treated him with such familiar friendship, that he had scarcely felt as if he wanted any other intimate, and who seemed to forget the five years’ difference of age between them at all times but when it afforded a reason for pressing kindness and assistance upon him. The confidence between them was as familiar and entire as if they had been twin-brothers. The epistle which Frank was to have the benefit of, on the present occasion, was even longer than usual, from the delay which had caused an accumulation of tidings and of thoughts.“Deerbrook,June 20th, 18—.“Dear Frank,—Your letter of December last has arrived to remind me how far I am past my time in writing to you. I make no apologies for my delay, however, and I do not pretend to feel any remorse about it. We never write to one another from a mere sense of duty; and long may it be before we do so! Unless we write because we cannot help it, pray let us let it alone. As for the reasons why my inclination to talk to you has not overpowered all impediments till now,—you shall have them by-and-by. Meanwhile, here, before your eyes, is the proof that I cannot but spend this June evening with you.“You ask about your grandfather; and I have somewhat to say to you about him. He is still living,—very infirm, as you may suppose, but, I think, as clear in mind as I have ever known him. He sent for me two months ago, as you will have heard from the letter I find he caused to be written to you about the business which then occupied his mind. My share in that business he would represent to you as it appeared to him: but I must give you an account of it as it appears to myself. He sent for me to take leave of me, as he said; but, in my opinion, to receive my acknowledgments for his latest disposition of his property by will. The new arrangements did not please me at all; and I am confident that you would have liked them no better than I; and I wished not a little that you were nearer, that we might have acted together. I know that he once intended to divide his property equally among us four; but of late, from some unaccountable feeling of indifference about Emily and Anne, or, as is more likely, from some notion about women not wanting money, and not knowing how to manage it, he has changed his mind, and destined his money for you and me, leaving my sisters only a hundred pounds each as a remembrance. He informed me of this, as soon as I arrived. I thought him quite well enough to hear reason, and I spoke my mind plainly to him. I had no right to answer for you, any further than for your sense of justice, and your affection for your sisters. The way in which the matter was settled at last, therefore, with great pains and trouble, was, that you and our sisters share equally, and that I have the legacy of 100 pounds, which was destined for one of them. The reasons why I declined a fourth part of the property were sufficient to my mind, and will be so, I doubt not, to yours. Out of this property I have had my professional education, while you and my sisters have received nothing at all. This professional education has enabled me to provide sufficiently for myself, so far, and this provision will in all probability go on to increase; while my sisters want as much as can fairly be put into their hands. Their husbands are not likely ever to be rich men, and will probably be poor for some years to come. Their children have to be educated; and in short, there is every reason why Emily and Anne should have this money, and none why I should. I am afraid the old gentleman is not very well pleased with my way of receiving what he intended for kindness; but that cannot be helped. If he falls back into his previous state of mind, and leaves the whole, after all, to you and me, I shall set the matter right, as far as I can, by dividing my portion between my sisters: and I feel confident that you will do the same; but I earnestly hope this will not happen. It will be a very different thing to my sisters receiving this money by their grandfather’s will as their due, and from our hands as a gift—(the way in which they will look at it). The letter to you was sent off without delay, in order that, in case of any dissatisfaction whatever on your part, your wishes might have the better chance of being made known to us during the old gentleman’s life. I doubt not that your thoughts, whatever they may be, will be on the way to me before this reaches you; and I can have as little doubt what they are. You know Mr Blunt says, that men are created to rob their sisters,—a somewhat partial view of the objects and achievements of mortal existence, it must be owned, and a statement which I conceive the course of your life, for one, will not go to confirm; but a man must have had a good deal of experience of what he is talking of before he could make so sweeping a generalisation from the facts of life; and I am afraid Mr Blunt has some reason for what he says. Medical men receive many confidences in sick rooms, you know; and some, among others, which had better be reserved for the lawyer. What I have seen in this way leads me to imagine that my grandfather’s notion is a very common one,—that women have little occasion for money, and do not know how to manage it; and that their property is to be drawn upon to the very last, to meet the difficulties and supply the purposes of their brothers. On the utter injustice and absurdity of such a notion there can be no disagreement between you and me; nor, I imagine, in our actions with regard to it.“I heard from Emily yesterday. The letter is more than half full of stories about the children, and accounts of her principles and plans with regard to them. She writes on the same subjects to you, no doubt, for her heart is full of them. Her husband finds the post of consul at a little Spanish port rather a dull affair, as we anticipated, and groans at the mention of Bristol or Liverpool shipping, he says. But I like the tone of his postscript very well. He is thankful for the honest independence his office affords him, and says he can tolerate his Spanish neighbours (though they are as ignorant as Turkish ladies), for the sake of his family, and of the hope of returning, sooner or later, to live in his own country, after having discharged his duty to his children. Theirs must be an irksome life enough, as much of it as is passed out of their own doors: but they seem to be finding out that it is not so much thewhereand thehow, as thewhatpeople are, that matters to their peace of mind; and I suppose those who love each other, and have settled what they are living for, can attain what they most want, nearly so well in one place as another.“Poor Anne wrote toyou, I know, after the death of her infant—her little Highlandman, as she proudly called him in her last letter before she lost him. Gilchrist talked last year of bringing her and his boy south this summer, and I had some hopes of seeing them all here: but I have not been able to get them to speak again of travelling, and I give it up for this year. I hope your letters and theirs fall due seasonably; that your reports of all your devices to cool yourself, reach them in the depth of their Caithness winter; and that all they say to you of their snow-drifts and freshets is acceptable when you are panting in the hottest of your noons. Anne writes more cheerfully than she did, and Gilchrist says she is exerting herself to overcome her sorrow. Their love must be passing strange in the eyes of all such as despised Anne’s match. It is such as should make Anne’s brothers feel very cordially towards Gilchrist. We have drifted asunder in life rather strangely, when one comes to think of it; and our anchorage grounds are pretty far apart. Who would have thought it, when we four used to climb the old apple-tree together, and drop down from the garden wall? I wonder whether we shall ever contrive to meet in one house once more, and whether I may be honoured by my house being the place? It is possible; and I spend certain of my dreams upon the project. Do you not find that one effect of this wide separation is, to make one fancy the world smaller than one used to think it? You, on the other side of it, probably waked up to this conviction long ago. It is just opening upon me, shut up in my nook of our little island. When I have a letter from you, like that which lies before me, spiced with an old family joke or two, and a good many new ones of your own, all exactly like yourself, I am persuaded you cannot be very far off; and I should certainly call you from my window to come in to tea, but from a disagreeable suspicion that I should get no answer. But do tell me in your next whether our globe has not been made far too much of its children, and whether its oceans do not look very like ponds, when you cast your eye over them to that small old apple-tree I mentioned just now.“But you want news,—this being the place of all others to send to from the other side of the world for news. Deerbrook has rung with news and rumours of news since winter. The first report after the ice broke up in March was, that I was going to be married to Deborah Giles. ‘Who is Deborah Giles?’ you will ask. She is not going to be a relation of yours, in the first place. Secondly, she is the daughter of the boatman whose boats Enderby and I are wont to hire. The young lady may be all that ever woman was, for aught I know, for I never spoke to her in my life, except that I one day asked her for something to bale the boat with: but I heard that the astonishment of Deerbrook was, that I was engaged to a woman who could not read or write. So you see we of Deerbrook follow our old pastime of first inventing marvels, and then being scarcely able to believe them. I rather suspect that we have some wag among us who fabricates news, to see how much will be received and retailed: but perhaps these rumours, even the wildest of them, rise ‘by natural exhalation’ from the nooks and crevices of village life. My five years’ residence has not qualified me to pronounce absolutely upon this.