‘It was nothing, after all; it was Mr. Osborne. He said Jim went to some house where it would be better he should not go.’
‘Mr. Osborne!’ cried the Rector’s wife. ‘Oh, Emily, that one who belongs to Jim should listen to that man! There is a man,’ cried the troubled mother, ‘who, if he liked, might have done almost anything with Jim. Not preaching to him; that’s not what I mean. But he is a young man, only five years older; a University man, a man wishing to have good influence. Wheredoes he go to exercise this good influence, Emily? To Riverside; to the men who don’t care, who laugh at him behind his back—and to get the old women to give up their glass of beer, and the little children, that know nothing, to take his blue ribbon. Oh, and there was Jim in his way,’ said the poor mother, ‘Jim at his door, a University man, too; his Rector’s son, his own kind. Did he ever try to get a good influence over Jim? to ask him of an evening, to take him for walks, to give him an interest? Never, never, never! He goes about the parish and makes the poor women promise to give up their drop of beer. What does he know about what they need, about their innocent drop of beer, him a strong young man, well fed, wanting nothing? But my Jim, that was what he wanted, a strong man of his own kind; a young man that he had no suspicion of; that didn’t need to preach. That’s what the boy wants, Emily; not his father, that is angry, or me that only cries, but one like himself. Is it better to gain a good influence over poor old Mrs. Lloyd than over Jim, or to hold temperance meetings when he might do a brother’s part to get hold of that boy?’
‘Oh, mamma, what are you saying?’ said Emmy, still anxious to save appearances. ‘Aunt Emily will think that dear Jim——’
Florence said nothing, but sat staring into the vacant air with wide open eyes full of trouble, while Mrs. Plowden, altogether broken down, put her head upon Lady William’s shoulder and cried.
‘It’s mamma’s nerves,’ said Emmy again; ‘she has been upset to-day. You are not to think, Aunt Emily, that anything dreadful has happened. Nothing is wrong with Jim; it is only that papa is angry with him, and mamma has got it on her nerves, and—mamma, this was not what you came to talk of, you know.’
Mrs. Plowden raised her head after a minute with a piteous smile. ‘Thank you, Emily, you’re always kind,’ she said; ‘and it’s only my nerves, as Emmy says. I get agitated, and then everything looks black, as if it never would come right again. It isn’t that there’s anything to be frightened about, and you know what a true good heart my Jim has, and that’s everything, isn’t it? That’s everything,’ the poor lady said.
‘What mamma really wanted to ask you, Aunt Emily,’ said Emmy, ‘was whether you had seen Mrs. Swinford. She has been to call at the Rectory.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Mrs. Plowden; ‘that was what we wanted, to be sure. Emily, you won’t think anything more of the little fuss I’ve made about Mr. Osborne, will you? You would think I meant that he intended to slight my son. You know I couldn’t meanthat. And he is a very good curate, and James puts great confidence in him. It’s my nerves that get the better of me. But Emmy always brings me up to the mark. Yes, about Mrs. Swinford, that was it; did she come here, too?’
‘I believe so; but before we came in. She left a card with a message—— ’
‘My dear Emily, I don’t think Mrs. Swinford is a very nice woman,’ said Mrs. Plowden solemnly.
‘Don’t you?’ said Lady William, with a faint smile.
‘You see, girls,’ said the Rector’s wife, ‘your aunt will never say anything. Perhaps it is prudent, but it’s a little confusing. One doesn’t know what to say.’
‘If you think you will hurt my feelings, Jane, by speaking plainly, don’t let that weigh upon your mind. I know very well what Mrs. Swinford is, and I don’t care to make myself her champion.’
‘I don’t think she’s a nice woman,’ repeated the Rector’s wife; ‘I don’t think she’s a good woman. She looks to me—notwithstanding that she professes to be so fond of you, and Emily this and Emily that—as if she would like to do you a bad turn.’
Lady William took this alarming statement quite calmly. ‘Indeed I should not be surprised,’ she said, ‘but I don’t think it is in her power.’
‘We must try and make sure that it is not in her power. Don’t you think she could perhaps do you harm with the family? It occurred to me, and you will wonder to hear that it occurred to James. He said to me, “If that woman can injure Emily she will.” Dear Emily, you have never been such very good friends with the family, and they have never seen Mab. You know I’ve always wanted you to do something. If you were to put yourself forward a little——’
‘You are very kind, Jane, and James too. I don’t think the family can do us much harm; we have what they chose to give us, and they will not give us anything more, nor do I wish it. I have my pride, too.’
‘But their countenance, Emily!’
‘Their countenance!’ cried Lady William, rising to her feet with a quick start of indignation. ‘To me! I want none of their countenance; I can’t help bearing their name, and they cannot take it from me.’
‘Oh, my dear, my dear, there can be no question of that! They can’t take away your rank, nor Mrs. Swinford either, whatever she may do. My conviction,’ said Mrs. Plowden,nodding her head, ‘is that she can’t bear the thought of your rank. If you should meet anywhereout, and you were to pass before her, Emily—that’s the thought that she can’t bear.’
A gleam of light passed over Lady William’s face. ‘That would be a little compensation,’ she said, half to herself. ‘But don’t put such hopes in my head,’ she added laughing; ‘she and I will never meetout, alas!’
‘If it was only for that I should like to give a dinner party at the Rectory and ask her, Emily—just to show her. Oh, I should like that! It might look strange, James giving his arm to his own sister, but I should never mind how it looked. And it would be a kind of duty, by way of welcoming them back. But you know, Emily, though Mary Jane is an excellent parlourmaid, she is not equal to a formal party. We should require to have a butler, or some one who would look like a butler. And the dinner-service is very shabby and a great many pieces broken. I am sure I would do it with the greatest pleasure, and, indeed, would think it a duty; but only——’
‘No, my kindest Jane, you will do nothing of the sort for me. As for Mrs. Swinford, she will go out to no parties in the village. Don’t imagine for a moment that I want to be avenged upon her in that very small way.’
‘Avenged! I did not think of it in that light. And do you know James was very cool to her to-day, scarcely civil. I thought she had been very nice to you in the old times.’
‘Don’t let us talk of the Swinfords for ever,’ said Lady William, ‘we have had enough of them for one day. Let me know what the girls are going to wear at the FitzStephens’, and who is to be there——’
This new subject, notwithstanding that Mrs. Plowden had her head full of graver matters, was too interesting to be dropped quickly, and there ensued a long conversation, which Lady William, having set it going, left to be carried on by the others. Mrs. Plowden had naturally a great deal to say, and Emmy, whose heart was full of the consciousness that any social occasion where she could see and be seen was more important now in her life than it had ever been before, lent her attention with great earnestness to her mother’s view, to Mab’s remarks, and to the occasional word with which Lady William kept up the talk. Only Florence took no part in it. She had taken up a book, and so appeared to have her attention fixed; I don’t know if she held it upside down, but I am very sure that she did not read a page. Her mind was occupied with affairs of her own.
