"None in the world, Bourhope," said Mrs. Spottiswoode, with a spasmodic smile, "why should I?"
"Why, indeed?" he returned, "or every dance? May I tell her so?"
"That is as she and you may agree. You are aware that would appear something serious," she said, trying to laugh.
"I will take the consequences," he significantly assured her, and went back and told Chrissy so, and then he drove her to her inmost citadel, and beat her there.
Other eyes than Mrs. Spottiswoode's were attracted to the pair. Half-a-dozen matrons' heads went wagging significantly; girls whispered and tittered; gentlemen opened their eyes, shaped their mouths as if about to whistle, strolled up and took their observations of the pre-occupied, unconscious couple quite coolly, and then speculated and gossiped.
Mrs. Spottiswoode read these comments as well as what had gone before, and was ready with her magnanimity. It was this which constituted her a truly able tactician. She shifted her tack before the shout of malicious exultation and ridicule could have been raised at her discomfiture. By a dexterous sleight of hand, she shuffled her cards and altered her suit. In a moment Mrs. Spottiswoode was winking and nodding with the matrons interested in the news of the night. She arrested a good-humoured yeoman, and crossed the room on his arm, to express and receive congratulations. "You have found out the secret? Foolish fellow, Bourhope; he cannot conceal his feelings, though their display is premature. I must scold him for exposing himself and her. Poor dear! she is not accustomed to this sort of thing. But I am so delighted—so nice, isn't it? Such an excellent marriage for my cousin Chrissy—a good girl, a very clever girl—such a fortunate beginning for the Blackfaulds family. I often say the first marriage makes or mars a family of girls. It is so lucky that I invited Chrissy for the yeomanry weeks this summer. It is a great deal better than if it had been Corrie, because Corrie can wait," with a careless wave of her hand in the direction in which Corrie moved, deliberately followed by her train. "Corrie has too many admirers to make up her mind speedily, yet she takes it all very quietly. But this is so appropriate—Mr. Spottiswoode's cousin and my cousin—nobody could have planned it better."
She turned round, and heard a blunt booby of a farmer speaking out his mind. She at once took him up—"You would not have thought it? Youcannot comprehend what has come over Bourhope, or what he sees in that thin, yellow mite, Miss Hunter of Blackfaulds, even though she were as good as a saint, and as wise as the Queen of Sheba? Oh! come, Balquin, you do not allow sufficient latitude to goodness and cleverness. I tell you, Bourhope has neither eyes nor ears for anybody but that mite; he counts his colourless daisy far before the gayest painted face. He knows that we are remarking on them now, and he is holding his head as high as if he had sought and won a queen. He is right; she will prove a sensible, cheerful wife to him. Bourhope will have the cleverest, best wife in the county, for all your swaggering. And that is something, when a man comes to be old and has an old wife like me. Not old, Balquin? away with you. I wish the Provost heard you. Do you think to flatter me because I am in spirits about my cousin's match? No, it is not lost that a friend gets, Balquin."
The public of Priorton did not know whether most to admire Mrs. Spottiswoode's diplomacy, or this rare instance of poetic justice.
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HE will not last ten years' time, Die; and then you will be rich and independent—the lady of Ashpound."
"Don't mention it, sir, unless you mean to tempt me to commit murder next."
The speakers in the old drawing-room of Newton-le-Moor, in the south country, thirty years ago, were Mr. Baring and his daughter Diana. He was a worn and dissipated-looking man, with a half-arrogant, half-base air—implying a whole old man of the world of a bad day gone by. He was flawless in his carving, his card-dealing, his frock-coat and tie: corrupt to the core in almost everything else. She was a tall, full-formed woman, in her flower and prime, with a fine carriage and gait, which rendered it a matter of indifference that she wore as plain and simple a muslin gown as a lady could wear. Her hair was of the pale, delicate, neutral tint which the French callblond-cendré, a little too ashen-hued for most complexions. It was not wavy hair, but very soft and pure,as if no atmosphere of turmoil and taint had ruffled or soiled it. It made Miss Baring's fresh, clear complexion a shade too bright in the carmine, which took off the greyness of the flaxen hue and relieved the cold and steel-like gleam in her grey-blue eyes. The features of the face were fine and regular, like Mr. Baring's; but instead of the handsome, aristocratic, relentless aquiline nose, which was the most striking feature in the gentleman's face, the lady's was a modified Greek nose, broad enough at the base slightly to spoil its beauty but largely to increase its intellectual significance.
The "he" of the conversation, who was not to last ten years, was Gervase Norgate of Ashpound—a poor, impulsive, weak-willed, fast-living young neighbouring squire. Unluckily for himself, he had been early left his own master, and had ridden post-haste to the dogs ever since. Suddenly he had taken it into his muddled head to pull up in his career, and, if need be, to chain and padlock, hedge and barricade himself with a wife and family, before Ashpound should be swallowed up by hungry creditors, and he had hurried himself into a forlorn grave.
Mr. Baring was willing to let him off as a pigeon to be plucked, and to use him instead as an unconscious decoy-duck in getting rid of Die; not that Mr. Baring had an unnatural aversion to his daughter, but that she was a drag upon him both for the present and the future. But Die, after one night's reflection, accepted Gervase Norgate to escape worse evil, having neither brother nor sister nor friend who would aid her. What Die did on that night; whether she merely "slept on the proposal," like a wise,well-in-hand, self-controlled woman; whether she outwatched the moon, plying herself with arguments, forcing herself to overcome her deadly sick loathing at the leap, nobody knows. If Die had learned anything worth retaining, in the shifts and shams of her life, it was perfect reticence. The result was that Gervase Norgate was coming to woo as an accepted wooer at Newton-le-Moor on the evening of the summer day when Mr. Baring confidentially assured the bride that the bridegroom would not last ten years.
Newton-le-Moor was what its name suggested, an estate won from the southern moors by other and worthier adventurers than John Fitzwilliam Baring. In his hands the place was drifting back to the original moorland. Everything, except the stables and kennels, had been suffered to go to wreck. The house was of weather-streaked white stone, in part staring and pretentious, in part prodigal and vagabondish. The drawing-room of Newton-le-Moor, like most drawing-rooms, was a commentary—more or less complete—on the life and character of its owner. If it did not represent all his practices and pursuits—his repudiation of just claims and obligations; his sleeping till noon and waking till morning, and faring sumptuously at his neighbours' expense; his fleecing of every victim who crossed his false door by borrowing, bill-discounting, horse-dealing, betting, billiards, long and short whist, and brandy-drinking—at least it painted one little peculiarity of John Fitzwilliam Baring very fairly. Not one accessory which could contribute to his comfort and enjoyment was wanting, from the exceedingly easy chair for his back,to the alabaster lamp for his eyes, and the silver pastile-burner for his nose. On the other hand, there was scarcely an article that had no special reference to John Fitzwilliam Baring which was not in the last stages of decay.
On this evening, before Gervase Norgate came up with her father from the dining-room, where he might sit too long, considering who was waiting him, Diana had her tea-table arranged, and sat down behind it as if to do its honours. She showed no symptoms of discomposure, unless that her rose-colour flickered and flushed in a manner that was not natural to it; yet she had so entrenched herself, that when Gervase Norgate entered, with an irregular, unsteady step, although as nearly sober as he ever was, she could not be touched except at arm's length, and by the tips of the fingers, over which he bowed.
