189CHAPTER XXVI.“OH, YOU ARE PROUD!”
On the following Monday morning, Nan said in rather a curious voice to Phillis,—
“If no customers call to-day, our work-room will be empty. I wonder what we shall do with ourselves?”
To which Phillis replied, without a moment’s hesitation,—
“We will go down and bathe, and Dulce and I will have a swimming-match; and after that we will sit on the beach and quiz the people. Most likely there will be a troupe of colored minstrels on the Parade, and that will be fun.”
“Oh, I hope no one will come!” observed Dulce, overjoyed at the idea of a holiday; but, seeing Nan’s face was full of rebuke at this outburst of frivolity, she said no more.
It was decided at last that they should wait for an hour to see if any orders arrived, and after that they would consider themselves at liberty to amuse themselves for the remainder of the day. But, alas for Dulce’s hopes! long before the appointed hour had expired, the gate-bell rang, and Miss Drummond made her appearance with a large paper parcel, which she deposited on the table with a radiant face.
The story was soon told. Her silk dress was such a success, and dear Archie was so charmed with it—here Mattie, with a blush, deposited a neatly-sealed little packet in Nan’s hand—that he had actually proposed that she should have another gown made after the same pattern for every-day wear. And he had taken her himself directly after breakfast down to Mordant’s, and had chosen her this dress. He had never done such a thing before, even for Grace: so no wonder Mattie was in the seventh heaven of delight.
“It is very pretty,” observed Nan, critically: “your brother has good taste.” Which speech was of course retailed to Archie.
Mattie had only just left the cottage, when another customer appeared in the person of Miss Middleton.
Nan, who had just begun her cutting-out, met her with a pleased glance of recognition, and then, remembering her errand, bowed rather gravely. But Miss Middleton, after a moment’s hesitation, held out her hand.
She had not been able to make up her mind about these girls. Her father’s shocked sense of decorum, and her own old-fashioned gentlewoman’s idea, had raised certain difficulties in her mind, which she had found it hard to overcome. “Recollect,190Elizabeth, I will not have those girls brought here,” the colonel had said to her that very morning. “They may be all very well in their way, but I have changed my opinion of them. There’s poor Drummond: now mark my words, there will be trouble by and by in that quarter.” For Colonel Middleton had groaned in spirit ever since the morning he had seen the young vicar walking with Phillis down the Braidwood Road, when she was carrying Mrs. Trimmings’s dress. Elizabeth answered this gentle protest by one of her gentle smiles. “Very well, dear father: I will ask no one to Brooklyn against your wish, you may be sure of that; but I suppose they may make my new dress? Mattie’s has been such a success; they certainly understand their business.”
“You have a right to select your own dressmaker, Elizabeth,” returned the colonel, with a frigid wave of his hand, for he had not got over his disappointment about the girls. “I only warn you because you are very quixotic in your notions; but we must take the world as we find it, and make the best of it; and there is your brother coming home by and by. We must be careful, for Hammond’s sake.” And, as Elizabeth’s good sense owned the justice of her father’s remark, there was nothing more said on the subject.
But it was not without a feeling of embarrassment that Miss Middleton entered the cottage: her great heart was yearning over these girls, whom she was compelled to keep at a distance. True, her father was right, Hammond was coming home, and a young officer of seven-and-twenty was not to be trusted where three pretty girls were concerned: it would never do to invite them to Brooklyn or to make too much of them. Miss Middleton had ranged herself completely on her father’s side, but at the sight of Nan’s sweet face and her grave little bow she forgot all her prudent resolutions, and her hand was held out as though to an equal.
“I have come to ask you if you will be good enough to make me a dress,” she said, with a charming smile. “You have succeeded so well with Miss Drummond that I cannot help wishing to have one too.” And when she had said this she looked quietly round her, and surveyed the pretty work-room, and Dulce sitting at the sewing-machine, and lastly Phillis’s bright, intelligent face, as she stood by the table turning over some fashion-books.