Thedining-room at the Hall was gloomy but grand. The walls dark, save where they were relieved by scrolls of gilding and ornamental panels, in which were set some full-length portraits of doubtful merit, and more than doubtful antiquity. It was divided, like the drawing-room, by pillars, not of marble, though they assumed that virtue, leaving a darker strait at each end, intended, no doubt, to throw up the brilliancy of the larger central room, in which stood the dinner-table with all its lights. And this might have been the case had there been a large and brilliant party round the table, and abundance of light, with reflections of silver and crystal, as probably the builder of the house intended should be the case. But now the Swinfords, mother and son, alone at a round table of no great size, with a shaded lamp suspended over it, furnished little more than an oasis in the great desert of darkness. There was, indeed, a large fire blazing, against which Mrs. Swinford sat, shivering from time to time, notwithstanding the mild softness of the April night. And the table was adorned with a great bouquet of flowers, dazzling white azaleas, and the other brilliant children of the spring who come in such a triumph over the footsteps of winter. Mrs. Swinford was dressed, as she always was, elaborately, and like a picture, in dark velvet, just showing a little colour here and there where the light caught it—and a great deal of lace. She had a lace scarf fastened over her head, fantastically indeed, and scarcely enough to have been allowed by Mrs. Plowden to pass muster as a cap, but still softening the age of the face, and the tower of the abundant dark hair piled unnaturally upon her head. She might have been a dethroned and indignant queen. She, and the flowers, and Leo’s more youthful face, gave a centre to the dark solemnity around, through which the servants moved noiseless.
‘You have been in the village,’ he said; ‘I hear, making calls.’ But this was not till the lengthened and elaborate dinner—of which both ate fastidiously, with many criticisms and remarks little complimentary to a very ambitious and highly-paid cook—was done.
‘I am glad you take so much interest in my movements, Leo, as to know.’
‘Of course I know. I saw the carriage for one thing; and besides——’
‘You, I suppose, were paying visits, too?’
‘Not much,’ he said, with an embarrassed smile. ‘I saw little Miss Grey about some of our schemes; but you don’t give Miss Grey the light of your countenance.’
‘I have never noticed any but the principal people—who, in case of an election or any public matter, might be useful.’
‘I don’t see what an election would be to us.’
‘Nor I, Leo. But it is part of our hereditary policy to keep the matter open, should you or any one of the family be of a different opinion.’
‘My dear mother,’ he said, with a laugh, ‘don’t you think this hereditary policy is overdone a little? I am afraid I thought myself a person of much greater importance than I prove to be.’
‘I don’t admit it,’ she said; ‘but is that why you are taking so much trouble for thecanaille?’
‘No,’ said the young man, growing red. ‘I take trouble for thecanaille, as you call them—our poor neighbours, Miss Grey says—because I thought I was somehow responsible for them.’
‘Responsible!’
‘I should have been,’ he said firmly, ‘had I been theirseigneur; which I suppose in my folly was something like what I thought: now that I know they are only our poor neighbours——’
‘Well: you think you may at least get the benefit in popularity,’ she said, with a laugh.
‘My dear mother, as we shall never think alike on these points, don’t you think we had better choose another subject?’
‘The subject of my calls?’ said Mrs. Swinford. ‘But how, Leo, about your own? You find a wonderful attraction in the village, I understand.’
‘You know, I think, pretty well what attraction I find in thevillage,’ he said coldly; ‘I have made no secret of my doings there.’
‘Perhaps not; but you have dwelt little upon a certain cottage. One knows how a man can be exceedingly frank in order to conceal.’
‘There is no certain cottage,’ he said, with indignation. ‘If you mean Lady William’s, I certainly go there with pleasure, and often, and will continue to do so. In such a matter I may surely be allowed to judge for myself.’
‘Why do you call her by that ridiculous name? It makes me laugh—if it didn’t make me furious!’
‘What has she done to you?’ said Leo. ‘I thought you were fond of her. It has always been represented so to me. What has she done, a woman not very powerful or prosperous certainly, not coming in your way, to make you hate her so?’
‘Not coming in my way!—But what do you know of my history or my feelings? She is already again coming in my way—with you.’
‘That is nonsense, mother. No, I know little of your history, perhaps, except what you have told me; and as you say, excessive frankness——’
‘You forget, I think, Leo, that you are speaking to your mother?’
‘I never wish to do so,’ he said. ‘Believe me, mother, there is nothing I desire so much as to make you feel my anxiety, my strong desire, to do what will please you——’
‘By bringing me to this miserable country, for example, in the middle of winter,’ she cried.
Leo sprang to his feet, and began to pace about the room. ‘It is my country,’ he said. ‘If I have duties anywhere, they must be here. But I have never wished to bind you. Why, if you hate England so, should you stay here? We have always been together; but sooner than you should suffer, leave me, mother. I will bear my loneliness as best I can.’
‘Your loneliness! You would not be long lonely. You would find plenty to cheer you; whereas I am in a different position. Nay: come back with me. You have seen exactly how things are. If you want to be charitable, nothing is more easy. James Plowden, or if you prefer it, his sister,’ she paused, with a harsh laugh, ‘will do everything you want in that way. Come back to the life we know; come back to the surroundings you are accustomed to. You—you can’t, any more than I, be happy here. Where are yourcourses, your clubs, your theatres?There is nothing, nothing to amuse you. Leo, you know you would be more amused, you would be more happy, as well as I.’
‘But this,’ he said, ‘is my proper sphere.’
‘Grand seigneuragain,’ she cried, with a laugh; ‘who takes up that view now? Your great-grandfather bought this estate; it is then four generations in the family. And you think that feudal! Ah! be kind to thecanailleif you will; they will cheat you and hate you, but never mind. Leo, if you keep me here, and I am tempted beyond my powers, and do harm—harm, do you hear?—murder even—the guilt will not be on me, but you!’
‘Mother, do you think there is any use in scaring yourself by such big words? Murder! Whom will you kill, for example? You who faint if you prick yourself and the blood runs! I am not afraid of you.’
‘There are more ways of murder than one. I will take no life.’
‘No, I don’t suppose so,’ he said, with a laugh; ‘but if you think you will die ofennui, which, I allow, is a danger, my dear mother, yourappartementis still open. I will make every arrangement. Pardon me if I feel it is my duty to live in my own house; but why should that affect you?’
‘If I said, Leo, that I could not live without you, that you are my only child——’
‘Mother,’ he said, ‘we both understand perfectly what that means. When I was a child you were very fond of me. I was part of yourensemble. You gave me everything I wanted. Now, it is not your fault nor mine that I am a man of thirty-five, not even in my first youth. If I am ever to be good for anything, I have no time to lose; but you have arrived at an age——’
‘Ah!’ she said, ‘I have arrived at an age when I am no longer good for anything, neither the pleasures nor the duties. It is fit that it should be you who say that to me.’
‘I say that you have arrived at an age when everything should be made easy to you, and pleasant, mother; and that you should live, without consideration of others, as suits you best.’
‘And you?’ she said with a smile; ‘as suits you best? Is not that what you mean?’