Mr. Norgate was not in his flower and prime. He was not above a year or two Miss Baring's senior; but his whole being had suffered eclipse before it reached maturity, though he still showed some remains of what might have been worth preserving. His physique had been what no word interprets so fitly as the Scotch word "braw,"—not huge and unwieldy in size and strength, but manly and comely. His shoulders were still broad, though they slouched. His hand and arm were still a model, somewhat wasted and shaken, of what in muscular power and lightness a hand and arm should be. His dark brown hair, dry and scanty at five-and-twenty, still fell in waves. His eyes, dulled and dimmed, were still the kindly, magnanimous, forgiving blue eyes. His mouth had always been aheavy mouth (better at all events than a mean mouth); it was coarse now, but with strange lines of gentleness breaking in upon its tendency to violence. But his carriage, though he was pre-eminently a well-made man, was the attribute most spoilt about him. He had the blustering yet shuffling bearing of a man who is fully convinced that he has gone to the dogs, and it did not alter its expression that he was making an effort to quit his canine associates. Perhaps the effort required to be confirmed before its effects could be seen; perhaps he was not setting about the right way of redeeming himself, after all.
Mr. Baring was pompous in his high breeding—the first gentleman in Europe was pompous also. Mr. Baring brought forward his intended son-in-law as his young friend, and alluded pointedly to the summer evening and its event as an "auspicious occasion." But he was cut short by a frosty glance from Die, and a brief remark that she was not sure that this evening and its party were more auspicious than usual.
Although Miss Baring was a person of very little consequence in her father's house, she acted on Mr. Baring as a drag. Her cold looks inadvertently damped him; and she had a way, which he could not account for in his daughter, of making blunt speeches, like that on the auspicious occasion and on her being left a rich young widow, if Gervase Norgate did for himself smartly. This was discomfiting even to a man who piqued himself on his resources in conversation. Die had uttered twice as many of these abrupt, unamiable, unanswerable rejoinders withinthese twenty-four hours, since she had accepted Gervase Norgate's hand.
Whatever Mr. Baring thought of the rebuff, he was above exhibiting any sign of his feelings, and no one could have refused him the tribute of consideration for the position of his companions, as he blandly announced that he had the day's 'Chronicle' to read, and begged to be excused for accomplishing the task before post-time. He retired to sip his tea and disappear behind the folds of his newspaper. It was the first evening for a dozen years that he had not handled cue or fingered cards.
Gervase Norgate, assuming his character of a man about to amend his ways, marry, and settle, sat by Die Baring. He noted and summed up the girl's good points, as no man in love ever yet did. She was a finer-looking woman than he had supposed,—one to be proud of as he presented her to his friends as his wife; pity that he had so few creditable friends left now! He could think of none at that moment except his strong-minded old Aunt Tabby, who had some sneaking kindness for him in the middle of her scorn, and his old man, Miles. Die Baring would not tolerate his boon companions—not that he wanted her to tolerate them; she would not suit for his mistress and manager if she did; though where she got her niceness—seeing what her father was up to in cool, barefaced scampishness, in horse-flesh, bones, and pasteboard—he could not tell.—She was a capable woman he was certain, if she got a fair field for her capability. She was clever: anybody with half an eye or an ear might recognize that. And she would want all her cleverness—ay, and her will and temper—for what she would have to do. But she had undertaken the task, and it was not much to the purpose that if she had not been the daughter of a disreputable spendthrift she would doubtless as lief have touched live coals as have submitted to be his wife. Ah, well, it was his luck in his last toss-up, and he had never been lucky before; yet he had never felt so great a reluctance to conclude his engagement of twenty-four hours, and clinch his repentance, as he did at this moment. It was good for him that he stood committed. But why had he not sought out some humble, meek lass, who would still have looked up to him and reckoned him not quite such a reprobate, but believed that there was some good left in him, and liked him a little for himself—not married him to suit her own book and save him for her own sake, if it were possible? Why had he not chosen a simple pet lamb, in place of a proud heifer who scarcely took the trouble to conceal from him how it galled her neck to put it into his yoke? Psha! he would break any poor heart with his incorrigible wildness and beastly sottishness in a month's time. A woman without a heart; a good, hard-mouthed, strong-pulling, well-wearing woman,—honest, and a lady; a handsome, superior woman, and far beyond his deserts, was the wife for him.
Gervase pursued this line of thought; but he spoke to Miss Baring, after a little introductory flourish about the weather, his ride from Ashpound, and the embroidery which she had taken up, in a different strain.
"You have shown a great, I must say an unmerited, trust in me, Miss Baring—Diana: but I mean—I swear Imean to do the best I can for you and myself. I have thought better of the life I have been leading; I shall turn over a new leaf, and be another man if you will help me."
The confession was fatally facile, like most confessions, but it was sincere, and not without its touching element, which, however, did not reach her.
She replied, without being greatly moved, and corrected what might be a slight misconception on his part: "I am quite aware, Mr. Norgate, that you have been rather wild; but since you mean to do better, I am willing to try you and to be your wife."
Diana's candid acquiescence had the same disconcerting influence upon Gervase that her speeches had on her father, unlike as the men were: it struck him dumb when he should have overwhelmed her with thanks. After a while he recovered himself, took heart of grace, and blundered out that he was grateful,—a happy man; would she not say Gervase, when she was having him altogether?
"I suppose I may," acceded Diana, with a hard smile. "There, Gervase—it is not hard to say," as if she were humouring him.
He did not ask for any more favours or rights, but maundered a little on nobody calling him Gervase for many a day except his aunt Tabby, and she contracted it to Jarvie, which had a stage-coach flavour.
"Tell me something about your aunt Tabby. Do you know, I have not visited an aunt since I was a little girl of ten?" This afforded him an opening more naturally and pleasantly, and the two went off on Aunt Tabby instead of accomplishing more courtship, and got on a little better. Diverging from Aunt Tabby to her place, and from her place to Ashpound, they went on with mention of Gervase's factotum, Miles, and discussed capabilities and future arrangements with wonderful common sense.
Mr. Baring swallowed his last gape over his 'Chronicle,' concluded that the couple had surely had their swing of private conversation for one night, and resolved to curtail the courtship to the shortest decorous bounds. So Mr. Baring looked at his watch, and said quite lovingly to Gervase: "My boy, when I do act the family man, I do the thing thoroughly, by supping in my dressing-room at eleven. What! you are off? A pleasant ride to you. You will receive your orders from Die, I fancy, when to report yourself in attendance. To-morrow is it, or next day? Make yourself at home, my dear fellow. Happy to think that you are going to be one of us—a son for me to be proud of. Good-night. God bless you."
Thus the preliminaries to the alliance ended with Gervase bowing again over the tips of Die's fingers. He had not the smallest inclination to raise them to his lips.