“Old Smithson is dead. You could not have seen him half-a-dozen times when you were here; but you may chance to recollect him,—a short old man, with white hair, and deep-set grey eyes. He is less of a loss to the village than almost any other man would be. He was so shy and quiet, and kept so much within his own gate, that some fancied he must be a miser: but though he spent little on himself, his money made its way abroad, and his heirs are rather disappointed at finding the property no larger than when he came into it. He is much missed by his household, and, I own, by myself. I was not often with him: but it was something to feel that there was one among us who was free from ambition and worldly cares, content to live on in the enjoyment of humble duties and simple pleasures,—one who would not have changed colour at the news of a bequest of ten thousand pounds, but could be very eager about his grand-nephew’s prize at school, and about the first forget-me-not of the season beside his pond, and the first mushroom in his meadow. During the fortnight of his illness, the village inquired about him; but when it was all over, there was not much to forget of one so little known, and we hear of him no more.“The Greys and Rowlands go on much as usual, the gentlemen of the family agreeing very well, and the ladies rather the reverse. The great grievance this spring has been, that Mrs Rowland has seen fit to enlarge her hall, and make a porch to her door. Her neighbours are certain that, in the course of her alterations, every principal beam of her house has been cut through, and that the whole will fall in. No such catastrophe has yet occurred, however. I have not been called in to set any broken bones; and I have not much expectation of an accident, as Mr Rowland understands building too well to allow his house to be cut down over his head. As for the porch, I do not perceive what can be alleged to its disadvantage, but that some people think it ugly.“Here I must cease my gossip. I regularly begin my letters with the intention of telling you all that I hear and see out of my profession but I invariably stop short, as I do now, from disgust at the nonsense I should have to write. It is endurable enough to witness; for one thing quickly dismisses another, and some relief occurs from the more amiable or intellectual qualities of the parties concerned: but I hate detail in writing; and I never do get through the whole list of particulars that I believe you would like to have. You must excuse me now, and take my word for it, in the large, that we are all pretty much what we were when you saw us three years ago, except of course, being three years older, and some few of us three years wiser. It will be a satisfaction to you also to know that my practice has made a very good growth for the time. You liked my last year’s report of it. It has increased more since that time than even during the preceding year; and I have no further anxiety about my worldly prospects. I am as well satisfied with my choice of an occupation in life as ever. Mine has its anxieties, anddésagrémens, as others have: but I am convinced I could not have chosen better. You saw, when you were with me, something of the anxiety of responsibility; what it is, for instance, to await the one or the other event of a desperate case: and I could tell you a good deal that you do not and cannot know of the perils, and troubles attendant upon being the depository of so much domestic and personal confidence as my function imposes upon me the necessity of receiving. I sometimes long to be able to see nothing but what is apparent to all in society; to perceive what is ostensible, and to dream of nothing more,—not exactly like children, but like the members of large and happy families, who carry about with them the purity and peace of their homes, and therefore take cognisance of the pure and peaceful only whom they meet abroad; but it is childish, or indolent, or cowardly, to desire this. While there is private vice and wretchedness, and domestic misunderstanding, one would desire to know it, if one can do anything to cure or alleviate it. Dr Levitt and I have the same feeling about this; and I sometimes hope that we mutually prepare for and aid each other’s work. There is a bright side to our business, as I need not tell you. The mere exercise of our respective professions, the scientific as well as the moral interest of them, is as much to us as the theory of your business to you; and that is saying a great deal. You will not quarrel with the idea of the scientific interest of Dr Levitt’s profession in his hands; for you know how learned he is in the complex science of Humanity. You remember the eternal wonder of the Greys at his liberality towards dissenters. Of that liberality he is unconscious: as it is the natural, the inevitable result of his knowledge of men,—of his having been ‘hunting the waterfalls’ from his youth up,—following up thought and prejudice to their fountains. When I see him bland and gay amongst us, I feel pretty confident that his greatest pleasure is the same as mine,—that of reposing in the society of the innocent, the single-hearted, the unburdened, after having seen what the dark corners of social life are. It is like coming out of a foetid cave into the evening sunshine. Of late, we have felt this in an extraordinary degree. But I must tell you in an orderly way what has happened to us. I have put off entering upon the grand subject, partly from the pleasure of keeping one’s best news for the last, and partly from shyness in beginning to describe what it is impossible that you should enter into. I am well aware of your powers of imagination and sympathy: but you have not lived five years within five miles of a country village; and you can no more understand our present condition than we can appreciate your sherbet and your mountain summer-house.“There are two ladies here from Birmingham, so far beyond any ladies that we have to boast of, that some of us begin to suspect that Deerbrook is not the Athens and Arcadia united that we have been accustomed to believe it. You can have no idea how our vanity is mortified, and our pride abased, by finding what the world can produce out of the bounds of Deerbrook. We bear our humiliation wonderfully, however. Our Verdon woods echo with laughter; and singing is heard beside the brook. The voices of children, grown and ungrown, go up from all the meadows around; and wit and wisdom are wafted over the surface of our river at eventide. The truth is, these girls have brought in a new life among us, and there is not one of us, except the children, that is not some years younger for their presence. Mr Grey deserts his business for them, like a school-boy; and Mr Rowland watches his opportunity to play truant in turn. Mrs Enderby gives dances, and looks quite disposed to lead off in person. Mrs Plumstead has grown quite giddy about sorting the letters, and her voice has not been heard further than three doors off since the arrival of the strangers. Dr Levitt is preaching his old sermons. Mrs Grey is well-nigh intoxicated with being the hostess of these ladies, and has even reached the point of allowing her drawing-room to be used every afternoon. Enderby is a fixture while they are so. Neither mother, sister, friend, nor frolic, ever detained him here before for a month together. He was going away in a fortnight when these ladies came: they have been here six weeks, and Enderby has dropped all mention of the external world. If you ask, as you are at this moment doing in your own heart, how I stand under this influence, I really cannot tell you. I avoid inquiring too closely. I enjoy every passing day too much to question it, and I let it go; and so must you.“‘But who are they?’ you want to know. They are distant cousins of Mr Grey’s,—orphans, and in mourning for their father. They are just above twenty, and their name is Ibbotson. ‘Are they handsome?’ is your next question. The eldest, Hester, is beautiful as the evening star. Margaret is very different. It does not matter what she is as to beauty, for the question seems never to have entered her own mind. I doubt whether it has often occurred to her whether she can be this, or that, or the other. Sheis, and there is an end of the matter. Such pureexistence, without question, without introspection, without hesitation or consciousness, I never saw in any one above eight years old. Yet she is wise; it becomes not me to estimate how wise. You will ask how I know this already. I knew it the first day I saw them; I knew it by her infinite simplicity, from which all selfishness is discharged, and into which no folly can enter. The airs of heaven must have been about her from her infancy, to nourish such health of the soul. What her struggle is to be in life I cannot conceive, for not a morbid tendency is to be discerned. I suppose she may be destined to make mistakes,—to find her faith deceived, her affections rebuked, her full repose delayed. If, like the rest of us, she be destined to struggle, it must be to conflict of this kind; for it is inconceivable that any should arise from herself. Yet is she as truly human as the weakest of us,—engrossed by affection, and susceptible of passion. Her affection for her sister is a sort of passion. It has some of the features of the serene guardianship of one from on high; but it is yet more like the passionate servitude—of the benefited to a benefactor, for instance—which is perhaps the most graceful attitude in which our humanity appears. Where are the words that can tell what it is to witness, day by day, the course of such a life as this?