‘It was not what I meant; but perhaps it is true,’ he said.
Then there was a silence, during which Leo stood by the high mantelpiece, leaning upon it, looking down upon the bright blaze of the fire, yet furtively watching his mother’s face.
‘I know who has done all this,’ she said rapidly and very low, as if speaking to herself. ‘I know who has done it. It was a caprice—a fancy that would have lasted a moment; a trick of his father’s blood. But I know who has done it—who has stamped it in. I know—I know! for her own advantage as before: to put me under her foot as before. But let her take care, let her take care!’ she cried, suddenly raising her voice, ‘J’ai des griffes, moi!’
‘Mother, for heaven’s sake what do you mean? Who is to take care?’
‘A tigress, that’s what men call a woman in respect to her children, Leo. I said that a tigress has claws, that was all.’
‘There is no question, surely,’ he said, looking at her; at her soft lace, her warm velvet, her carefully-dressed hair, her air of luxury and delicacy, ‘of claws or anything of the kind here.’
She burst out into a laugh, and rose, turning her face to the fire.
‘No; at the worst of little pins to prick, little pins that don’t draw blood, as you say, but still make a wound. Now, Leo, though we quarrel, you will not refuse to give me your arm upstairs?’
The drawing-room was also illuminated by a blazing fire, and groups of candles placed about which made it very bright, unlike the gloom of the room below; bright, yet with all manner of soft shades and contrivances to temper the light. It was full of flowers and sweetness, full of luxury. Mrs. Swinford paused and looked round with a satirical smile. ‘Charming!’ she said; ‘and a little more or less feudal,grand seigneur, as we have been saying, with all that is novel and delightful added; but vacant, Leo. Were we in Paris, one would come, and then another and another, to talk, or chat round the fire; to bring the news, to discuss everything, spiritual, gay. These words have no meaning here.’
‘I fully feel it for you, mother. It is very dull; no one worth your trouble to talk to. I understand perfectly. But why not, then, fill the house?’
‘For what end? There is not even shooting to tempt them at this time of the year. Nothing to amuse. It is not the time. In the autumn, perhaps, if I survive it so long——’
‘Then there is London,’ said Leo; ‘it is not exactly a village,though I believe it is a happy slang to call it so. Let us go there.’
‘London!’ Mrs. Swinford contracted her brows. ‘I have forgotten all my friends, or they have forgotten me. I don’t go to Court——’
‘Why not, mother?’
She looked at him with a gleam of fury in her eyes, and a sort of wild laugh, which was the most unlike mirth of anything Leo had ever heard. ‘Perhaps,’ she said, ‘Emily Plowden would present me once again—whitewashed, after all these years.’
‘What do you mean by whitewashed, mother?’ There was something then in the look with which he faced her, insisting with a flush on his face, and a look of determination for which she was not prepared.
‘What do I mean by whitewashed? I mean’—— she paused a little, looking at him with a malicious devil in her eye, as if undecided what she should say. But his look subdued her, though it was a strange thing for any look of Leo to do. It was a look of alarm yet dismay, excited and almost fierce, yet struck with sudden fear. Her eyes sank before his.
‘I don’t know why you should look at me so. I mean that I am forgotten—as well may be, in all these years.’
She had placed herself in the deep chair covered with brocade, which had been carefully placed for her at the exact angle from the fire and the lights which she liked. The table beside it was covered with the evening papers; the French papers, arrived by the evening post; one or two yellow novels, an English book, and all the little paraphernalia which ladies of her period affect. She sat there, lying back in her luxurious chair, looking at her son with defiance in her eyes; defiance, and yet a certain uneasiness underneath. And he looked at her, uneasily too, with a doubt, yet no wish to question her further. She broke this silence by a sudden shrill burst of laughter, clapping her delicate hands together.
‘Could one give a greater pleasure to one’sprotégéeof old?—to the little girl of whom one has made a lady? A lady of rank, if you please, according to all the clowns. Emily shall take me; she shall patronise me; she shall be my condescending superior. Mrs. Swinford, on her return to England, by Lady William—bah! the jest is too good.’
Her laugh rang out shrill into the silent space about them. Leo, for his part, stood before her as grave as a judge. ‘I don’t see anything so wonderful about it,’ he said.
‘What, not that Emily! Emily, the country girl, not so good as your governess, not much better than my maid! Your governess? Why, for the moment, that was Artémise.’
‘Mother, I must warn you that you are speaking of a lady for whom not only I, but every one here has the most exalted esteem.’
‘Ah!’ she cried, still laughing, ‘so Artémise tells me. The most exalted! She has thrown dust in everybody’s eyes.’
‘And your Artémise—I give you warning I doubt that woman.’
‘Ah! perhaps you will forbid her the house.’
‘You know very well that the house is free to all you please to see here. For myself I shall certainly let her know that her presence is not agreeable to me.’
‘Well, Leo,’ said his mother, ‘that will do for a token between us. When you turn my friend, my near relation, the only creature whom I care for here, to the door—I shall understand that I have notice to quit, and that you want no more with me.’
‘What folly!’ he cried, ‘when you know I would as soon try to interfere with the constitution of the earth as to lift a finger against any of your friends.’
‘Or consort with any of my enemies, Leo.’
‘Certainly, no, if I knew who they were; but I know of none here at least.’
She laughed again; then, turning to her table, took up theFigarowhich lay there. ‘Enough, enough,’ she said. ‘Enough, Leo; a quarrel is a fearful joy; but one wearies even of that at the last.’
Leo stood for a time in the same attitude, while she opened her paper and began to read. Then he made a turn or two round the room, stopping here and there to look at a picture, though he neither saw nor cared what it was. Finally, when this wandering had lasted for, perhaps, five minutes without any sign on the part of his mother, he went quietly out of the room and downstairs.
She did not move a finger until the sound of his steps had died away; then she put down the paper, and listened for the closing of his door. It came at last with a dull echo going through the silent house. That sound brought many memories to the mind of the lady left alone in the great room, which would have held a crowd. She remembered the times without number when his father had retired so, and gave vent to a low laugh of scorn. And then she remembered other things, and her face grew grave. The paper fell rustling at her feet. She cast a lookround her upon the room with its flowers, its lights, its cosy atmosphere, which was a triumph of skill and care, just so warm, and no more. The comfort and the luxury were perfect; there was nothing that could be done to increase the beauty, the ease, the grace, and completeness of all about her; and there she sat like a queen—alone.
Lady Williamwas still a little disturbed next morning, her usual composure gone, her countenance clouded. She had not forgiven little Patty, who in consequence went about her work watering with tears, instead of damp tea-leaves as usual, the carpet in the drawing-room which it was her business to sweep. Patty entertained the idea which, alas! is so little general among servant-girls, that her mistress was an angel, or something even more than that; for angels to Patty’s consciousness were generally little boys with wings and without any clothes, to whom it would have been profane to compare a lady. It may be imagined how hollow the world was, and how little satisfactory the routine of work when Lady William frowned; everything went badly with Patty. She broke a china bowl and received from Miss Mab—Miss Mab always sobon camarade, if Patty had known the qualification—a very sharp and decided scolding, not to say that Anne—old Anne, whom Patty considered almost too old to live, and whose work she was conscious of doing in great part—fell upon her and nagged till the poor girl nearly ran away. Lady William was not busy this lovely spring morning which ought to have put new heart into everything. She said very little even to Mab. She was evidently thinking of something with which even Mab had but little to do. But when the girl talked of her own afternoon’s occupation, her mother interposed quickly. ‘I think you had better come up with me to the Hall, Mab.’