"I will do my duty by him," said Diana to herself, when she was in the sanctuary of her own bare room. And what a poor sanctuary it had been! "It may be bad in me to have him, but what can I do? and what can he do, for that matter? If I do my duty by him, surely some good will come of it." Perhaps her imagination was haunted by a garbled version of the text about him who turns a sinner from the error of his ways and covers a multitude of sin.
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"She's a fine woman the mistress, a rare fine woman; but she's going the wrong way. It's the cart before the horse, and I tell you it's not conformable; and the master, God help him, poor fellow, will never be brought to go at the tail of the cart—never." So ruminated Gervase Norgate's old servant, Miles, pushing back the tufts of ragged red hair on his long head ruefully, as he sat "promiscuous" in what he was pleased to call his pantry at Ashpound, while he contemplated with the eye of the body his chamois skin for what he proudly denominated his silver, and with the eye of the mind the new régime and its ruling spirit.
"She's a fine woman," remarked also of her new niece, Miss Tabitha Norgate, of Redwells. "She's a fine woman, a great deal too good for him; but she oughtn't to have gone and married Jarvie, or to have married anybody, there's the long and the short of it. She ought to have remained single, like me. She was made to stand alone, while he wanted a woman and as many children as she could muster to hang round his neck—the liker a millstone the better,—he won't drown: he could not take the straight road without a weight to ballast him and keep him steady. If he had consulted me, I would have advised him to marry that dawdling, whimpering Susie Lefroy, the widowed daughter of the Vicar, with her unprovided-for orphans. Jarvie might have stepped into a young family at once, and he would have been a kind stepfather—he might have righted himself then. To go and marrya clever, active, handsome, well-born woman like Die Baring. Oh! dear, dear, what folly!"
In spite of her critics, Mrs. Gervase Norgate spared no pains to acquit herself of her obligation, and to discharge her debt at Ashpound. Ashpound was a much more exhilarating residence than Newton-le-Moor. At Newton-le-Moor the desolation of prodigality and immorality was objective and deductive. At Ashpound the desolation was subjective and inductive, a plague-spot within; and although the flush of decay was visible, Gervase would struggle against it to the last. He would make an effort to preserve the pleasant, rambling, mellow brick house, most of it one-storied and draped with jessamine and clematis as old as the building; the belt of ash-trees round the ferny dells of the little park; and the whitewashed offices, in excellent repair; the well cared for cattle and poultry-yard; the amply-stocked, flourishing gardens; the pretty gardener's house and lodge—the prettiest things about the place, as his father had left them to him. To the last Gervase would aim at keeping up the place, to his mother's drawing-room, his father's study, Miles's pantry and cellar, even the modern housekeeper's room, and the maids' gallery, in comfort and pleasantness. Only his own rooms—dining-room, smoking-room, bedroom—had been suffered to show traces of many a brawl and fray. It was as if he had deemed anything good enough for a scapegrace and beast like him, and thought to pay the whole price in his own person. It would not be with his will if any other person, high or low, contributed to his heavy forfeits. And Gervase Norgate's servants, new as well asold, had a pitiful liking for him, a remorseful regard for his interests, even when these clashed with their own. So when Gervase had removed the traces, repaired the damages, and taken the decisive step of forbidding the inroads of his evil associates, Mrs. Gervase Norgate found a peaceful, prosperous-seeming, as well as fair, country home awaiting her.
Neither did Mrs. Gervase Norgate droop or mope; she was alive to every advantage, alert to improve every opportunity. Frankly she praised the house at Ashpound, which she had formerly known at the distance of common acquaintanceship, but now knew in the nearness of home, from garret to cellar. "What a well-seasoned, kindly dwelling you have here, Gervase. How I like the windows opening down to the floors, the creeping plants, the hall window-seats, and the attics with their pigeon-hole bureaux." She made herself familiar with its details, and she flattered its old occupants with the extent of her intimacy and appreciation. She did not let the grass grow beneath her feet in learning and acquiring its owner's habits. Early rising had been one of the good old country habits which had stuck to Gervase. And not a dairymaid at Ashpound was up and abroad at so primitive an hour as its mistress, ready to walk with the Squire to his horses' stalls and paddocks, his cattle sheds, his game preserves, his workpeople in the fields; anywhere but to the sign of the 'Spreading Ash-tree,' in the village of Ash-cum-thorpe, for his morning draught.
"Well-a-day," cried Dolly; "I would not be the mistress, to rise and go to her work afore the stroke of six,and she a fine lady born and bred, for all the hats and feathers, table heads, and carriage-seats in this here world. If I ever have a word to say to Luke Jobling, I know it will be with an eye to a good long lie in the morning when he has gone to his mowing or his reaping. How Madam does it without ever drooping an eyelid, none of us can tell; but they do say the gentlefolks are as strong as steel when they like to put out their strength; happen it is the high living as gives it to them. I know Madam puts us to our mettle here. And lawk! the Squire, he's as restless and lost like as a new weaned calf. Eh! I had liefer have the holding-in of a senseless calf, though I had not Luke to help me with the bars of the gates, than the holding in of a full-grown, whole-witted man. But the poor mistress—them as don't know the rights of a thing calls her saucy—young lady though she be, she do work hard for her place and living, she do, since she has got Master Gervase and Ashpound."
Anticipating her husband's commands, Diana was ever ready to bear him company, to share his engagements and amusements, walking, riding, shooting, fishing, playing billiards, cribbage, bowls, racket, backgammon, draughts, for hours on a stretch; to go abroad attending the market and doing banking business at Market Hesketh, dining out with the Vicar or with any country host save Mr. Baring—Mrs. Gervase Norgate setting her face against the paternal hospitalities—dancing at the county balls as one of the leaders. She did not seem to know what weariness meant. She would trudge whole half-days with him and the keepers, after luncheon, beating the plantations andpacing the turnip-fields to start and bring down birds, and she would be sauntering with him on the terrace and in the park after dinner all the same. She would be in the saddle ten hours during a long day's hunt, as the autumn advanced and the meets assembled, and within an hour of alighting at the door of Ashpound, she would have exchanged muddy bottle-green or Waterloo blue cloth for glistening white satin, and be stepping into the carriage with Gervase to be present at one of their wedding parties.
There was something positively great in the intentness with which the woman pursued her end of the man's salvation; the vigilance with which she ever kept sight of the wounded quarry she was to rescue and to restore. The neighbourhood watched the struggle with interest, admiration, hostile criticism, not very delicate diversion. Only to John Fitzwilliam Baring the struggle was a matter of indifference—rather of repugnance. He would have liked Die to be more feminine and more helpless.
Would Die slacken in her energy and devotion? Would Gervase be able to bear his cure much longer?
Beyond the honeymoon, and with the feeling decidedly growing, Gervase Norgate was gratified by his wife's sacrifice of herself in every respect, and long before he grew accustomed to it and felt easy under it, he was touched by it. He liked her company too, for he was fond of society, and had been lonely since his father and mother died. She was an observant, intelligent woman, high-minded and pure-hearted, and vastly superior to his late satellites. She was eager to suit herself to him, and made herself asfree with him as she could be, as far as he knew, with any one. At this season Gervase Norgate was attracted to something warmer, sweeter, more intimate in their intercourse. He enjoyed her quick remarks and shrewd conclusions. He was pleased with, and proud of the new blossoming of her beauty under the combined influences of an open-air life, constant occupation, and a powerful object. He was willing to wait till more tender feelings should awaken between them. It looked as if Gervase Norgate had turned over a new leaf: his cheek lost its dull, engrained red, or its pallor; his lips grew firmer; his eyes clearer and cooler; he raised his head, and threw off something of the slouch of his shoulders and the swing and uncertainty of his walk.