At that moment Mrs. Challoner entered the room with her little work-basket, and placed herself at the other window. Miss Middleton began talking to her at once, while Nan measured and pinned.
“I don’t think I ever spent a pleasanter half-hour,” she told her father afterwards. “Mattie was right in what she said: they have made the work-room perfectly lovely with pictures and old china: and nothing could be nicer than their manners,—so191simple and unassuming, yet with a touch of independence too.”
“And the old lady?” inquired the colonel, maliciously, for he had seen Mrs. Challoner in church, and knew better than to speak of her so disrespectfully.
“Old lady, father! why, she is not old at all. She is an exceedingly pleasing person, only a little stately in her manner; one would not venture to take a liberty with her. We had such a nice talk while the eldest daughter was fitting me. Is it not strange, father dear, that they know the Paines? and Mrs. Sartoris is an old acquaintance of theirs. I think they were a little sorry when they heard we knew them too, for the second girl colored up so when I said Adelaide was your goddaughter.”
“Humph? we will have Adelaide down here, and hear all about them,” responded her father, briskly.
“Well, I don’t know; I am afraid that would be painful to them, under their changed circumstances. Just as we were talking about Adelaide, Miss Mewlstone came in; and then they were so busy that I did not like to stay any longer. Ah, there is Mr. Drummond coming to interrupt us, as usual.”
And then the colonel retailed all this for Archie’s benefit. He had come in to glean a crumb or two of intelligence, if he could, about the Challoners’ movements, and the colonel’s garrulity furnished him with a rich harvest.
Phillis had taken Miss Mewlstone in hand at once in the intervals of business: she had inquired casually after Mrs. Cheyne’s injured ankle.
“It is going on well: she can stand now,” returned Miss Mewlstone. “The confinement has been very trying for her, poor thing, and she looks sadly the worse for it. Don’t take out those pins, my dear: what is the good of taking so much pains with a fat old thing like me and pricking your pretty fingers? Well, she is always asking me if I have seen any of you when I come home.”
“Mrs. Cheyne asks after us!” exclaimed Phillis, in a tone of astonishment.
“Ah, just so. She has not forgotten you. Magdalene never forgets any one in whom she takes interest; not that she likes many people, poor dear! but then so few understand her. They will not believe that it is all on the surface, and that there is a good heart underneath.”
“You call her Magdalene,” observed Phillis, rather curiously, looking up into Miss Mewlstone’s placid face.
“Ah, just so; I forgot. You see, I knew her as a child,—oh, such a wee toddling mite! younger than dear little Janie. I remember her just as though it were yesterday; the loveliest little creature,—prettier even than Janie!”
“Was Janie the child who died?”
“Yes, the darling! She was just three years old; a perfect192angel of a child! and Bertie was a year older. Poor Magdalene! it is no wonder she is as she is,—no husband and children! When she sent for me I came at once, though I knew how it would be.”
“You knew how it would be?” repeated Phillis, in a questioning voice, for Miss Mewlstone had come to a full stop here. She looked a little confused at this repetition of her words.
“Oh, just so—just so. Thank you, my dear. You have done that beautifully, I am sure. Never mind what an old woman says. When people are in trouble like that, they are often ill to live with. Magdalene has her moods; so have we all, my dear, though you are too young to know that; but no one understands her better than her old Bathsheba; that is my name, and a funny old name too, is it not?” continued Miss Mewlstone, blinking at Phillis with her little blue eyes. “The worst of having such a name is that no one will use it; even father and mother called me Barby, as Magdalene does sometimes still.”
Bathsheba Mewlstone! Phillis’s lip curled with suppressed amusement. What a droll old thing she was! and yet she liked her, somehow.