—to see, living and moving before one’s eyes, the very spirit that one had caught glimpses of, wandering in the brightest vistas of one’s imagination, in the holiest hours of thought! Yet is there nothing fearful, as in the presence of a spirit; there is scarcely even a sense of awe, so childlike is her deportment. I go, grave and longing to listen; I come away, and I find I have been talking more than any one; revealing, discussing, as if I were the teacher and not the learner,—you will say the worshipper. Say it if you will. Our whole little world worships the one or the other. Hester is also well worthy of worship. If there were nothing but her beauty, she would have a wider world than ours of Deerbrook at her feet. But she has much more. She is what you would call a true woman. She has a generous soul, strong affections, and a susceptibility which interferes with her serenity. She is not exempt from the trouble and snare into which the lot of women seems to drive them,—too close a contemplation of self, too nice a sensitiveness, which yet does not interfere with devotedness to others. She will be a devoted wife: but Margaret does not wait to be a wife to be devoted. Her life has been devotedness, and will be to the end. If she were left the last of her race, she would spend her life in worshipping the unseen that lay about her, and would be as unaware of herself as now.“What a comfort it is to speak freely of them! This is the first relief of the kind I have had. Every one is praising them; every one is following them: but to whom but you can I speak of them? Even to you, I filled my first sheet with mere surface matter. I now wonder how I could. As for the ‘general opinion’ of Deerbrook on the engrossing subject of the summer, you will anticipate it in your own mind,—concluding that Hester is most worshipped, on account of her beauty, and that Margaret’s influence must be too subtle and refined to operate on more than a few. This is partly, but not wholly the case. It has been taken for granted from the beginning, by the many, that Hester is to be exclusively the adored; and Enderby has, I fancy, as many broad hints as myself of this general conclusion. But I question whether Enderby assents, any more than myself. Margaret’s influence may be received as unconsciously as it is exerted, but it is not, therefore, the less real, while it is the more potent. I see old Jem Bird raise himself up from the churchyard bench by his staff, and stand uncovered as Hester passes by; I see the children in the road touch one another, and look up at her; I see the admiration which diffuses itself like sunshine around her steps: all this homage to Hester is visible enough. But I also see Sydney Grey growing manly, and his sisters amiable, under Margaret’s eye. I fancy I perceive Enderby— But that is his own affair. I am sure I daily witness one healing and renovating process which Margaret is unconsciously effecting. There is no one of us so worthy of her, so capable of appreciating her, as Maria Young: they are friends, and Maria Young is becoming a new creature. Health and spirit are returning to that poor girl’s countenance: there is absolutely a new tone in her voice, and a joyous strain in her conversation, which I, for one, never recognised before. It is a sight on which angels might look down, to see Margaret, with her earnest face, listening humbly, and lovingly serving the infirm and much-tried friend whom she herself is daily lifting up into life and gladness. I have done with listening to abuse of life and the world. I will never sit still under it again. If there are two such as these sisters, springing out of the bosom of a busy town, and quietly passing along their path of life, casting sanctity around them as they go,—if there are two such, why not more? If God casts such seeds of goodness into our nook, how do we know but that he is sowing the whole earth with it? I will believe it henceforth.“You will wonder, as I have wondered many a time within the last six weeks, what is to become of us when we lose these strangers. I can only say, ‘God help us!’ But that time is far off. They came for several months, and no one hints at their departure yet. They are the most unlearned creatures about country life that you can conceive, with a surpassing genius for country pleasures. Only imagine the charm of our excursions! They are never so happy as when in the fields or on the river; and we all feel ourselves only too blest in being able to indulge them. Our mornings are all activity and despatch, that our afternoons may be all mirth, and our evenings repose. I am afraid this will make you sigh with mingled envy and sympathy; but whatever is that can be told, you may rely upon it that I shall tell you, trusting to your feeling both pleasure and pain in virtuous moderation.“I have done my story; and now I am going to look what o’clock it is—a thing I have refrained from, in my impulse to tell you all. The house is quite still, and I heard the church clock strike something very long just now; but I would not count. It is so. It was midnight that the clock struck. I shall seal this up directly. I dare not trust my morning—my broad daylight mood with it. Now, as soon as you have got thus far, just take up your pen, and answer me, telling me as copiously of your affairs as I have written of ours. Heaven bless you.“Yours ever,“Edward Hope.”It was not only Mr Hope’s broad daylight mood which was not to be trusted with this letter. In this hour of midnight a misgiving seized upon him that it was extravagant. He became aware, when he laid down his pen, that he was agitated. The door of his room opened into the garden. He thought he would look out upon the night. It was the night of the full moon. As he stood in the doorway, the festoons of creepers that dangled from his little porch waved in the night breeze; long shadows from the shrubs lay on the grass; and in the depth of one of these shadows glimmered the green spark of a glow-worm. It was deliciously cool and serene. Mr Hope stood leaning against the door-post, with his arms folded, and was not long in settling the question whether the letter should go.“Frank will think that I am in love,” he considered. “He will not understand the real state of my feeling. He will think that I am in love. I should conclude so in his place. But what matters it what he infers and concludes? I have written exactly what I thought and felt at the moment, and it is not from such revelations that wrong inferences are usually drawn. What I have written is true; and truth carries safely over land and sea—more safely than confidence compounded with caution. Frank deserves the simplest and freshest confidence from me. I am glad that no hesitation occurred to me while I wrote. It shall go—every word of it.”He returned to his desk, sealed and addressed the letter, and placed it where it was sure to be seen in the morning, and carried to the post-office before he rose.
From the time of the great event of the arrival of the Miss Ibbotsons, Mr Hope had longed to communicate all connected with it to his family. As often as Hester looked eminently beautiful, he wished his sisters could see her. As often as he felt his spirit moved and animated by his conversations with Margaret, he thought of Frank, and wished that the poor fellow could for a day exchange the heats and fatigues, and vapid society, of which he complained as accompaniments of service in India, for some one of the wood and meadow rambles, or garden frolics, which were the summer pleasures of Deerbrook, now unspeakably enhanced by the addition lately made to its society. Frank wrote that the very names of meadows and kine, of cowslips, trout, and harriers, were a refreshment to a soldier’s fancy, when the heats, and the solitude of spirit in which he was compelled to live, made him weary of the novelties which had at first pleased him in the East. He begged that Edward would go on to write as he did of everything that passed in the village—of everything which could make him for a whole evening fancy himself in Deerbrook, and repose himself in its shacks and quietness. Mr Hope had felt, for a month past, that such a letter was by this time due to Frank, and that he had, for once, failed in punctuality: but he now, for the first time, found it difficult to get time to write. He never dreamed of sending Frank letters, which would be esteemed by others of a moderate length. When he did write, it was an epistle indeed: and during this particular May and June, there was always something happening which prevented his having his hours to himself. In other words, he was always at the Greys’ when not engaged in his professional duties. The arrival of a letter from Frank one day gave him the necessary stimulus, and he sat down on the instant to open his heart to his brother.
Frank was his younger and only brother, and the person in the world most deeply indebted to him. Their parents being dead, it was Edward who had been Frank’s dependence as he grew up. It was Edward who had, at great cost and pains, gratified his wish to go into the army, and had procured him the best educational advantages in preparation for a military life. It was Edward who had always treated him with such familiar friendship, that he had scarcely felt as if he wanted any other intimate, and who seemed to forget the five years’ difference of age between them at all times but when it afforded a reason for pressing kindness and assistance upon him. The confidence between them was as familiar and entire as if they had been twin-brothers. The epistle which Frank was to have the benefit of, on the present occasion, was even longer than usual, from the delay which had caused an accumulation of tidings and of thoughts.