"How well you look in that pretty dress, Diana!" he would say; "I declare you are as brave a figure as any in my Lord's picture-gallery. Let me fetch you a cluster of monthly roses, though I am not fit to hold the candle to you." Or, "Come, Die, let us have a stroll and a smoke in the garden." Or, "Sit still for another game, will you? My hand is just in and my luck beginning. I know you are never tired. Mrs. Gervase, you are a trump—the ace of trumps."
Ignorant spectators might have set them down for a good, happy, well-met young couple, with regard to whom it would be simply and equally appropriate to wish "God bless them."
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Diana did not slacken in her devotion, but there came alimit to the endurance of Gervase. The gleam of success was but the gleam before the overcast.
First, Gervase was conscious of being nettled by the distance which existed between him and Diana. And certainly, to be sensible of his arm being arrested by an unseen obstacle when he thought to put it round his own wife's waist, to collapse in the mere idea of asking her to give him a kiss, never to have felt so fully the dissipated, degraded fool he had been, as he felt then, was not a pleasant sensation. It may sound immoral, but it seemed as if, had Gervase been more depraved, there would have been more hope for him, since he would have appreciated the gulf between him and his guardian less.
Then the old craving returned like a death thirst. The old, wild, worthless, low companions, were cognisant, as if by instinct, of a relapse. Eager to hail its signs, and profit by them, they waylaid him at the 'Spreading Ash,' with "Hey, don't you dare to swallow a single glass in your own village, to give custom to your villager, man?" They waylaid and gathered round him in the market-place of Market Hesketh, with "Well met, Mr. Gervase Norgate. Lord! are you alive still? for we had doubted it. Don't speak to him to detain him, you fellows; don't you see Mrs. Gervase has her eye upon him, and is craning her neck to discover what is keeping him? Off with you, sir, since you are a husband, a reformed rake, and a church-goer. If you had gone and joined the Methodists, you might have been a preacher yourself by this time. Oh! we don't want to spoil sport and balk your good intentions; but, by George, Gervase, we never thought you wouldhave been the man to be tied so tight to a woman's apron-string. You must spare us one more carouse for old friendship's sake, my boy, just to try what it is like again, and hear all the news. Ah! your teeth are watering; come along; Madam is not to swallow you up entirely."
They got him away from his wife, and made him leave her sitting an hour in the carriage, with a pair of young horses pawing and rearing and endangering her very life in the yard of the 'Crown.' They made him send her home without him, and kept him till they had nothing more to say than "Heave the poor devil into a gig, and drive him up to his own door and put him down there. It is the best you can do for him,—the fool was always so easily upset; and it will do for her at the same time—give her something to hold her cursed high white head in the air and turn up her nose for; serve her impudence right for taking it upon her to act as private policeman to Jarvie." They sent him home to her, a beast who had been with wild beasts. They did it for the most part heedlessly, in jollity and jeering; but they did it not the less effectually. The wild beast of sensuality had him again; not one devil, but seven, had entered into him; and reigning king over the others, an insensate devil of cruel jealousy of his wife, of his gaoler, resenting her efforts, defying her pains.
Diana did not take Gervase Norgate's backsliding to her very heart, was not wounded to death by it as if she had loved him. But she did not give him up. She was a tenacious woman, and Gervase Norgate's salvation was her one chance of moral redemption from the base barterof her marriage. She did not reproach him: she was too proud a woman, too cold to him, to goad and sting him by reproaches. They might have served her end better than the terrible aggravation of her silence. She was just too, and she did not accuse him unduly. She said to herself, "He is a poor, misguided fellow, a brute where drink is concerned: when I married him, that was as clear as day. I have no right to complain, though he resume his bad courses." Still she left no stone unturned; she was prepared, as before, to ride and walk and play with him at all hours; she ignored his frequent absences and the condition in which he came back, as far as possible. She abetted old Miles in clearing away, silently and swiftly, the miserable evidences of mischief. She smuggled out of sight, and huddled into oblivion, battered hats, broken pipes and sticks, stopperless flasks, cracked, smoky lanterns—concealing them with a decent, decorous, sacred duplicity even from Aunt Tabby, who trotted across the country on her father's old trotting mare, took her observations, and departed, shaking her head and moralizing on the text, "Cast not your pearls before swine."
Diana sat at her forlorn post in the billiard-room, or by the cribbage-board, or at the piano which Gervase had got for her. She had some small skill to play and sing to him, and was indefatigable in learning the simple tunes and songs he liked. And night after night she was left alone, unapproached, uncalled for; or else Gervase stumbled in from the dining-room or from an adjournment to the village tavern, where he was the acknowledged king and emperor, bemussed, befumed, giddy, hilarious, piteouslymaudlin, or deliriously furious. She stooped to smile and answer his random ravings and to comply with his demands. If she escaped actual outrage and injury in his house and hers, it was not because she did not provoke him, for there was nothing in his wife which Gervase hated so heartily, resented so keenly, as her refraining from contradicting him. But below the grossness and sin of the poor lout and caitiff there was a fund of sullen, latent manliness and kindness, which held him back from insulting the defenceless woman—for all her pride and purity—who was his wife, just as it had held him back from dallying with and caressing her as his mistress.
The neighbourhood which had furnished both a dress-circle and a pit to witness Diana's spectacle, was not astonished at the fate of the adventure. Its success would have been little short of a miracle, and these were not the days of faith in miracles; so the neighbourhood did not pity Mrs. Gervase Norgate, for she had been foolhardy at the best, and her fortune or misfortune had only been what ought to have been expected. For that matter Mrs. Gervase Norgate would not have thanked the world for its pity, though it had been lavishly vouchsafed.
There was one point on which Diana did not hesitate to contradict Gervase, and persisted in contradicting him. She would not suffer him, if she could help it, to frequent Newton-le-Moor, or to consort with Mr. Baring. For to go to Newton-le-Moor was to go among the Philistines; and lawless as Gervase was in his own person, it should never be with his wife's consent that he should go and be plundered by her own flesh and blood—his errors rendering him but a safer and a surer prey.
Gervase was standing restless and indignant by the low bow-window of his wife's drawing-room, opening on the flower-garden, which had been laid out in their honeymoon, and in which she continued to take pleasure, though the wealth of glowing autumn geraniums and verbenas had given place to the few frosted winter chrysanthemums. It was but the middle of the day, and he had risen and had his cup of tea laced with brandy and crowned with brandy, so that the jaded man was comparatively fresh, but irritable to the last nerve, each jarring nerve twanging like harpstrings, sending electric thrills of vexation and rage over his whole body at the cross of every straw.
Diana, who had been up and busy for hours, was sitting at her desk; her brow, whatever cares lurked behind it, unruffled and white; a seemly, reasonable, refined woman, aggrieved every day she lived, but scorning to betray a knowledge of the grievance.