‘Then you are going, mother? in obedience to a call like that——’
‘In obedience to nothing; because I hate it, and want to get it over.’
‘Do you hate Mrs. Swinford, mother?’
‘Oh, I hope not,’ said Lady William, the tears starting to her eyes; ‘don’t ask me such questions. I hope not: I don’t wantto hate any one. I would rather not think of her. But I hate going into a house that has so many memories—into a house where I have known so much——’
‘It was there you met my father,’ said Mab.
‘Yes;’ the monosyllable dropped from Lady William’s closed lips as if dropped out against her will.
‘But that ought not to be altogether a painful recollection, mother.’ Mab had never heard anything of her father who was so long dead; there was no portrait of him that she had ever seen. Her idea of him was not precisely a happy one. Other people talked of the husbands they had lost, especially the poor women who liked to enlarge upon the good or bad qualities of the departed—but Mab knew nothing of her father, whether he had been bad or good. And she had a great curiosity, if no more, to know something of him. It was seldom, very seldom, that an opportunity occurred even for a question.
‘I cannot enter into the past,’ said Lady William; ‘there is a great deal that is very painful in it. I would rather not tell you the story, Mab. It would do you no good, nor any one. I had forgotten a great deal till this lady appeared again. So far as I can see now, she is determined that I shall no longer forget.’
‘Is she your enemy, mother?’
‘I don’t believe in enemies, it is too melodramatic; and probably she means no harm; only she likes to stir up things which I prefer to forget. Do you understand the difference? Perhaps it keeps up her interest, but to me it spoils everything. Death is very dreadful to you, Mab; but it’s very merciful, too. It makes you forget many things, when they are not forcibly brought back to your mind.’
Mab eyed her mother very curiously with a hundred questions on her lips: but Lady William’s face was not encouraging, and with a sigh the girl gave up her intended inquiry. She added, after some time: ‘The only thing, mother, is that Mrs. Swinford may want to speak to you of things that you don’t wish me to know.’
‘That is very possible, Mab: and it is for that I want you to go with me, to protect me. She would never bring up old stories which would be painful, before you.’
‘Mother,’ said Mab, and then paused.
‘What is it?’
‘I want to know—if I am perhaps at the mercy of a stranger like Mrs. Swinford to tell me things that would be painful—about my father—whether it would not be better for you, mother, whowould do it in love and quietly, to tell me yourself and put me beyond her power?’
‘Mab, you are very sensible, very reasonable.’
‘I don’t know if I’m that: but it seems to me the better way.’
Lady William began to speak: then hesitated, became husky, and paused a moment to steady her voice. ‘There is nothing to tell about your father, Mab, that could affect you; nothing that would hurt his name in the world; only private matters between him and me, in which unfortunately Mrs. Swinford was mixed up. There is no such thing,’ she went on after a pause, with a sort of painful smile, ‘as trouble—without faults on both sides. I was to blame as much as any one else. You would not think the better of either of your parents if you were to be told all that there is to tell. Will you take my word for that? and that there is nothing which it is at all necessary for you to hear?’
‘Certainly, I will take your word, mother. But I don’t believe you were so much wrong. You are hasty sometimes, but you never keep on or nag. And sometimes you are so patient; if there were quarrels I know it was not your fault.’
The girl came to her mother’s side and gave her a kiss, putting down her soft young cheek upon Lady William’s, which was as soft, though no longer young. The mother took the kiss with a smile. It was not wholly a smile of pleasure at Mab’s approval and vindication of her—innocent Mab that knew of nothing but a quarrel, a difference of opinion, a nagging. Mab thought it was a great pity, that perhaps her father had troubles of temper which she was conscious herself of possessing, and that no doubt Mrs. Swinford had interfered and made things worse. It brought her father even a little nearer to her to learn that he had been cross. Poor father! he had been long forgiven and his tempers forgotten, when they were not thrust back upon the memory: and poor mother, who perhaps blamed herself more than was just, and thought now how often she might have answered with a soft word! Lady William smiled, reading in the child’s mind as in a book, so easy was that young interpretation, so desirable, so strange to the woman who knew all.
The afternoon was radiant: sky and air had been washed clean, as Mab said, by frequent showers, and there did not seem an atom of impurity, not even a cloudlet that was not white and shining, in the whole expanse of atmosphere. Lady William was grave, but had recovered her composure, and Mab was gay with an unusual freshness, ready to gambol about the path like the large loose-limbed puppy from the lodge who was fond of taking walkswith visitors, and who came up and offered himself as guide and companion as soon as the two ladies had entered the gate. Mab was acquainted with the puppy’s family for several generations, and knew his mother upon intimate terms, so that there was no need of ceremony. He and she had gone up the avenue to the point at which the house becomes visible, rising high above the little lake and among the trees, when Lady William called her daughter back. ‘You have had enough of the puppy,’ she said; ‘now you must turn into a young lady, Mab.’
‘It is not half so amusing, mother; but, oh, look at the violets, how thick they are under the trees!’
‘About the ashen roots the violets blow,’ said Lady William.
‘I never knew any one have so many bits of poetry ready for all occasions,’ said Mab admiringly. ‘It’s a pity they’re only dog-violets, and not sweet at all; but they are pretty like that all the same.’
‘Why, I wonder, should one speak of dog-violets, and dog-roses, and dog-daisies?’ said Lady William. ‘I suppose it is in contempt of things that grow wild.’
‘A dog is the wisest thing that lives,’ said Mab; ‘there’s no contempt in such a name. Puppy! puppy! where are you going? I must run after him, mother, and keep him from frightening those ducks.’
‘There’s contempt, if you please! The famous Swinford wild fowl!’
‘Oh, I can’t bear them, the stupid things. Puppy! puppy! oh, don’t be a fool, they are not worth your while.’
‘Nor yours either, puppy mine. You will be as red as a peony next, and what will Mrs. Swinford say?’
‘I hate Mrs. Swinford,’ said Mab; but she walked soberly the rest of the way. Mrs. Swinford was in the same room and chair as she had occupied on the previous night: with flowers piled in the jardinières, on the tables, everywhere; a wood fire blazing very bright, but more bright than warm, and the mistress of the house arrayed, as always, in dark velvet, with a crimson tone in the lights, but without the lace which had softened at once her features and her age. Her hair, in which there was not a thread of white, was dressed high on her head; her back was, as usual, to the light.
‘Oh, you have brought your little girl,’ she said, in a tone almost of displeasure. ‘You are very perverse and contradictory, my dear, as you always were. I had something to say to you, alone.’