“Deerbrook,June 20th, 18—.“Dear Frank,—Your letter of December last has arrived to remind me how far I am past my time in writing to you. I make no apologies for my delay, however, and I do not pretend to feel any remorse about it. We never write to one another from a mere sense of duty; and long may it be before we do so! Unless we write because we cannot help it, pray let us let it alone. As for the reasons why my inclination to talk to you has not overpowered all impediments till now,—you shall have them by-and-by. Meanwhile, here, before your eyes, is the proof that I cannot but spend this June evening with you.“You ask about your grandfather; and I have somewhat to say to you about him. He is still living,—very infirm, as you may suppose, but, I think, as clear in mind as I have ever known him. He sent for me two months ago, as you will have heard from the letter I find he caused to be written to you about the business which then occupied his mind. My share in that business he would represent to you as it appeared to him: but I must give you an account of it as it appears to myself. He sent for me to take leave of me, as he said; but, in my opinion, to receive my acknowledgments for his latest disposition of his property by will. The new arrangements did not please me at all; and I am confident that you would have liked them no better than I; and I wished not a little that you were nearer, that we might have acted together. I know that he once intended to divide his property equally among us four; but of late, from some unaccountable feeling of indifference about Emily and Anne, or, as is more likely, from some notion about women not wanting money, and not knowing how to manage it, he has changed his mind, and destined his money for you and me, leaving my sisters only a hundred pounds each as a remembrance. He informed me of this, as soon as I arrived. I thought him quite well enough to hear reason, and I spoke my mind plainly to him. I had no right to answer for you, any further than for your sense of justice, and your affection for your sisters. The way in which the matter was settled at last, therefore, with great pains and trouble, was, that you and our sisters share equally, and that I have the legacy of 100 pounds, which was destined for one of them. The reasons why I declined a fourth part of the property were sufficient to my mind, and will be so, I doubt not, to yours. Out of this property I have had my professional education, while you and my sisters have received nothing at all. This professional education has enabled me to provide sufficiently for myself, so far, and this provision will in all probability go on to increase; while my sisters want as much as can fairly be put into their hands. Their husbands are not likely ever to be rich men, and will probably be poor for some years to come. Their children have to be educated; and in short, there is every reason why Emily and Anne should have this money, and none why I should. I am afraid the old gentleman is not very well pleased with my way of receiving what he intended for kindness; but that cannot be helped. If he falls back into his previous state of mind, and leaves the whole, after all, to you and me, I shall set the matter right, as far as I can, by dividing my portion between my sisters: and I feel confident that you will do the same; but I earnestly hope this will not happen. It will be a very different thing to my sisters receiving this money by their grandfather’s will as their due, and from our hands as a gift—(the way in which they will look at it). The letter to you was sent off without delay, in order that, in case of any dissatisfaction whatever on your part, your wishes might have the better chance of being made known to us during the old gentleman’s life. I doubt not that your thoughts, whatever they may be, will be on the way to me before this reaches you; and I can have as little doubt what they are. You know Mr Blunt says, that men are created to rob their sisters,—a somewhat partial view of the objects and achievements of mortal existence, it must be owned, and a statement which I conceive the course of your life, for one, will not go to confirm; but a man must have had a good deal of experience of what he is talking of before he could make so sweeping a generalisation from the facts of life; and I am afraid Mr Blunt has some reason for what he says. Medical men receive many confidences in sick rooms, you know; and some, among others, which had better be reserved for the lawyer. What I have seen in this way leads me to imagine that my grandfather’s notion is a very common one,—that women have little occasion for money, and do not know how to manage it; and that their property is to be drawn upon to the very last, to meet the difficulties and supply the purposes of their brothers. On the utter injustice and absurdity of such a notion there can be no disagreement between you and me; nor, I imagine, in our actions with regard to it.“I heard from Emily yesterday. The letter is more than half full of stories about the children, and accounts of her principles and plans with regard to them. She writes on the same subjects to you, no doubt, for her heart is full of them. Her husband finds the post of consul at a little Spanish port rather a dull affair, as we anticipated, and groans at the mention of Bristol or Liverpool shipping, he says. But I like the tone of his postscript very well. He is thankful for the honest independence his office affords him, and says he can tolerate his Spanish neighbours (though they are as ignorant as Turkish ladies), for the sake of his family, and of the hope of returning, sooner or later, to live in his own country, after having discharged his duty to his children. Theirs must be an irksome life enough, as much of it as is passed out of their own doors: but they seem to be finding out that it is not so much thewhereand thehow, as thewhatpeople are, that matters to their peace of mind; and I suppose those who love each other, and have settled what they are living for, can attain what they most want, nearly so well in one place as another.“Poor Anne wrote toyou, I know, after the death of her infant—her little Highlandman, as she proudly called him in her last letter before she lost him. Gilchrist talked last year of bringing her and his boy south this summer, and I had some hopes of seeing them all here: but I have not been able to get them to speak again of travelling, and I give it up for this year. I hope your letters and theirs fall due seasonably; that your reports of all your devices to cool yourself, reach them in the depth of their Caithness winter; and that all they say to you of their snow-drifts and freshets is acceptable when you are panting in the hottest of your noons. Anne writes more cheerfully than she did, and Gilchrist says she is exerting herself to overcome her sorrow. Their love must be passing strange in the eyes of all such as despised Anne’s match. It is such as should make Anne’s brothers feel very cordially towards Gilchrist. We have drifted asunder in life rather strangely, when one comes to think of it; and our anchorage grounds are pretty far apart. Who would have thought it, when we four used to climb the old apple-tree together, and drop down from the garden wall? I wonder whether we shall ever contrive to meet in one house once more, and whether I may be honoured by my house being the place? It is possible; and I spend certain of my dreams upon the project. Do you not find that one effect of this wide separation is, to make one fancy the world smaller than one used to think it? You, on the other side of it, probably waked up to this conviction long ago. It is just opening upon me, shut up in my nook of our little island. When I have a letter from you, like that which lies before me, spiced with an old family joke or two, and a good many new ones of your own, all exactly like yourself, I am persuaded you cannot be very far off; and I should certainly call you from my window to come in to tea, but from a disagreeable suspicion that I should get no answer. But do tell me in your next whether our globe has not been made far too much of its children, and whether its oceans do not look very like ponds, when you cast your eye over them to that small old apple-tree I mentioned just now.“But you want news,—this being the place of all others to send to from the other side of the world for news. Deerbrook has rung with news and rumours of news since winter. The first report after the ice broke up in March was, that I was going to be married to Deborah Giles. ‘Who is Deborah Giles?’ you will ask. She is not going to be a relation of yours, in the first place. Secondly, she is the daughter of the boatman whose boats Enderby and I are wont to hire. The young lady may be all that ever woman was, for aught I know, for I never spoke to her in my life, except that I one day asked her for something to bale the boat with: but I heard that the astonishment of Deerbrook was, that I was engaged to a woman who could not read or write. So you see we of Deerbrook follow our old pastime of first inventing marvels, and then being scarcely able to believe them. I rather suspect that we have some wag among us who fabricates news, to see how much will be received and retailed: but perhaps these rumours, even the wildest of them, rise ‘by natural exhalation’ from the nooks and crevices of village life. My five years’ residence has not qualified me to pronounce absolutely upon this.“Old Smithson is dead. You could not have seen him half-a-dozen times when you were here; but you may chance to recollect him,—a short old man, with white hair, and deep-set grey eyes. He is less of a loss to the village than almost any other man would be. He was so shy and quiet, and kept so much within his own gate, that some fancied he must be a miser: but though he spent little on himself, his money made its way abroad, and his heirs are rather disappointed at finding the property no larger than when he came into it. He is much missed by his household, and, I own, by myself. I was not often with him: but it was something to feel that there was one among us who was free from ambition and worldly cares, content to live on in the enjoyment of humble duties and simple pleasures,—one who would not have changed colour at the news of a bequest of ten thousand pounds, but could be very eager about his grand-nephew’s prize at school, and about the first forget-me-not of the season beside his pond, and the first mushroom in his meadow. During the fortnight of his illness, the village inquired about him; but when it was all over, there was not much to forget of one so little known, and we hear of him no more.