"Don't go to Newton, above all by yourself, Gervase," the wife was entreating, gravely and earnestly. "I am afraid my father may take the opportunity of trying to get money from you. He has entered horses for the Thorpe stakes: he will seek to make you enter them, and you told me yourself May and Highflyer were not fit to run this year. Or he will seek to lead you into some other transaction in horse-flesh, or have you into the house to play billiards and remain to dinner and cards all night, and there is always high play at Newton. My father is a needy man, and needy men are tempted to be unscrupulous; at least his code implies few scruples, where the letter of the laws of honour is complied with."
"It comes ill off your hand to say so," observed Gervase harshly. Undoubtedly he spoke no more than the truth, and such a life as Gervase Norgate's was not a school for magnanimity.
Die winced a little; and she was a woman whose fair cheek so rarely blushed, that her blushing was like another woman's crying. Die never cried; Gervase Norgate had never wrung a tear from her, or seen her shed a tear.
"Well, it was hard for me to say it," she admitted, with an accent of reproach in her equable tones; "but there the wrong and the shame are, and I owe it to myself and to you to warn you."
"I wonder how much I owe your being here to Newton-le-Moor being little better than a not very reputable gambling-house," exclaimed Gervase rudely.
She looked at him with her wide-open eyes, as if she had been struck, but did not care to own the blow.
"It was not to much profit where you were concerned," he continued, in an infatuation of brutality; "it did not get you so much as a pocket-handkerchief, or a flower-garden like that down there, or," glancing round him, "trumpery hangings and mirrors, and a new gown or two, or any other of the miserable trash for which women sell themselves."
She neither spoke nor stirred.
He had worked himself into a blindness of rage, in which he could see nothing before him but the possibility of moving her, of breaking down and destroying her calm front.
"And I wonder how much you owe your being hereto my being a prodigal clutching at any respite? You may well come down lightly on my faults, Madam; they have made you the mistress of Ashpound in the present, and won for you its widow's jointure in the future. If I had known all beforehand, I might not have encumbered myself in vain. As it is, I do not think it becomes you to lecture me on keeping company with your own father."
She got up and left the room.
It was time, when all was lost, even honour. If he had not been himself, she might have passed over his taunts with simple shame and disgust; but given, as they were, when she held that he knew what he was saying—as a proof that he had not a particle of respect and regard for her after their months of wedlock, they were a certain indication of his ruin and her reward.
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"Poor Mrs. Gervase Norgate, she must have been so put about to have to go away with her husband last night. How the scamp got into the drawing-room I cannot tell; but he could do nothing but lean against the wall: he could not have bitten his fingers to save his life. She did not show her mortification unless by going away immediately. A wonderful amount of countenance has that poor young woman; but I take it she will not go out with him again if she can help it—and she need not, she need not, Lady Metcalfe. I can tell you he shall not be asked within my doors again; but I shall be very glad if youwill always remember to send her a card, poor thing: she can go out without him, it must come to that eventually. It is not a mere kindness; she is really a credit and an ornament to your parties, to the county set altogether. But the sooner she learns to go out without him, and keep him in the background, the better for all parties. She has the command of a good income still, with a very tolerable jointure behind it, and Ashpound is a pretty place; not a fine place, like my lord's, but a very pretty place for a sensible woman's management and enjoyment."
One of Gervase Norgate's oldest neighbours, a fussy but good-natured, middle-aged baronet, pronounced this judgment.
There was nothing left for Diana but to resign Gervase to his fate, and gather up the gains which were left her. The most impartial authorities decided so. The gains would have sufficed for many a woman. Mrs. Gervase Norgate had comparative riches, after the cash scramble in which she had been brought up. Gervase had not succeeded in wasting above one-third of his fortune, and would doubtless end his career before he made away with the whole. Mrs. Gervase was the mistress of Ashpound, and most people would have valued it as what newspapers describe as a most desirable residence, a most eligible investment. If she ever had a child—a son, though she shuddered at the idea,—he would be the young Squire, the heir of Ashpound. In the meantime, Gervase Norgate was not a churl: he did not dream of stinting his wife in her perquisites, though he was not fond of her, and they now no longer lived comfortably together. She might have out his mother's carriage every day, or she might have another built for her, and drive it with a pair of ponies if she chose; she had a well-bred, fine-mounted, thin-legged, glossy-coated saddle-horse kept for her sole use, and she might have a second bred and broken for her any year she liked. She could even employ her own discretion in the income to be spent in the housekeeping. Ready money was becoming short with him; but his sense of her rights, and his faith in her prudence, had not failed. She had only to draw on his banker or agent to have her draught honoured. Whatever sums she might devote to her personal pleasures, her prodigal husband would not call in question. She might indulge in fine clothes, recherché jewellery, embellishments and ornaments for her rooms; she might take up art or literature, or heaths, or melons, or poultry, or flannel petticoating and soup-making for the poor (Sunday-schools and district visiting were hardly in fashion), and pursue one, or other, or all, for occupation and amusement, without impairing her resources; and she claimed a very respectable circle of friends as Mrs. Gervase Norgate, though she had been friendless, and getting always more friendless, as Miss Baring. The world had put its veto on the risk of her marriage with Gervase Norgate, in so far as its excusable element—the reformation of Gervase Norgate—was concerned; but with commendable elasticity it had allowed itself to be considerably influenced by the advantages which the marriage had obtained and secured for Diana, as well as by her conduct in their possession, and had awarded her the diploma of its esteem. A handsome, ladylike, sensible,well-disposed, sufficiently-agreeable, though quiet young matron, almost too wise and forbearing for her years, was its verdict. It was wonderful how well she had turned out, considering how she had been exposed; for every one knew John Fitzwilliam Baring, and how little fitted he was for the care of a motherless daughter. The more tender-hearted and sentimental world began to look upon Mrs. Gervase Norgate's bad husband, whom she had married in the face of his offence, as one of her merits,—a chief merit, to make of her a popular victim and martyr, no matter that she was not naturally constituted for therôle, was not frank enough for popularity, not meek enough for martyrdom.
Even Miss Tabitha, who had still a friendly feeling for the culprit, had nothing to say against Mrs. Gervase, except that she was too good for him. Poor Miles listened wistfully for his master's reeling step, and went out in the night air, risking his rheumatism, for which Mr. Gervase had always cared, making sure that the old boy had a screen to his pantry, and shutters to his garret. He watched lest his master should make his bed of the cold ground and catch a deadly chill; caring for the besotted man, when he found him, with reverence and tenderness, as for the chubby boy who had bidden so fair to be a good and happy man, worthy of all honour, when Miles had first known him as his young master. Miles resented feebly the perishing of the forlorn hope of a rescue, and muttered fatuously the cart had been put before the horse, and the reins taken out of the whip hand, and that'd never do. What could come of the unnatural process but a crashing spill?
Diana could not accept the solution. Nineteen women out of twenty, who had acted as she had done, would have taken the compensations, perhaps been content with the indemnifications of her lot; but Diana was the twentieth. Whether the cost of his mercenary marriage was far beyond what she had estimated it, she lost heart and hope and heed of the world's opinion, and was on the high road to loss of conscience, from the moment she was convinced that Gervase Norgate was lost.