‘Oh, as for that,’ said Mab, angry, ‘I can go away.’
Her mother gave her a restraining look. ‘There is so little,’ she said, ‘in my life that requires to be talked abouten tête-à-tête, and Mab goes wherever I go.’
‘That is to say, you bring her with you as young women sometimes bring their babies, in defence.’ Mrs. Swinford laughed, and, holding out her hand, added, ‘Come here and let me see you, little girl.’
‘I am not a little girl,’ said Mab, still angry; but another glance from her mother to the lady of the house restored that reasonableness in which the girl was so strong. ‘And I am not much to look at,’ she added steadily, ‘but, as it does not much matter, here I am.’
Mrs. Swinford took her by the hand, and, drawing her forward, looked at her closely. Then she dropped the girl’s hand and laughed. ‘She proves her parentage, at least,’ she said; ‘no doubt upon that subject; she is a Pakenham all over. And she is like them, Emily, in temper and intellect, too.’
Mab, unfortunately, did not understand the whole weight of the insinuation in this remark, and she did not see her mother’s face behind her. She answered quickly for herself. ‘I have not a very good temper, Mrs. Swinford. When people say nasty things to me, I can be nasty too.’
‘So I presume,’ said the lady of the house.
‘Or to my mother,’ said Mab; ‘she is too patient and too much a lady; but I’m not.’
‘Mab!’ said her mother’s warning voice behind.
‘It is that I think this lady wants to provoke me,’ said Mab, ‘and I don’t see——’
‘My dear, you will show your superiority best by not suffering yourself to be provoked.’
Mab went off to one of the jardinières with a little toss of her head, and it was at this moment that Leo came in, a little hurried and not without agitation. He came in saying quickly, ‘I have just heard that you had visitors, mother.’
‘Leo,’ said Mrs. Swinford, ‘I have something to say to Emily here. I did not expect her to bring her daughter, and I did not desire my son’s company. You can go and show the young lady the pictures; it is a young man’s business; and you ought to thank me for giving you the opportunity. Now, Emily,à nous deux.’
‘I was not aware,’ said Lady William, pale but steadfast, ‘that what you wanted to say to me was of particular importance.’
‘You thought I only sent for you to say I love you,’ said Mrs. Swinford. ‘Well, you knew that already; but I had something much more serious to say. And I am glad, after all, you brought your little girl, Emily; for she is the strongest argument I can bring forward to make you do what I want you to do.’
‘And what is that?’ said Lady William. ‘I must warn you that I am not very open to advice.’
‘As if I did not know you were not open to advice! except, my dear, you will recollect, when you wished to take a certain course which was advised.’
‘Did I wish to take it?’ said Lady William; ‘that is what has never been clear.’
‘Oh, did you wish it?’ cried Mrs. Swinford, with a laugh. ‘However, that is old ground; but if I have any responsibility for that first step, Emily, I have the more right to speak now. For that child’s sake you must make overtures to the family. Whatever they may do or say, it is for you to put your pride in your pocket, and make friends with them, if they like it or not. Your claims must be fully established.’
‘My claims?’ said Lady William; ‘there has never been any question made of my claims.’
‘Probably not, so long as you live; but look at that child. You must make everything certain for her; I must press it upon you with all my might, Emily. Life is uncertain, and you have nothing of your own.’
‘Not much, that is true.’
‘And what would she have to depend upon if you died? You don’t even know what questions might arise. They might ask her what her proofs were, what evidence she had.’
‘Of what?’ said Lady William, wondering. ‘What evidence does Mab require to prove that she is my daughter? But all the parish could prove that, with the Rector at their head.’
‘Oh, so far as that goes; but it does not suffice to be proved to be her mother’s daughter when the money is on the father’s side.’
‘What do you mean, Mrs. Swinford?’ Lady William had grown red and a little angry. She fixed her eyes upon her adviser, ‘There is something in what you say that I do not understand.’
‘Nevertheless it is very true,’ said Mrs. Swinford; ‘the money is, you know, on the father’s side, and the father’s family have a right to know everything about it. It should be put quite out of their power to say afterwards that they never had any proof.’
‘Of what? You mean something that has not been suggested to me before. I have been told I ought to make overtures; but what is this? Please to tell me,’ she said, almost sharply, ‘what you mean.’
‘You must surely have thought of it yourself. Here you are, a widow, not very young, with an only child. They call you Lady William, and you enjoy the rank. Oh, you need not wave your hand as if to say no; I know you better than you know yourself; you enjoy your rank.’
‘For the sake of argument it may be allowed that I enjoy my rank, such as it is.’
‘Well, you do, I know, whether you choose to allow it or refuse. Emily Plowden, it is your first business to prove your claim to it, and your child’s to her name.’
‘I am not Emily Plowden,’ said Lady William; ‘you mistake that, to begin with; and I can only repeat that my claim, which I have never required to prove, has been doubted by no one, nor my child’s right. Is it for pure insult you say this? My movements have always been open as the day.’
‘What! when you left this house in the dark, in the middle of the night! I have never questioned your claims till now. My motive is not to insult you, but to help you. Where were you married, Emily Plowden? Who married you? Have you your certificates all in order? You disappeared, and then you came back, and I never asked, but took it all for granted. It is only when I see your little girl that I begin to ask myself, Emily, have you got your papers, whatever they may be? Emily Plowden, are you sure that you have any right to another name?’
InMiss Grey’s drawing-room, which was as small as Miss Grey herself, there were three persons assembled. Miss Grey, seated at the writing-table—much too large for the place, like the rest of the furniture; Florence Plowden on the big ‘Chesterfield’ sofa; and a large and tall individual standing in the middle of the floor. He was large in comparison with the ladies, and with the limited space in which he stood. But otherwise, though tall, he was a spare man; his length of limb and scantness of flesh made particularly apparent by his long clerical coat. Needless to say that he was the curate, and that it was parish business that formed the staple of the conversation. Florence had come in with her district visitor’s book; and other books of a similar description were on the table. They were talking in that curious jargon of business and gossip which makes up the talk of the workers in a parish or ecclesiastical organisation of any kind.
‘In whose district is Mead Lane?’ said Mr. Osborne. ‘A man came to me last night from No. 3, to ask me to go and see his wife. She had been in bed for about six weeks—very ill now. There is a baby, of course, and I don’t know how many children; man occasionally out of work—though not now. Everything in disorder, as you may imagine. Nobody had called to see them for weeks. A lady had come once or twice before the woman fell ill; never since.’
He made this report very drily, in staccato sentences, as if he were abridging from a book.
Miss Grey turned round, twisting on her chair to give Florence a look. ‘I knew it would be so,’ she said; ‘they are a couple of old maids wrapped up in themselves. She says: “Do you think you should go out, my dear, such a cold day?” and he says: “The parish can surely wait; but you mustn’t go out, with your delicate throat, in the rain.”’
‘This is very interesting as a social sketch,’ said the curate, ‘but it does not answer my question.’