“The Greys and Rowlands go on much as usual, the gentlemen of the family agreeing very well, and the ladies rather the reverse. The great grievance this spring has been, that Mrs Rowland has seen fit to enlarge her hall, and make a porch to her door. Her neighbours are certain that, in the course of her alterations, every principal beam of her house has been cut through, and that the whole will fall in. No such catastrophe has yet occurred, however. I have not been called in to set any broken bones; and I have not much expectation of an accident, as Mr Rowland understands building too well to allow his house to be cut down over his head. As for the porch, I do not perceive what can be alleged to its disadvantage, but that some people think it ugly.“Here I must cease my gossip. I regularly begin my letters with the intention of telling you all that I hear and see out of my profession but I invariably stop short, as I do now, from disgust at the nonsense I should have to write. It is endurable enough to witness; for one thing quickly dismisses another, and some relief occurs from the more amiable or intellectual qualities of the parties concerned: but I hate detail in writing; and I never do get through the whole list of particulars that I believe you would like to have. You must excuse me now, and take my word for it, in the large, that we are all pretty much what we were when you saw us three years ago, except of course, being three years older, and some few of us three years wiser. It will be a satisfaction to you also to know that my practice has made a very good growth for the time. You liked my last year’s report of it. It has increased more since that time than even during the preceding year; and I have no further anxiety about my worldly prospects. I am as well satisfied with my choice of an occupation in life as ever. Mine has its anxieties, anddésagrémens, as others have: but I am convinced I could not have chosen better. You saw, when you were with me, something of the anxiety of responsibility; what it is, for instance, to await the one or the other event of a desperate case: and I could tell you a good deal that you do not and cannot know of the perils, and troubles attendant upon being the depository of so much domestic and personal confidence as my function imposes upon me the necessity of receiving. I sometimes long to be able to see nothing but what is apparent to all in society; to perceive what is ostensible, and to dream of nothing more,—not exactly like children, but like the members of large and happy families, who carry about with them the purity and peace of their homes, and therefore take cognisance of the pure and peaceful only whom they meet abroad; but it is childish, or indolent, or cowardly, to desire this. While there is private vice and wretchedness, and domestic misunderstanding, one would desire to know it, if one can do anything to cure or alleviate it. Dr Levitt and I have the same feeling about this; and I sometimes hope that we mutually prepare for and aid each other’s work. There is a bright side to our business, as I need not tell you. The mere exercise of our respective professions, the scientific as well as the moral interest of them, is as much to us as the theory of your business to you; and that is saying a great deal. You will not quarrel with the idea of the scientific interest of Dr Levitt’s profession in his hands; for you know how learned he is in the complex science of Humanity. You remember the eternal wonder of the Greys at his liberality towards dissenters. Of that liberality he is unconscious: as it is the natural, the inevitable result of his knowledge of men,—of his having been ‘hunting the waterfalls’ from his youth up,—following up thought and prejudice to their fountains. When I see him bland and gay amongst us, I feel pretty confident that his greatest pleasure is the same as mine,—that of reposing in the society of the innocent, the single-hearted, the unburdened, after having seen what the dark corners of social life are. It is like coming out of a foetid cave into the evening sunshine. Of late, we have felt this in an extraordinary degree. But I must tell you in an orderly way what has happened to us. I have put off entering upon the grand subject, partly from the pleasure of keeping one’s best news for the last, and partly from shyness in beginning to describe what it is impossible that you should enter into. I am well aware of your powers of imagination and sympathy: but you have not lived five years within five miles of a country village; and you can no more understand our present condition than we can appreciate your sherbet and your mountain summer-house.“There are two ladies here from Birmingham, so far beyond any ladies that we have to boast of, that some of us begin to suspect that Deerbrook is not the Athens and Arcadia united that we have been accustomed to believe it. You can have no idea how our vanity is mortified, and our pride abased, by finding what the world can produce out of the bounds of Deerbrook. We bear our humiliation wonderfully, however. Our Verdon woods echo with laughter; and singing is heard beside the brook. The voices of children, grown and ungrown, go up from all the meadows around; and wit and wisdom are wafted over the surface of our river at eventide. The truth is, these girls have brought in a new life among us, and there is not one of us, except the children, that is not some years younger for their presence. Mr Grey deserts his business for them, like a school-boy; and Mr Rowland watches his opportunity to play truant in turn. Mrs Enderby gives dances, and looks quite disposed to lead off in person. Mrs Plumstead has grown quite giddy about sorting the letters, and her voice has not been heard further than three doors off since the arrival of the strangers. Dr Levitt is preaching his old sermons. Mrs Grey is well-nigh intoxicated with being the hostess of these ladies, and has even reached the point of allowing her drawing-room to be used every afternoon. Enderby is a fixture while they are so. Neither mother, sister, friend, nor frolic, ever detained him here before for a month together. He was going away in a fortnight when these ladies came: they have been here six weeks, and Enderby has dropped all mention of the external world. If you ask, as you are at this moment doing in your own heart, how I stand under this influence, I really cannot tell you. I avoid inquiring too closely. I enjoy every passing day too much to question it, and I let it go; and so must you.“‘But who are they?’ you want to know. They are distant cousins of Mr Grey’s,—orphans, and in mourning for their father. They are just above twenty, and their name is Ibbotson. ‘Are they handsome?’ is your next question. The eldest, Hester, is beautiful as the evening star. Margaret is very different. It does not matter what she is as to beauty, for the question seems never to have entered her own mind. I doubt whether it has often occurred to her whether she can be this, or that, or the other. Sheis, and there is an end of the matter. Such pureexistence, without question, without introspection, without hesitation or consciousness, I never saw in any one above eight years old. Yet she is wise; it becomes not me to estimate how wise. You will ask how I know this already. I knew it the first day I saw them; I knew it by her infinite simplicity, from which all selfishness is discharged, and into which no folly can enter. The airs of heaven must have been about her from her infancy, to nourish such health of the soul. What her struggle is to be in life I cannot conceive, for not a morbid tendency is to be discerned. I suppose she may be destined to make mistakes,—to find her faith deceived, her affections rebuked, her full repose delayed. If, like the rest of us, she be destined to struggle, it must be to conflict of this kind; for it is inconceivable that any should arise from herself. Yet is she as truly human as the weakest of us,—engrossed by affection, and susceptible of passion. Her affection for her sister is a sort of passion. It has some of the features of the serene guardianship of one from on high; but it is yet more like the passionate servitude—of the benefited to a benefactor, for instance—which is perhaps the most graceful attitude in which our humanity appears. Where are the words that can tell what it is to witness, day by day, the course of such a life as this?—to see, living and moving before one’s eyes, the very spirit that one had caught glimpses of, wandering in the brightest vistas of one’s imagination, in the holiest hours of thought! Yet is there nothing fearful, as in the presence of a spirit; there is scarcely even a sense of awe, so childlike is her deportment. I go, grave and longing to listen; I come away, and I find I have been talking more than any one; revealing, discussing, as if I were the teacher and not the learner,—you will say the worshipper. Say it if you will. Our whole little world worships the one or the other. Hester is also well worthy of worship. If there were nothing but her beauty, she would have a wider world than ours of Deerbrook at her feet. But she has much more. She is what you would call a true woman. She has a generous soul, strong affections, and a susceptibility which interferes with her serenity. She is not exempt from the trouble and snare into which the lot of women seems to drive them,—too close a contemplation of self, too nice a sensitiveness, which yet does not interfere with devotedness to others. She will be a devoted wife: but Margaret does not wait to be a wife to be devoted. Her life has been devotedness, and will be to the end. If she were left the last of her race, she would spend her life in worshipping the unseen that lay about her, and would be as unaware of herself as now.