Diana gave up going into the society which was so willing to welcome her, which thought so well of her. She relinquished all pride in personal dignity and propriety, as she had never done when she had locked her doors to shut out the jingling rattle of the bones, and, occasionally, the curses, not loud but deep, which broke in upon the repose of the long nights at Newton-le-Moor. She ceased to exert herself to regulate the expenditure of the house, to preserve its respectability, to wipe out the signs of its master's ruin. Old Miles might strive to keep up appearances, but his mistress no longer aided and abetted him. It had become a matter of indifference to Mrs. Gervase whether the dragged carpet, the wrenched-down curtain, the shattered chair, were removed or repaired, or not: she took no notice.
By the time Ashpound was budding in spring, Mrs. Gervase Norgate had fallen away, and changed rapidly for the worse, to the disappointment and with the condemnation of her acquaintances. She lay in bed half the morning, dawdled over her breakfast, and trailed her way from place to place, ageing too, with marvellous celerity.
Sunk in the mire as Gervase was, he noted the transformation in his wife with discomposure and vexation. It fretted him always, and infuriated him at times, to discover that she was likely to justify his contempt by proving a poor wife after all. Her rule ended, her energy exhausted, given over to an unprincipled, destructive listlessness and, carelessness, such a prospect did not make Gervase amend the error of his ways: but it caused his road to ruin to be harder to tread, it caused the fruits of his vice to be more bitter between his teeth, it drove him at times to reflect when it was madness to reflect. She would not take the luxuries which she had bought dearly, which he wanted her to take. Her person, drawing-room, flower-garden were fast showing neglect and cheerlessness, in spite of him, or to spite him, as he vowed savagely. Here was his sin cropping out and meeting him in the life of another, and that other a woman. She was going to ruin with him as truly and faithfully as if they had been a pair of fond lovers. The shy goodwill of Gervase Norgate's early married life had waned into discontent and dislike, and was fast settling into rooted hatred.
"Lawk!" Dolly the dairymaid reflected indignantly, "Madam is become as careless and trolloping-like as master is wild. If we don't take care, no one will continue to call on us and hinvite us with our equals. For that matter, the mistress has denied herself to every morning caller this spring, and it is my opingen she never so much as sends hapologies to them dinner cards as she twists into matches. If it were me, now, wouldn't I cut a dash of myself? She didn't care a bit of cheese-curd for him,folks say, when she had him to begin with, so why she should pine for his misdeeds now, is more than I can compass."
It was on a clear, fragrant evening in June, when the world was all in flower, that a whispering, and pulling of skirts and sleeves, and throwing up of hands and eyes, arose among the servants at Ashpound, at a sight that was seen there. The servants' hall were gathered secretly at a side-door and a lobby-window, and were watching Mrs. Gervase Norgate feeling her way, like a blind woman, her tall figure bent down, crouched together, swaying, along the pleached alley from the garden.
One or two of the more sensitive of the women covered their faces and wrung their hands. Old Miles tugged at his tufts of red hair and smote his hands together distractedly. The new shame was too open for concealment; he could only cry, "God ha' mercy; there is not one to mend another; what will we do?"
As living among men and women given up to delusions begets delusions in rational minds with a dire infectiousness, so living with Gervase Norgate, and day by day regarding the evil which could not be stayed, Diana had caught the fell disease.
A whisper of the culminating misfortunes of Ashpound spread abroad like wild-fire, soon ceased to be a whisper, and became a loud scandal; and Diana lost her credit as summarily as she had acquired it. It was—"That wretched Mrs. Gervase Norgate came of an evil stock, though drinking was not Mr. Baring's vice. They were an ill-fated race, these Barings, with a curse—the curse of ruined men—upon them. Who knew, indeed, but if poor Gervase Norgate, come of honest people at least, had gone into another family—one which he could have respected, which could have shown him a good example and remonstrated with him with authority—he might have been reclaimed?"
About the middle of summer there came a seasonably rainy period, such as frequently precedes a fine harvest. But Gervase Norgate was so ailing that he could not go out and look at his fields, where the corn in the ear was filling rarely, and the growth of second clover was knee-deep. He was forced to keep the house. He loathed food, and his sleep had become a horror to him. He had fits of deadly sickness and of shaking like an aspen. His only resource, all the life that was left to him, was to be found in his cellar; and even Miles, seeing his master's extremity, brought out and piteously pressed the brandy upon him.
Gervase's cronies had never come about his house since his marriage. There had been something in Diana which had held them at arm's length; and although they had heard and scoffed at her fall, they had not the wit to discern that it clean removed the obstacle to their harbouring about the place as they had done before her reign and abdication. They might come and go now by day and night without feeling themselves too much for Mrs. Gervase Norgate, or being compelled to regard her as a being apart from them. But they did not comprehend the bearing of the common degradation, and they had not returned to their haunt as they might have done.
Gervase had declined into such a state of fractiousness and sullenness, that he was very poor company even for illiterate country-bred men like himself. He was something of a ghastly spectacle, as he sat there, with his glass three-fourths empty, and part of its contents spilt around him, trying to smoke, trying to warm himself, with the soles of his boots burnt from being pressed on the top of the wood fire, his teeth chattering, at intervals, notwithstanding, as he cast furtive, dark glances behind him.
Gervase was alone. Mrs. Gervase was dozing on a drawing-room couch, not troubling to order a fire, though the room was on the ground-floor,—a pleasant room in sunshine, but looking dull and dismal in wet and gloom. She had lain there all the evening, with her hair, tumbled by the posture, fallen down and straying in dim tresses on her shoulders.
Overcome by illness, Gervase at last defied his shrinking from his room and bed, and retired for the night. His uneven footsteps and the closing of his door had not long sounded through the house, which might have been so cheery and was so dreary and silent, when Mrs. Gervase, cold and comfortless, rose and proceeded to the study. She was drawn by the fire and the light, but she was drawn more irresistibly by the subtle, potent odour in the air. She came on like a sleep-walker. She sank down in the chair which her husband had occupied, and stretched out her fine white hand to the decanters which Miles had not removed. She had raised one, and was about to pour its contents into a glass, when a noise at the door startled her, and caused her to hold her arm suspended. Gervase, returning for the bottle she grasped, stood in the doorway.
Ruined husband and ruined wife confronted each other on their stained hearthstone. His weakness, replaced by failing strength, gathered up and increased tenfold by horror and rage. Her eyes glared defiance, and her presence there, in her white dress, with the crimson spots on each cheek, and the fair hair scattered around her, was a presence of ominous beauty, the hectic beauty of the fall. A feather's weight might have turned the scale whether Gervase should totter forward and deal Diana a deadly blow which should finish the misfortunes of that generation at Ashpound, and brand Ashpound itself with the inhuman mark of an awful crime; or whether he should melt in his misery, weep a man's scalding tears, and bemoan their misery together. Diana's words were the feather's weight: she broke God's unbearable silence, and by God's power and mercy saved both. She cried out, not so much in self-defence, for she was a daring, intrepid woman, as in righteous accusation, "You dare not blame me, for you taught me, you brought me to it."