Florence was far from being in high spirits, but her native genius was too much for her. She turned upon him with a little mincing air, and deprecatory friction of her hands. ‘Oh, don’t you really think so, Mr. Osborne?’ she said.
He laughed, though with a certain look of disapproval, as if amused against his will. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Mrs. Kendal; what is to be done with her? If she will not do what she undertakes, some one else must be got to do it.’
At which both Miss Grey and Florence shook their heads. ‘It would be such a slap in the face,’ said the little lady of the house. ‘They are good people in their way, and liberal enough. We must just manage it a little. Florence and I will go and see this poor woman, and if Mrs. Kendal hears of it we can say—— Oh, some excuse will be found easily enough.’
‘Excuse! When she has let the woman die nearly——’
‘A miss is as good as a mile. I’ll go over at once, and send in the nurse if she wants it. What did you say was the name? Brownjohn! Oh,’ said Miss Grey, with a sudden diminution of energy, ‘I’m afraid, Florry, we know the illnesses of Mrs. Brownjohn. She has a great many, and whatever district she is in, the visitor always neglects her. We know her case very well.’
‘The woman is very ill now, and the house in a dreadful state; and the man, of course, as if things were not bad enough, taking refuge in the public-house.’
‘Ah, that I can understand——’
‘The filthy place, Miss Grey, or the public-house?’ the curate said, with a little severity.
‘Oh, both, both! You must be a little human. The public-house is the natural consequence of a crowded little room, and no comfort—even without the dirt.’
‘But surely you don’t think that ought to be so? Surely you don’t suppose that it isn’t the man’s duty to rectify things instead of making them worse? If the wife’s unable to do her part, instead of abandoning her brutally, and letting everything go to destruction, oughtn’t he to stand in, to do what he can, to make life possible? That’s how I read a man’s duty, at least.’
‘Oh, my dear Mr. Osborne,’ said little Miss Grey, ‘it’s a man’s duty to be a good Christian and a perfect man. And so it is everybody’s duty; we all acknowledge that.’
Mr. Osborne snorted slightly, with the impatience of a fiery horse suddenly pulled up. ‘I hope I demand less than perfection, though I know that I ought not to be content with less,’ he said. ‘But in the meantime,’ he added, pausing a minute to expel that hot breath of impatience, ‘I don’t suppose you will think it right because of Mrs. Kendal’s feelings, or even her own imperfections, that this poor creature should be left to die?’
Miss Grey and Florry exchanged glances behind the curate’s back, with a slight shaking of heads. Oh, these arbitrary young men, wanting everything their own way, and thinking you have no feeling if you don’t go so far as they do! This was the sentiment in the older lady’s mind; but Florence was naturally more fierce.
‘We are not in the habit of leaving poor people to die—when there is any truth in it,’ she said.
He gave her a look half fierce, half tender, full of the natural animosity of a man checked in his certainties of opinion, yet with a longing that she at least should understand and know what he meant.
‘Oh yes,’ said Miss Grey, ‘I’ll go; and have a little order put in the place, at least. That little girl—- the eldest, Florry, don’t you remember?—who was sent to the seaside after her fever, she ought to be good for something now.’
‘There is a little girl,’ said the curate.
Miss Grey turned round upon him with a laugh that made him furious. ‘As if we didn’t know!’ she said. Then, turning to Florence again, ‘You might go in, as you pass, my dear, to Mrs. Gould, and see if the nurse is engaged. Tell her, if she can, to run round to Mead Lane about two o’clock. She’ll probably find me there, and if it is anything really serious we’ll get the doctor to see her. Come now, let’s see if there is anything else we want to consult Mr. Osborne about.’
‘I want to ask you, at least,’ he said, ‘if you will help me with my meeting, to give them an evening’s entertainment. I recognise,’ with a little severity, ‘as well as you do, that they must be amused as well as looked after.’
‘Well,’ said Miss Grey, ‘if it’s children I am quite ready to play any number of games with them. But I’m not a great one for providing amusement, Mr. Osborne. In the first place I can’t sing to them, or dance to them, or play the fiddle; in the next, I think they like their own amusements best.’
‘The public-house, Miss Grey?’
The little lady had tears in her eyes. ‘I am not in favour of the public-house, God knows—but I am not so sure that yourmeetings will do away with that. It’s just as likely to make them thirsty coming out at nine, after you’ve sung to them and fiddled to them, and seeing the red light in the window that looks so cheerful to them. But never mind me—Florry and Emmy will sing, and the London young ladies in the new villa will play the piano, and you can get a quartette of fiddles, you know, quite easily from Winwich. And Jim—Jim might recite; he used to be very good at it.’
‘Oh—Mr. Plowden!’ said the curate, with a slight hesitation.
‘Jim I mean: he used to read very well when he was a boy.’
‘I asked Lady William,’ Mr. Osborne said hurriedly, as if to change the subject, ‘but she said like you, Miss Grey, that she neither sang nor—I am not aware I suggested that any one should dance.’
‘They would like that! but the thing is not so much what they would like to see, but what all the ladies and gentlemen would like to do. And by-the-bye there is that dark-eyed woman at the school—whom I have a strong feeling I have seen before—and who looks no more like a schoolmistress than—any one does. I feel quite sure she could act or recite or something—or perhaps sing. I would ask her if I were you.’
‘I am unfortunate in not being of your opinion, Miss Grey; I should not think of asking that person to help in any case.’
‘Oh, you’re too particular,’ Miss Grey said.
And then Florence got up to go.
‘The old Lloyds,’ she said, ‘want to have a week of their pension in advance—may I say you will give it to them, Miss Grey?’
‘Oh dear, don’t say anything of the kind; if they get a week in advance how are they to live the next week when they have none?’
‘I said so—but then she cried, poor old body, and said they were worse off now than before—for if they wanted something very bad out of the usual way, some kind person used to give it to them—whereas now when they have a regular pension they have to stick to it, and nobody minds.’
‘There’s a sermon,’ cried Miss Grey, ‘on the uses of beneficence in a small parish. You have only to tell Mr. Swinford, Florry, and he’ll give them the advance and the week’s money too, and next time they’ll want a fortnight’s advance—it’s what I’ve always said. He’s a nice young fellow and a warm heart, but to sow money about is no good.’‘You said yourself, Miss Grey, that so much a week——’
‘Oh yes, I said it myself—I’d like to give them the advance and the week’s money too, just as well as Mr. Swinford does—though Mr. Osborne thinks on the other hand that I am ready, because I’ve little faith in her, to leave a poor creature to die. Oh, don’t say anything—I know of course you didn’t exactly mean that. Are you going too? Good-bye; I’ll get my bonnet and I’ll be in Mead Lane before you’ve got to the Rectory gate.’
It did not appear, however, that there was any intention in the mind of these two young people to take the road which led to the Rectory gate. There was a momentary pause when they got outside, and Florence hurriedly, in view of the fact that the curate’s way to his lodging did lie in that direction, held out her hand to him. ‘Good morning, I am going up to Mrs. Gould’s to see about the nurse,’ she said, somewhat breathless and eager to escape.