“What a comfort it is to speak freely of them! This is the first relief of the kind I have had. Every one is praising them; every one is following them: but to whom but you can I speak of them? Even to you, I filled my first sheet with mere surface matter. I now wonder how I could. As for the ‘general opinion’ of Deerbrook on the engrossing subject of the summer, you will anticipate it in your own mind,—concluding that Hester is most worshipped, on account of her beauty, and that Margaret’s influence must be too subtle and refined to operate on more than a few. This is partly, but not wholly the case. It has been taken for granted from the beginning, by the many, that Hester is to be exclusively the adored; and Enderby has, I fancy, as many broad hints as myself of this general conclusion. But I question whether Enderby assents, any more than myself. Margaret’s influence may be received as unconsciously as it is exerted, but it is not, therefore, the less real, while it is the more potent. I see old Jem Bird raise himself up from the churchyard bench by his staff, and stand uncovered as Hester passes by; I see the children in the road touch one another, and look up at her; I see the admiration which diffuses itself like sunshine around her steps: all this homage to Hester is visible enough. But I also see Sydney Grey growing manly, and his sisters amiable, under Margaret’s eye. I fancy I perceive Enderby— But that is his own affair. I am sure I daily witness one healing and renovating process which Margaret is unconsciously effecting. There is no one of us so worthy of her, so capable of appreciating her, as Maria Young: they are friends, and Maria Young is becoming a new creature. Health and spirit are returning to that poor girl’s countenance: there is absolutely a new tone in her voice, and a joyous strain in her conversation, which I, for one, never recognised before. It is a sight on which angels might look down, to see Margaret, with her earnest face, listening humbly, and lovingly serving the infirm and much-tried friend whom she herself is daily lifting up into life and gladness. I have done with listening to abuse of life and the world. I will never sit still under it again. If there are two such as these sisters, springing out of the bosom of a busy town, and quietly passing along their path of life, casting sanctity around them as they go,—if there are two such, why not more? If God casts such seeds of goodness into our nook, how do we know but that he is sowing the whole earth with it? I will believe it henceforth.“You will wonder, as I have wondered many a time within the last six weeks, what is to become of us when we lose these strangers. I can only say, ‘God help us!’ But that time is far off. They came for several months, and no one hints at their departure yet. They are the most unlearned creatures about country life that you can conceive, with a surpassing genius for country pleasures. Only imagine the charm of our excursions! They are never so happy as when in the fields or on the river; and we all feel ourselves only too blest in being able to indulge them. Our mornings are all activity and despatch, that our afternoons may be all mirth, and our evenings repose. I am afraid this will make you sigh with mingled envy and sympathy; but whatever is that can be told, you may rely upon it that I shall tell you, trusting to your feeling both pleasure and pain in virtuous moderation.“I have done my story; and now I am going to look what o’clock it is—a thing I have refrained from, in my impulse to tell you all. The house is quite still, and I heard the church clock strike something very long just now; but I would not count. It is so. It was midnight that the clock struck. I shall seal this up directly. I dare not trust my morning—my broad daylight mood with it. Now, as soon as you have got thus far, just take up your pen, and answer me, telling me as copiously of your affairs as I have written of ours. Heaven bless you.“Yours ever,“Edward Hope.”
“Deerbrook,June 20th, 18—.
“Dear Frank,—Your letter of December last has arrived to remind me how far I am past my time in writing to you. I make no apologies for my delay, however, and I do not pretend to feel any remorse about it. We never write to one another from a mere sense of duty; and long may it be before we do so! Unless we write because we cannot help it, pray let us let it alone. As for the reasons why my inclination to talk to you has not overpowered all impediments till now,—you shall have them by-and-by. Meanwhile, here, before your eyes, is the proof that I cannot but spend this June evening with you.
“You ask about your grandfather; and I have somewhat to say to you about him. He is still living,—very infirm, as you may suppose, but, I think, as clear in mind as I have ever known him. He sent for me two months ago, as you will have heard from the letter I find he caused to be written to you about the business which then occupied his mind. My share in that business he would represent to you as it appeared to him: but I must give you an account of it as it appears to myself. He sent for me to take leave of me, as he said; but, in my opinion, to receive my acknowledgments for his latest disposition of his property by will. The new arrangements did not please me at all; and I am confident that you would have liked them no better than I; and I wished not a little that you were nearer, that we might have acted together. I know that he once intended to divide his property equally among us four; but of late, from some unaccountable feeling of indifference about Emily and Anne, or, as is more likely, from some notion about women not wanting money, and not knowing how to manage it, he has changed his mind, and destined his money for you and me, leaving my sisters only a hundred pounds each as a remembrance. He informed me of this, as soon as I arrived. I thought him quite well enough to hear reason, and I spoke my mind plainly to him. I had no right to answer for you, any further than for your sense of justice, and your affection for your sisters. The way in which the matter was settled at last, therefore, with great pains and trouble, was, that you and our sisters share equally, and that I have the legacy of 100 pounds, which was destined for one of them. The reasons why I declined a fourth part of the property were sufficient to my mind, and will be so, I doubt not, to yours. Out of this property I have had my professional education, while you and my sisters have received nothing at all. This professional education has enabled me to provide sufficiently for myself, so far, and this provision will in all probability go on to increase; while my sisters want as much as can fairly be put into their hands. Their husbands are not likely ever to be rich men, and will probably be poor for some years to come. Their children have to be educated; and in short, there is every reason why Emily and Anne should have this money, and none why I should. I am afraid the old gentleman is not very well pleased with my way of receiving what he intended for kindness; but that cannot be helped. If he falls back into his previous state of mind, and leaves the whole, after all, to you and me, I shall set the matter right, as far as I can, by dividing my portion between my sisters: and I feel confident that you will do the same; but I earnestly hope this will not happen. It will be a very different thing to my sisters receiving this money by their grandfather’s will as their due, and from our hands as a gift—(the way in which they will look at it). The letter to you was sent off without delay, in order that, in case of any dissatisfaction whatever on your part, your wishes might have the better chance of being made known to us during the old gentleman’s life. I doubt not that your thoughts, whatever they may be, will be on the way to me before this reaches you; and I can have as little doubt what they are. You know Mr Blunt says, that men are created to rob their sisters,—a somewhat partial view of the objects and achievements of mortal existence, it must be owned, and a statement which I conceive the course of your life, for one, will not go to confirm; but a man must have had a good deal of experience of what he is talking of before he could make so sweeping a generalisation from the facts of life; and I am afraid Mr Blunt has some reason for what he says. Medical men receive many confidences in sick rooms, you know; and some, among others, which had better be reserved for the lawyer. What I have seen in this way leads me to imagine that my grandfather’s notion is a very common one,—that women have little occasion for money, and do not know how to manage it; and that their property is to be drawn upon to the very last, to meet the difficulties and supply the purposes of their brothers. On the utter injustice and absurdity of such a notion there can be no disagreement between you and me; nor, I imagine, in our actions with regard to it.
“I heard from Emily yesterday. The letter is more than half full of stories about the children, and accounts of her principles and plans with regard to them. She writes on the same subjects to you, no doubt, for her heart is full of them. Her husband finds the post of consul at a little Spanish port rather a dull affair, as we anticipated, and groans at the mention of Bristol or Liverpool shipping, he says. But I like the tone of his postscript very well. He is thankful for the honest independence his office affords him, and says he can tolerate his Spanish neighbours (though they are as ignorant as Turkish ladies), for the sake of his family, and of the hope of returning, sooner or later, to live in his own country, after having discharged his duty to his children. Theirs must be an irksome life enough, as much of it as is passed out of their own doors: but they seem to be finding out that it is not so much thewhereand thehow, as thewhatpeople are, that matters to their peace of mind; and I suppose those who love each other, and have settled what they are living for, can attain what they most want, nearly so well in one place as another.