Through his undone condition he owned the truth of the accusation, and the old spring of manliness in him welled up to protect the woman who spoke the truth and impeached him justly of her ruin as well as his own.
"No, I dare not blame you. We are two miserable sinners, Die." And he let his arms fall on the table and bowed his head over them.
He had spared her, he had not taunted her, and he had not called her Die for many a day before. She put downthe decanter and cowered back with a sense of guilt which made her glowing beauty pale, fade, wither, like the sere leaf washed by the heavy tears of a November night's rain.
When Gervase Norgate lifted up his bent head again, all the generosity that had ever looked out of his comely face reappeared in its changed features for a moment. "I have smitten you when you came and tried to cure me, Die. And I cannot cure myself. I believe, before God, if I can get no more drink, I shall go to-night; but I shall go soon, anyhow, no mistake, and I ought to do something to save you, when I brought you to it. So, do you see, Die? here go the drink and me together." And with that he took up the decanters and dashed them, one after the other, on the hearthstone, the wine and brandy running like life-blood in bubbling red streams across the floor. He summoned Miles, and demanded his keys—all the keys of closet and cellar in the house. And when the old man, flustered and scared, did not venture to dispute his will, he caught up the keys, cast them into the white core of the wood-fire, piled the blazing logs upon them, and stamped them down, sending showers flying up the wide chimney.
Then the blaze of passion died away from Gervase's brow, the force of self-devotion ebbed out of him, his unfastened vest and shirt collar did not allow him air enough, and he fell back, gasping and quaking and calling the devils were upon him.
Old Miles wrung his hands, and shouted "Help," and cried the Master was dying, was dead.
But Diana pushed the old servant aside, put her arms round Gervase, and raised him on her breast, telling him, "Do not think of dying for me, Gervase; I am not worthy. You must not die, I will not have you die. Oh, God! spare him till I kneel at his feet and beg him to forgive all my disdainful pity, and we repent together."
Gervase Norgate did not die that night: it might have been easier for him if he had, for he lay, sat, walked in the sunshine deadly sick for months. When men like him are saved, it is only as by fire, by letting a part of the penal fire pass over them, and enduring, as David did, the pains of hell.
But all the time Die did not leave him. Night and day she stood by him, renouncing her own sin for ever. She shared vicariously its revolting anguish and agonizing fruits, in his pangs. And the woman learned to love the man as she would have learned to love a child whom she had tended every hour for what looked like a lifetime, whom she had brought back from a horrible disease and from the brink of the grave, to whose recovery she had given herself body and soul, in a way she had never dreamt of when she first undertook the task. She had lulled him to sleep as with cradle songs, she had fed him with her hands, ministered to him with her spirit. She learned to love him exceedingly.
Other summer suns shone on Ashpound. Gervase and Diana had come back from a lengthened sojourn abroad. Gervase, going on a visit to his faithful old Aunt Tabby, looked behind him, to say, half-shamefacedly, half-yearningly, "I wish you would come with me, Die; I do notthink I can pay the visit without you." And she exclaimed, with a little laugh, beneath which ran an undercurrent of feeling, still and deep, "Ah! you see you cannot do without me, sir." And he rejoined, laughing too, but a little wistfully, "I wish I could flatter myself that you could not do without me, madam."
She assured him, with a sudden sedateness which hid itself shyly on his breast, "Of course I could not do without you to save me from being a pillar of salt, to make me a loving, happy woman."
"God help you, happy Die!"
"Yes, Gervase; it is those who have been tried that can be trusted, and I have been in the deep pit, and all clogged with the mire along with you, and He who brought us out will not suffer us to fall back and be lost after all."
The neighbours about Ashpound were slow to discover, as erring men and women are always slow to discover, that God is more merciful than they, and that he can bring good out of evil, light out of darkness; but they discovered it at last, and, after a probation, took Mr. and Mrs. Gervase Norgate back into society and its esteem and regard, and the family at Ashpound became eventually as well considered, and as much sought after in friendship and marriage, as any family among the southern moors, long after John Fitzwilliam Baring had dressed for dinner, and taken a fit with a cue in his hand.
As for Aunt Tabby and old Miles, they said, "All's well that ends well." But old Miles stood out stubbornly, "That it is not a many carts afore the horses as comes inat the journey's end, and it ain't dootiful-like in them when they does do it, though I'm content." And Aunt Tabby argued, "It is shockingly against morality to conclude that her fall—and who'd have thought a strong woman like her would fall?—has been for his rising again."
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MISS WEST, I will thank you to see that the school-books and the school-work are in their proper places, and the school-room locked for the holidays."
The speaker, Miss Sandys, was the proprietor of Carter Hill School, and Miss West was the governess. The season was Christmas, and the children, without an exception, had departed rejoicing.
With a sense of liberty as keen as the children's, but with a glee of a decidedly soberer kind, Miss West executed the commission, and then took her place beside her superior at the parlour-fire.
Miss Sandys was quite an elderly woman. She was over fifty, and had grown grey in the service. Her features, even in her prime, had been gaunt, like the rest of her person. But she had mellowed with age, and had become what the Germans callcharakteristisch, and what we may term original and sagacious. She dressed well—that is, soberly and substantially—in soft wools or strong silks, as she possibly did not find it easy to do in her youth. She was stately, if somewhat stiff, in her deportment. At present she felt intoxicated at the prospect of enjoying for ten days the irresponsibility of private life.
Miss West had not by any means attained the Indian summer of Miss Sandys; she was still in the more trying transition stage. In spite of the shady hollows in the cheeks, and the haggard lines about the mouth, she was a young woman yet. Indeed, had it not been for those hollows and lines, she would have been pretty—as she was when the clear cheeks had no wanness in their paleness, but were round and soft; when the straight mouth pouted ever so little, and the sharp eyes were bright, and the fine dark hair was profuse instead of scanty. But she laid no claim to prettiness now, and dressed as plainly as feminine propriety would allow.
As she sat in the linen and drugget-covered parlour, which was a drawing-room when in full-dress, she could not help a half-conscious restraint creeping over her. But this was not because Miss Sandys was an ogress, rather because she herself had grown semi-professional even in holiday trim. She looked into the compressed fire in the high, old-fashioned grate, and wondered how she would pass the coming idle week. She had spent a good many idle weeks at Carter Hill before; but they always came upon her afresh with a sense of strangeness, bringing at the same time a tide of old associations.
Miss Sandys was a blunt woman by nature, and it was only by great effort that she had become fine-edged. Soshe said to Miss West, with a sort of naïve abruptness, "I'll tell you what, Miss West, we'll have cake to tea, because there are only you and I, and it is the first night of the holidays; and we'll have a strong cup, since we have all the teapot to ourselves. I think I shall try my hand this week at some of my old tea-cakes and pies and things which my mother taught me to bake. I am going to have my cousin Jamie and his wife here. He is a rough sailor, and his conversation does not suit before the girls. She was only a small farmer's daughter, and cannot behave prettily at all. But they are worthy people, and are the nearest relations I have left in the world. Perhaps I'll take you to see them in the summer, Miss West. Ah, dear! it is liberty-hall at my cousin Jamie's little place. Peggy's Haven, he calls it, after his old ship and his old wife. But it is a fine change for me, though it would not do for the young people to hear about it—you understand, Miss West."