‘I am going that way, too,’ said the young man, but not without a blush. Curates are, after all, like other men, and do not hesitate to change their route and to assert that they always meant to go that way; but there is so much consistency in the young Anglican that he blushes when he announces that innocent fallacy. He was going that way: where, then, was he going to? The part of the parish in which Mrs. Gould lived was not in the curate’s district, and he could not surely have any impertinent intention of interfering with what was in the Rector’s hands? These ideas flashed through the mind of Florence, but naturally she did not put them into words. She was very angry with Mr. Osborne, full of indignation, and yet she did not wish him to turn back and leave her at Miss Grey’s door. The blush which had surprised him as he told that fib reflected itself on her countenance, but in both their hearts there was a thrill of pleasure as they turned thus into the wrong way—the way that Florry had chosen to elude him, without in the least wanting to go to Mrs. Gould’s (for she knew all the time where the parish nurse was); the way that he falsely asserted to be his, though he knew it was nothing of the kind. It was a guilty pleasure, which neither of them would have owned to, but yet there was not much guilt in it after all.
‘Miss Grey is a very good woman,’ said the curate, ‘and excellent for the parish—but she has very old-fashioned ways of looking at things.’
‘I don’t see that,’ said Florence lightly, ‘at all.’
‘You would, I am sure,’ said Mr. Osborne, ‘if you would allow yourself to take a larger view. You won’t, I am afraid, adopt my standing-point, for you think that I am opposed to her and that I don’t appreciate her.’
‘You can’t of course know her as we do,’ said Florence, ‘for all our lives she has been an example before our eyes.’
‘That is again entirely the individual view of the question,’ said the curate gently, ‘and in that I grant you—but don’t you think we might take a more extended range when the question is a public one? I don’t in the least object to that, far from it. I know there is nothing so good as the way of working by individualities, of getting hold of Tom, and Will, and Peter, one by one, the door-to-door system, as I may call it; but when you have a great public evil like that of intemperance, don’t you think, Miss Florence, it is well, while not leaving the other undone, to try what some large public method will do——’
‘Like Father Matthew’s?’ said Florence.
‘Father Matthew was too sensational,’ said Mr. Osborne; ‘and it is impossible to tell how much fiction there was in such a movement. Indeed, I rather think the one by one system is the best; but to interest themen masse, to make them see what a thing it would be for all their families, and themselves, of course, and how much purer and more rational pleasure they would get out of their lives——’
‘Do you think they learn in that way?’
‘If they don’t, I do not know how they are to learn.’
‘But they all know beforehand how dreadful a thing it is—they know it’s destruction. Oh, don’t you think they know far better than we do, since they see it before them every day, and all day long?’
‘What would you do, then,’ said the curate, ‘to bring this home to them? I’ve got all the statistics. Of course they know, for misfortune brings it home; but if we could fully convince them what a prodigious evil it is over all the country, how many better things they could do with the money. I remember proving to a man once, that if he only put by every penny he had been accustomed to spend in drink, he could buy his cottage, he could have a little garden of his own, and a pig, and I don’t know how many things which every man prizes——’
‘And did he do it?’ said Florence.
‘Do it!’ said the curate. ‘Of course that meant a course of years. One could not tell whether he did it or not, till a long time was passed. Well, no,’ he added, with a sigh, ‘I am trying to deceive you, not to admit my failure; he did not do it. He went on just in his old way, and almost killed his wife, and starved his children, till he died.’
‘Is it true, Mr. Osborne,’ said Florence, ‘that you said to oldMrs. Lloyd, if she would give up her beer, and take the pledge, you would do so too?’
A flush came over the curate’s face, of ingenuous pleasure and satisfaction. He liked her to know that he was capable of any sacrifice to save his flock. ‘It is quite true,’ he said. ‘I was quite ready, and had made up my mind to do it; for how can I ask my people to give up what I don’t give up myself?’
‘But why did you choose poor old Mrs. Lloyd? It did her no harm, her little drop of beer.’
‘Every drop of beer does harm, in a community like this, scourged by that vice——’
‘Mr. Osborne,’ said Florence timidly.
‘Yes,’ he said, bending towards her, ‘you were going to say something.’
‘I want to say something; but, oh, I don’t know whether I ought, I don’t know whether I may.’
The curate trembled, too, as much as she did. They were in a quiet road, with nobody in sight. He put his hand suddenly upon hers with a hurried, tremulous pressure. ‘There is nothing you ought not to say to me,’ he said. ‘Nothing, nothing that I will not gladly hear. If you should reprove me, even, it would be as a precious balm—whatever, whatever you will say!’
There was a little pause, and it was very still all about, a bird or two trilling in the half-clothed trees, not a harsher sound to disturb the two young creatures, there standing at the crisis of their lives. ‘But first,’ he said, ‘first let me say something to you——’
‘No,’ said Florence, ‘no, that was not what I meant, not now—I had something to say. Mr. Osborne, listen. If, instead of an old woman, and her a good old woman that did no harm, it were a man, a boy, a gentleman, that you could have held out your hand to—oh, not to make him take pledges and things! and perhaps, you, hearing of him, thought him no company for you. But if you could have turned him away from harm to go with you; if you had suffered his society, not approving of it, because your society might have saved him; if you had thought to yourself that to be your companion might have been everything for him, and that to make him do things with you, and almost live with you, though you might not like it, would have made life another thing to him. Oh, Mr. Osborne, would not that have been a better way?’ Her eyes were so full of tears that she could not see him, but when he spoke she heard a sound in his voice which made her start and turn hastily to where the man who was almost her accepted lover,who had the words on his lips that were to bind them for ever, stood. The music and the softness had altogether gone out of these staccato tones.
‘Miss Plowden,’ he said, as if a sudden gulf had come between them over which his voice sounded far away, ‘I will not even ask what you mean. I should feel myself a most presumptuous intruder, and impertinent—— Good morning. I find I have not so much time as I thought for this roundabout way.’