“Poor Anne wrote toyou, I know, after the death of her infant—her little Highlandman, as she proudly called him in her last letter before she lost him. Gilchrist talked last year of bringing her and his boy south this summer, and I had some hopes of seeing them all here: but I have not been able to get them to speak again of travelling, and I give it up for this year. I hope your letters and theirs fall due seasonably; that your reports of all your devices to cool yourself, reach them in the depth of their Caithness winter; and that all they say to you of their snow-drifts and freshets is acceptable when you are panting in the hottest of your noons. Anne writes more cheerfully than she did, and Gilchrist says she is exerting herself to overcome her sorrow. Their love must be passing strange in the eyes of all such as despised Anne’s match. It is such as should make Anne’s brothers feel very cordially towards Gilchrist. We have drifted asunder in life rather strangely, when one comes to think of it; and our anchorage grounds are pretty far apart. Who would have thought it, when we four used to climb the old apple-tree together, and drop down from the garden wall? I wonder whether we shall ever contrive to meet in one house once more, and whether I may be honoured by my house being the place? It is possible; and I spend certain of my dreams upon the project. Do you not find that one effect of this wide separation is, to make one fancy the world smaller than one used to think it? You, on the other side of it, probably waked up to this conviction long ago. It is just opening upon me, shut up in my nook of our little island. When I have a letter from you, like that which lies before me, spiced with an old family joke or two, and a good many new ones of your own, all exactly like yourself, I am persuaded you cannot be very far off; and I should certainly call you from my window to come in to tea, but from a disagreeable suspicion that I should get no answer. But do tell me in your next whether our globe has not been made far too much of its children, and whether its oceans do not look very like ponds, when you cast your eye over them to that small old apple-tree I mentioned just now.
“But you want news,—this being the place of all others to send to from the other side of the world for news. Deerbrook has rung with news and rumours of news since winter. The first report after the ice broke up in March was, that I was going to be married to Deborah Giles. ‘Who is Deborah Giles?’ you will ask. She is not going to be a relation of yours, in the first place. Secondly, she is the daughter of the boatman whose boats Enderby and I are wont to hire. The young lady may be all that ever woman was, for aught I know, for I never spoke to her in my life, except that I one day asked her for something to bale the boat with: but I heard that the astonishment of Deerbrook was, that I was engaged to a woman who could not read or write. So you see we of Deerbrook follow our old pastime of first inventing marvels, and then being scarcely able to believe them. I rather suspect that we have some wag among us who fabricates news, to see how much will be received and retailed: but perhaps these rumours, even the wildest of them, rise ‘by natural exhalation’ from the nooks and crevices of village life. My five years’ residence has not qualified me to pronounce absolutely upon this.
“Old Smithson is dead. You could not have seen him half-a-dozen times when you were here; but you may chance to recollect him,—a short old man, with white hair, and deep-set grey eyes. He is less of a loss to the village than almost any other man would be. He was so shy and quiet, and kept so much within his own gate, that some fancied he must be a miser: but though he spent little on himself, his money made its way abroad, and his heirs are rather disappointed at finding the property no larger than when he came into it. He is much missed by his household, and, I own, by myself. I was not often with him: but it was something to feel that there was one among us who was free from ambition and worldly cares, content to live on in the enjoyment of humble duties and simple pleasures,—one who would not have changed colour at the news of a bequest of ten thousand pounds, but could be very eager about his grand-nephew’s prize at school, and about the first forget-me-not of the season beside his pond, and the first mushroom in his meadow. During the fortnight of his illness, the village inquired about him; but when it was all over, there was not much to forget of one so little known, and we hear of him no more.
“The Greys and Rowlands go on much as usual, the gentlemen of the family agreeing very well, and the ladies rather the reverse. The great grievance this spring has been, that Mrs Rowland has seen fit to enlarge her hall, and make a porch to her door. Her neighbours are certain that, in the course of her alterations, every principal beam of her house has been cut through, and that the whole will fall in. No such catastrophe has yet occurred, however. I have not been called in to set any broken bones; and I have not much expectation of an accident, as Mr Rowland understands building too well to allow his house to be cut down over his head. As for the porch, I do not perceive what can be alleged to its disadvantage, but that some people think it ugly.
“Here I must cease my gossip. I regularly begin my letters with the intention of telling you all that I hear and see out of my profession but I invariably stop short, as I do now, from disgust at the nonsense I should have to write. It is endurable enough to witness; for one thing quickly dismisses another, and some relief occurs from the more amiable or intellectual qualities of the parties concerned: but I hate detail in writing; and I never do get through the whole list of particulars that I believe you would like to have. You must excuse me now, and take my word for it, in the large, that we are all pretty much what we were when you saw us three years ago, except of course, being three years older, and some few of us three years wiser. It will be a satisfaction to you also to know that my practice has made a very good growth for the time. You liked my last year’s report of it. It has increased more since that time than even during the preceding year; and I have no further anxiety about my worldly prospects. I am as well satisfied with my choice of an occupation in life as ever. Mine has its anxieties, anddésagrémens, as others have: but I am convinced I could not have chosen better. You saw, when you were with me, something of the anxiety of responsibility; what it is, for instance, to await the one or the other event of a desperate case: and I could tell you a good deal that you do not and cannot know of the perils, and troubles attendant upon being the depository of so much domestic and personal confidence as my function imposes upon me the necessity of receiving. I sometimes long to be able to see nothing but what is apparent to all in society; to perceive what is ostensible, and to dream of nothing more,—not exactly like children, but like the members of large and happy families, who carry about with them the purity and peace of their homes, and therefore take cognisance of the pure and peaceful only whom they meet abroad; but it is childish, or indolent, or cowardly, to desire this. While there is private vice and wretchedness, and domestic misunderstanding, one would desire to know it, if one can do anything to cure or alleviate it. Dr Levitt and I have the same feeling about this; and I sometimes hope that we mutually prepare for and aid each other’s work. There is a bright side to our business, as I need not tell you. The mere exercise of our respective professions, the scientific as well as the moral interest of them, is as much to us as the theory of your business to you; and that is saying a great deal. You will not quarrel with the idea of the scientific interest of Dr Levitt’s profession in his hands; for you know how learned he is in the complex science of Humanity. You remember the eternal wonder of the Greys at his liberality towards dissenters. Of that liberality he is unconscious: as it is the natural, the inevitable result of his knowledge of men,—of his having been ‘hunting the waterfalls’ from his youth up,—following up thought and prejudice to their fountains. When I see him bland and gay amongst us, I feel pretty confident that his greatest pleasure is the same as mine,—that of reposing in the society of the innocent, the single-hearted, the unburdened, after having seen what the dark corners of social life are. It is like coming out of a foetid cave into the evening sunshine. Of late, we have felt this in an extraordinary degree. But I must tell you in an orderly way what has happened to us. I have put off entering upon the grand subject, partly from the pleasure of keeping one’s best news for the last, and partly from shyness in beginning to describe what it is impossible that you should enter into. I am well aware of your powers of imagination and sympathy: but you have not lived five years within five miles of a country village; and you can no more understand our present condition than we can appreciate your sherbet and your mountain summer-house.
“There are two ladies here from Birmingham, so far beyond any ladies that we have to boast of, that some of us begin to suspect that Deerbrook is not the Athens and Arcadia united that we have been accustomed to believe it. You can have no idea how our vanity is mortified, and our pride abased, by finding what the world can produce out of the bounds of Deerbrook. We bear our humiliation wonderfully, however. Our Verdon woods echo with laughter; and singing is heard beside the brook. The voices of children, grown and ungrown, go up from all the meadows around; and wit and wisdom are wafted over the surface of our river at eventide. The truth is, these girls have brought in a new life among us, and there is not one of us, except the children, that is not some years younger for their presence. Mr Grey deserts his business for them, like a school-boy; and Mr Rowland watches his opportunity to play truant in turn. Mrs Enderby gives dances, and looks quite disposed to lead off in person. Mrs Plumstead has grown quite giddy about sorting the letters, and her voice has not been heard further than three doors off since the arrival of the strangers. Dr Levitt is preaching his old sermons. Mrs Grey is well-nigh intoxicated with being the hostess of these ladies, and has even reached the point of allowing her drawing-room to be used every afternoon. Enderby is a fixture while they are so. Neither mother, sister, friend, nor frolic, ever detained him here before for a month together. He was going away in a fortnight when these ladies came: they have been here six weeks, and Enderby has dropped all mention of the external world. If you ask, as you are at this moment doing in your own heart, how I stand under this influence, I really cannot tell you. I avoid inquiring too closely. I enjoy every passing day too much to question it, and I let it go; and so must you.