Miss West understood, and she readily acquiesced in the prospect of meeting Captain and Mrs. Berwick. She was even flattered by it. The right chord of genuine nobility was in her, though she was reported to be satirical. It was true that she was slightly disposed to make abrupt, ironical speeches, the practice being one of her few small privileges. But she felt that Miss Sandys' confidence was honourable alike to giver and receiver, and that the terms on which she lived with her employer did no discredit to either. The fact was that Miss West returned thanks for these same terms in the middle of her confession of errors every day of her life.
Accordingly Miss West drank the strong tea, and did her best to relish the little blocks of cake, though they were slightly stale; and not the less did she enjoy them that she settled in her private mind to propose buttered toast next time, and to prepare it herself. She listened and replied to Miss Sandys' conversation, which did not now run so much on school incidents as on affairs in general. Miss Sandys' talk was shrewd and sensible at all times, and not without interest and amusement, especially when it diverged, at this point and that, to her own experience, and to the customs and opinions of her youth, when faded Miss West was a baby.
Christmas brought holidays to Miss Sandys' school, but Christmas Eve was, in other respects, very unmarked. It would have been dull, almost grim, to English notions. There was no Christmas tree, no waits, no decorating of the church for the morrow. Still, it was the end of the year—the period, by universal consent, dedicated to goodwill and rejoicing all over the world—the old "daft days" even of sober, austere Scotland. Jenny and Menie, in the kitchen, were looking forward to that Handsel Monday which is the Whit Monday of country servants, and the family gathering of the peasantry in Scotland. First footing and New Year's gifts were lighting up the servant girls' imaginations. The former may be safely looked upon as over with Miss Sandys and Miss West, but they were not without visions of New Year's gifts—the useful, considerate New Year's gifts of mature years. Miss West was at this moment knitting an exquisitely fine, yet warm, veil which she had begun two months ago, and which shehad good hopes of completing within the next few days. Miss Sandys had a guess that this veil was for her velvet bonnet, and looked at it admiringly as a grand panacea for her spring face-ache.
In the course of the evening Miss Sandys, after a fit of absence of mind, suddenly asked Miss West's name.
On the spur of the moment, she answered, with surprise, "Why, Miss West, to be sure. What do you mean, Miss Sandys?" Then she reflected, laughed, and owned that she had almost forgotten that she had a Christian name. But she had certainly got one, and it was Magdalene, or Madge, or Maddie; once it was Mad; and as she said Mad she laughed a second time, to conceal a break in her voice.
Miss Sandys smiled awkwardly and guiltily, and observed quickly, "My Christian name is Christian. Did you know that, Miss West? Oh, I forgot; you must have seen it marked on the table and bed linen."
"Mine is to be read on my pocket-handkerchiefs. Our Christian names preserved on table-cloths and pocket-handkerchiefs!—droll, isn't it, Miss Sandys?"
"Of course they are in our books and letters," corrected matter-of-fact Miss Sandys. "I dare say they are in a couple of family Bibles, too (at least, I can speak for one), and in the records of births and baptisms in session books, if these are not destroyed by damp and rats; and since names are recorded in heaven," Miss Sandys was drawn on to ramble, "surely our Christian names are there, my dear."
Miss West knew as well as if she had been told it, thatMiss Sandys was about to bestow on her a present with which her Christian name was to be connected. Miss Sandys' eyes had failed through long looking over lessons, and she no longer did any handiwork, save coarse knitting, hemming, and darning. But she had a fuller purse than her companion, and shops, even metropolitan shops, were to be reached by letter from Carter Hill.
In addition to the strong tea and the cake, Miss Sandys further treated Miss West to a supper of such dainties as toasted cheese and Edinburgh ale. There were prayers—they seemed quite family prayers—with only the four worshippers to join in them. Then there was a shake of the hands, and Miss West lit her candle, retired, and shut herself up in her own little room. Its daily aspect was so unchanged, that it appeared when she entered it as though the holidays had not come, and that it must still be the ordinary bustling school life.
She sat down, though there was no fire, and thought a little, till she fell on her knees and prayed in low murmurs that God would enable her to bear this season, which made her heavy, sick, and faint with associations, and that He would render her contented with many undeserved blessings, and resigned to many natural penalties which He ordained. Next, with strange inconsistency to all but the Hearer of prayer and the Framer of the wayward human heart, she besought to be forgiven and delivered from levity and folly—to be kept humble and mindful of death. "It is ill tearing up weeds by the roots," she said to herself plainly, when she had risen from her knees, "and I am vain and volatile, and I like to mystify and tease my neighbour to this day."
Christmas Day rose with a clear, frosty blue sky. Miss Sandys and Miss West both felt the unwonted stillness of the house; and they could not help a lurking suspicion that time without public occupation might hang a dead weight on their hands. The two ladies went through the ceremony of wishing each other a merry Christmas, Scotland though it was. Miss Sandys went off to put into execution her holiday cooking practice—for it was refreshing to her to have a bowl instead of a book in her grasp—and to make her preparations for welcoming her primitive cousins. Miss West sat down to write her letters and to work at her veil and at her other New Year's gifts.
She wished she could work with her mind as well as her fingers, so that it might not run on picturing what this day was in tens of thousands of homes throughout Christendom. It had always been an unruly member this fancy of hers, and it was particularly busy at this season. Yesterday the roads had resounded with the blithe tramp of eager feet hieing homewards. To-day the air was ringing with the pleasant echo of voices round hearths, the fires of which flashed like the sun, and where age and youth met in the perfect confidence and sweet fearlessness of family affection. In her mind's eye, she had yesterday seen railways and coaches disgorging their cheerful loads; she had witnessed the meetings at lodge gates, in halls, and on the thresholds of parlour and cottage kitchens; she had looked on the bountiful boards, where cherished guests crowned the festival, of which Miss Sandys' raspingtea and stale cake was a half-pathetic, half-comic version. To-day she was in spirit with the multitude walking in close groups to holly-wreathed churches, sharing in the light-hearted thoughtlessness of many an acknowledgment, and in the deep gratitude of many a thanksgiving. She strove to put herself aside altogether in her meditations, and simply to rejoice with those who rejoiced; but she had not attained this degree of unselfishness; she could not help believing sometimes that she had plucked all the thorns and none of the roses of life. But if you suppose that she betrayed this yearning and pining to the world at large, you are very much mistaken. As has been told, she had the right chord of genuine nobility and generosity in her, and she laboured to fit her cross to her own back, so that it might not overshadow and crush others. Her fingers went nimbly about her gifts—trifling things, only enough to gladden simple hearts. She gratified Miss Sandys by praising her rusty accomplishments in cookery; she uttered a jest or two for the benefit of Jenny and Menie, who had a liking for her, though they called her "scornful;" and she brought in holly and box from the garden to decorate the sitting-rooms. The last move, however, proved nearly a failure, for there was one little pink and white blossom of laurustinus, which had ventured out in a sheltered nook, though half of its leaves were blanched ashen grey. It somehow or other raised such a tide of sentiment in her as all but overcame her.