Florencewent faithfully to Mrs. Gould’s to ask for the nurse, though she knew the nurse was not there. A man, perhaps, would have departed from that position when it was no longer necessary, but she considered it needful, as a proof of good faith, to carry out her announced intention. It was a long way round, and then she had to make another tour to get to the place where the nurse really was, so that her walk altogether occupied some three-quarters of an hour more than it need have done, and the time was long, although, on the other hand, she was glad to have it to herself, and to get over the pang of that abrupt separation. She knew very well what it was that the curate had to say to her. It had been on his lips for many days, and she had dreaded it, not because she did not want to hear it, but because of a girl’s natural evasion of the moment she wishes for most, the shy, half mischievous, half visionary putting off of the sweet cup from the lips. The expectation of it was sweet; all the pleasures of imagination lay in that moment which would bring an entire change in her life, a remodelling of all its circumstances. Florence had taken a pleasure in stealing away, in postponing till to-morrow. But it cannot be said that she experienced that pleasure to-day. She felt that she had received a blow when the curate turned with that hasty leave-taking and left her. To run away is one thing, and hold off a joy which is on the way; but to be thus abandoned is another. It gave her a dull shock like that of an unexpected, uncomprehended blow. She had wondered how he would take her remonstrance, her statement of what she thought his duty, which had been on her lips so long; but she had never expected him to take it with instant offence, with a resentment which drove all other thoughts out of his mind. What did he resent? To have this duty which he did not wish to recognise pointed out to him, or that she should venture to point it out—she only a girl, andthe girl who, by loving him, he perhaps thought was bound to see no flaw in him? Florence was not one of those who can see nothing but excellence in those they love, but she felt, with a momentary gleam of insight sharpened by pain, that perhaps Mr. Osborne was of the kind which requires that in a woman. She had not thought of the possibility before, that this might not be merely a momentary offence, but a wound from which he would not recover, which he would not forgive. A love-quarrel ever seems thus even when of the most trivial origin. It appears at once tragic, a thing never to be got over: an end of all the romance. Florence’s heart went down, down to the very depths. She said to herself that it was all over: that the last step would never now be taken, that there would be no more all her life but only an aching void, not even the recollection of words said that never could be forgotten. Had she let him speak she would at least have had that to cheer her; but as it was she would have nothing, not even the gloomy importance of an engagement to break off, a farewell that would have a whole tragedy in it: not even that: only a mere drifting asunder, a vacancy where there had been so much hope: a life blighted before it had come to bloom.
This thought occupied her mind sadly as she made that unnecessary round. He had gone off like a racehorse, scarcely touching the ground in the heat of his vexation and offence, but she went along very slowly, with the depression of the one who is in fault; whose interference and perhaps unreasonable censure had made the breach. Who, after all, was she that she should tell him of his duty, or that something else than the course he had adopted was a better way? she, only a girl with no education in particular, dictating not only to a man trained to discriminate what was the best, but a priest with the highest of vows upon him, and a special consecration to God’s service? Her presumption overwhelmed her when she thought of it in this light. But perhaps to be a member of a clerical family, used to see gentlemen of that profession too closely, and amid all the little trials of life, takes away to a certain extent the visionary reverence which it would be perhaps better to keep like an aureole about them. Florence could not surrender her natural judgment to this extent, nor convince herself that she had done wrong. She had taken perhaps an inopportune moment, but she had not said anything that was not true. She had managed badly for herself, and she would have to bear the result: but it was not wrong what she had said, nor was it wrong to say it; for perhaps, who could tell, hehad never thought of that side of the question before? Very likely he had never thought of it. Some people are so happy that they never have in all their lives to encounter misery in their family, and how can they know, unless somebody who does know it, somebody who has been forced to understand it, tells them? And perhaps—she thought with a forlorn consolation—what she had said would bear fruit, though he might never have anything to do with her again. He was too much offended, wounded, hurt, to think of her any more; that was a thing to be received as certain once for all; but perhaps what she had said would come back to him, and he might feel that it was true.
Then if she had let it alone for the present, if she had allowed him to say what was on his lips, and had answered what was on hers, and had become his, and had pledged herself to him—why, then one time or other she must have spoken, not as now in the general, but plainly of Jim? And what if the righteous young man’s high disapproval and disgust with the unrighteous had gone even further, to the length of putting poor Jim, whom his sister loved, out of the charities of life altogether and casting him off as some good people do? Florence felt that no tie, not even marriage itself, would have made her bear that, and so concluded at last, mournfully, that what she had done was, perhaps, after all the best, so as to warn him off in time, and show him that her views were very different from his. Oh, what mistakes men can make even when they are the most highly instructed, the most high-minded and nobly purposed of their kind! Edward Osborne was all that; yet he thought that it was a more pious thing to make poor old Mrs. Lloyd and such harmless old bodies give up their little harmless indulgences than to risk a little trouble or company that, perhaps, might be distasteful to him, in order to save Jim.
Florence got home at last just in time for the family luncheon, which was a good thing for her, as it kept her from exposure to the close personal observation of her mother and sister, who were too well acquainted with every change of her countenance not to perceive at once when anything was wrong with Florry. But the family meal occupied Mrs. Plowden, and Emmy was fortunately so full of her own morning’s occupations that her sister escaped notice.
‘You are not eating anything, child, and you have no colour,’ her mother said, ‘after your long walk.’
‘It is the long walk that has done it, she has over-tired herself; you shouldn’t permit those long walks,’ said the Rector. This was his favourite way of treating any annoyance—with thatconsolatory conviction that it must be his wife’s fault, which supports many men through the smaller miseries of life. Mrs. Plowden took an equal pleasure in the pleas of self-defence. ‘How am I to prevent long walks when there is always so much to do in the parish?’ she said. ‘I am constantly telling you you should have more district visitors, or a mission woman, or something. Those girls have never a moment to themselves.’
‘Oh, it is nothing, mamma,’ said Florence. ‘I had to make a long round to get the parish nurse: for I went to Mrs. Gould’s to find her, and, of course, she wasn’t there.’
‘You ought to have known that, Florry, so it is your own fault. Why, you sent her off yourself to the little Heaths.’
‘I know, mamma: I can’t think how I could be so stupid,’ Florence said.
‘And who wants her now?’ said the Rector curtly.
‘It is that woman in Mead Lane, who is always in trouble. Mr. Osborne,’ said Florence, so anxious to keep her voice firm that she gave the name an emphasis and importance she had no intention of giving, ‘had been sent for to see her last night.’
‘Osborne! he’s always finding a mare’s nest somewhere—do you mean that woman that always is in trouble, as you say?—trouble, indeed! drink you mean, and all that follows. If he could get her to take the pledge it might do some good: that’s if she would keep it—which I don’t believe for a moment.’
‘Then why should he take the trouble, papa, if it is to do no good?’
‘That’s what I tell him for ever: but he believes in himself, the young prig: I wish he would keep to his own business, and not mix himself up with things he cannot possibly understand.’
‘My dear James,’ said Mrs. Plowden, ‘Mr. Osborne is an excellent young man. There has not been a curate in the parish I have liked so much since Mr. Sinclair’s time. And he is very well connected and well-off, I believe, and altogether a creditable person to have about—an Oxford man and all that.’
‘That’s why he gives himself so many airs,’ the Rector said—which was not to say that the Rector did not really approve of Mr. Osborne, but only that it was his rôle to take the critical side. Mrs. Plowden, for her part, knew very well what was going on, and though she had burst forth in the fulness of her heart to her sister-in-law upon his shortcomings, she was on ordinary occasions very careful to keep up Mr. Osborne’s reputation, and to impress Florence with a due sense of all his qualities.
Now there arose a testimony in Mr. Osborne’s favour which was totally unexpected. ‘He wasn’t at all a bad lot at Oxford, said Jim. ‘Fellows that knew him liked him there: he played racquets for the University, and won. I wonder if he ever gets a game now.’
‘You astonish me, Jim,’ said Mrs. Plowden. ‘I never should have thought he was a man for games. What is racquets? is it a kind of tennis? for of course tennis is played with racquets. Perhaps we could get up a game for him here.’