“‘But who are they?’ you want to know. They are distant cousins of Mr Grey’s,—orphans, and in mourning for their father. They are just above twenty, and their name is Ibbotson. ‘Are they handsome?’ is your next question. The eldest, Hester, is beautiful as the evening star. Margaret is very different. It does not matter what she is as to beauty, for the question seems never to have entered her own mind. I doubt whether it has often occurred to her whether she can be this, or that, or the other. Sheis, and there is an end of the matter. Such pureexistence, without question, without introspection, without hesitation or consciousness, I never saw in any one above eight years old. Yet she is wise; it becomes not me to estimate how wise. You will ask how I know this already. I knew it the first day I saw them; I knew it by her infinite simplicity, from which all selfishness is discharged, and into which no folly can enter. The airs of heaven must have been about her from her infancy, to nourish such health of the soul. What her struggle is to be in life I cannot conceive, for not a morbid tendency is to be discerned. I suppose she may be destined to make mistakes,—to find her faith deceived, her affections rebuked, her full repose delayed. If, like the rest of us, she be destined to struggle, it must be to conflict of this kind; for it is inconceivable that any should arise from herself. Yet is she as truly human as the weakest of us,—engrossed by affection, and susceptible of passion. Her affection for her sister is a sort of passion. It has some of the features of the serene guardianship of one from on high; but it is yet more like the passionate servitude—of the benefited to a benefactor, for instance—which is perhaps the most graceful attitude in which our humanity appears. Where are the words that can tell what it is to witness, day by day, the course of such a life as this?—to see, living and moving before one’s eyes, the very spirit that one had caught glimpses of, wandering in the brightest vistas of one’s imagination, in the holiest hours of thought! Yet is there nothing fearful, as in the presence of a spirit; there is scarcely even a sense of awe, so childlike is her deportment. I go, grave and longing to listen; I come away, and I find I have been talking more than any one; revealing, discussing, as if I were the teacher and not the learner,—you will say the worshipper. Say it if you will. Our whole little world worships the one or the other. Hester is also well worthy of worship. If there were nothing but her beauty, she would have a wider world than ours of Deerbrook at her feet. But she has much more. She is what you would call a true woman. She has a generous soul, strong affections, and a susceptibility which interferes with her serenity. She is not exempt from the trouble and snare into which the lot of women seems to drive them,—too close a contemplation of self, too nice a sensitiveness, which yet does not interfere with devotedness to others. She will be a devoted wife: but Margaret does not wait to be a wife to be devoted. Her life has been devotedness, and will be to the end. If she were left the last of her race, she would spend her life in worshipping the unseen that lay about her, and would be as unaware of herself as now.
“What a comfort it is to speak freely of them! This is the first relief of the kind I have had. Every one is praising them; every one is following them: but to whom but you can I speak of them? Even to you, I filled my first sheet with mere surface matter. I now wonder how I could. As for the ‘general opinion’ of Deerbrook on the engrossing subject of the summer, you will anticipate it in your own mind,—concluding that Hester is most worshipped, on account of her beauty, and that Margaret’s influence must be too subtle and refined to operate on more than a few. This is partly, but not wholly the case. It has been taken for granted from the beginning, by the many, that Hester is to be exclusively the adored; and Enderby has, I fancy, as many broad hints as myself of this general conclusion. But I question whether Enderby assents, any more than myself. Margaret’s influence may be received as unconsciously as it is exerted, but it is not, therefore, the less real, while it is the more potent. I see old Jem Bird raise himself up from the churchyard bench by his staff, and stand uncovered as Hester passes by; I see the children in the road touch one another, and look up at her; I see the admiration which diffuses itself like sunshine around her steps: all this homage to Hester is visible enough. But I also see Sydney Grey growing manly, and his sisters amiable, under Margaret’s eye. I fancy I perceive Enderby— But that is his own affair. I am sure I daily witness one healing and renovating process which Margaret is unconsciously effecting. There is no one of us so worthy of her, so capable of appreciating her, as Maria Young: they are friends, and Maria Young is becoming a new creature. Health and spirit are returning to that poor girl’s countenance: there is absolutely a new tone in her voice, and a joyous strain in her conversation, which I, for one, never recognised before. It is a sight on which angels might look down, to see Margaret, with her earnest face, listening humbly, and lovingly serving the infirm and much-tried friend whom she herself is daily lifting up into life and gladness. I have done with listening to abuse of life and the world. I will never sit still under it again. If there are two such as these sisters, springing out of the bosom of a busy town, and quietly passing along their path of life, casting sanctity around them as they go,—if there are two such, why not more? If God casts such seeds of goodness into our nook, how do we know but that he is sowing the whole earth with it? I will believe it henceforth.
“You will wonder, as I have wondered many a time within the last six weeks, what is to become of us when we lose these strangers. I can only say, ‘God help us!’ But that time is far off. They came for several months, and no one hints at their departure yet. They are the most unlearned creatures about country life that you can conceive, with a surpassing genius for country pleasures. Only imagine the charm of our excursions! They are never so happy as when in the fields or on the river; and we all feel ourselves only too blest in being able to indulge them. Our mornings are all activity and despatch, that our afternoons may be all mirth, and our evenings repose. I am afraid this will make you sigh with mingled envy and sympathy; but whatever is that can be told, you may rely upon it that I shall tell you, trusting to your feeling both pleasure and pain in virtuous moderation.
“I have done my story; and now I am going to look what o’clock it is—a thing I have refrained from, in my impulse to tell you all. The house is quite still, and I heard the church clock strike something very long just now; but I would not count. It is so. It was midnight that the clock struck. I shall seal this up directly. I dare not trust my morning—my broad daylight mood with it. Now, as soon as you have got thus far, just take up your pen, and answer me, telling me as copiously of your affairs as I have written of ours. Heaven bless you.
“Yours ever,
“Edward Hope.”
It was not only Mr Hope’s broad daylight mood which was not to be trusted with this letter. In this hour of midnight a misgiving seized upon him that it was extravagant. He became aware, when he laid down his pen, that he was agitated. The door of his room opened into the garden. He thought he would look out upon the night. It was the night of the full moon. As he stood in the doorway, the festoons of creepers that dangled from his little porch waved in the night breeze; long shadows from the shrubs lay on the grass; and in the depth of one of these shadows glimmered the green spark of a glow-worm. It was deliciously cool and serene. Mr Hope stood leaning against the door-post, with his arms folded, and was not long in settling the question whether the letter should go.
“Frank will think that I am in love,” he considered. “He will not understand the real state of my feeling. He will think that I am in love. I should conclude so in his place. But what matters it what he infers and concludes? I have written exactly what I thought and felt at the moment, and it is not from such revelations that wrong inferences are usually drawn. What I have written is true; and truth carries safely over land and sea—more safely than confidence compounded with caution. Frank deserves the simplest and freshest confidence from me. I am glad that no hesitation occurred to me while I wrote. It shall go—every word of it.”
He returned to his desk, sealed and addressed the letter, and placed it where it was sure to be seen in the morning, and carried to the post-office before he rose.