“If she takes it into her head to come and see you, you will try and put up with her sharp speeches?” continued Miss Mewlstone, a little anxiously, as she tied on her bonnet. “Mr. Drummond does not understand her at all: and I will not deny that she is hard on the poor young man, and makes fun of him a bit; but, bless you, it is only her way! She torments herself and other people, just because time will not pass quickly enough and let her forget. If we had children ourselves we should understand it better, and how in Ramah there must be lamentation,” finished Miss Mewlstone, with a vague and peculiar reference to the martyred innocents which was rather inexplicable to Phillis, as in this case there was certainly no Herod, but an ordinary visitation of Providence; but then she did not know that Miss Mewlstone was often a little vague.
After this hint, Phillis was not greatly surprised when, one morning, a pair of gray ponies stopped before the Friary, and Mrs. Cheyne’s tall figure came slowly up the flagged path.
It must be owned that Phillis’s first feelings were not wholly pleasurable. Nan had gone out: an invalid lady staying at Seaview Cottage had sent for a dressmaker rather hurriedly, and Miss Milner had of course recommended them. Nan had gone at once, and, as Dulce looked pale, she had taken her with her for a walk. They might not be back for another hour; and atete-a-tetewith Mrs. Cheyne after their last interview was rather formidable.
Dorothy preceded her with a parcel, which she deposited rather gingerly on the table. As Mrs. Cheyne entered the room she looked at Phillis in a cool, off-hand manner.
“I am come on business,” she said with a little nod. “How193do you do, Miss Challoner? You are looking rather pale, I think.” And then her keen glance travelled round the room.
The girl flushed a little over this abruptness, but she did not lose her courage.
“Is this the dress?” she asked, opening the parcel; but her fingers would tremble a little, in spite of her will. And then, as the rich folds of the black brocade came into view, she asked, in a business-like tone, in what style Mrs. Cheyne would wish it made, and how soon she required it. To all of which Mrs. Cheyne responded in the same dry, curt manner; and then the usual process of fitting began.
Never had her task seemed so tedious and distasteful to Phillis. Even Mrs. Trimmings was preferable to this: she hardly ventured to raise her eyes, for fear of meeting Mrs. Cheyne’s cold, satirical glance; and yet all the time she knew she was being watched. Mrs. Cheyne’s vigilant silence meant something.
If only her mother would come in! but she was shelling peas for Dorothy. To think Nan should have failed her on such an occasion! even Dulce would have been a comfort, though she was so easily frightened. She started almost nervously when Mrs. Cheyne at last broke the silence:
“Yes, you are decidedly paler,—a little thinner, I think, and that after only a fortnight’s work.”
Phillis looked up a little indignantly at this; but she found Mrs. Cheyne was regarding her not unkindly.
“I am well enough,” she returned, rather ungraciously; “but we are not used to so much confinement and the weather is hot. We shall grow accustomed to it in time.”
“You think restlessness is so easily subdued?” with a sneer.
“No; but I believe it can be controlled,” replied poor Phillis, who suffered more than any one guessed from this restraint on her sweet freedom.
Mrs. Cheyne was right: even in this short time she was certainly paler and thinner.
“You mean to persevere, then, in your moral suicide?”
“We mean to persevere in our duty,” corrected Phillis, as she pinned up a sleeve.
“Rather a high moral tone for a dressmaker to take: don’t you think so?” returned Mrs. Cheyne, in the voice Archie hated. The woman certainly had a double nature: there was a twist in her somewhere.
This was too much for Phillis: she fired up in a moment.
“Why should not dressmakers take a high moral tone? You make me feel glad I am one when you talk like that. This is our ambition,—Nan’s and mine, for Dulce is too young to think much about it,—to show by our example that there is no degradation in work. Oh, it is hard! First Mr. Drummond comes, and talks to us as though we were doing wrong; and, then you, to cry down our honest labor, and call it suicide! Is it suicide to work with these hands, that God has made194clever, for my mother?” cried Phillis; and her great gray eyes filled up with sudden tears.
Mrs. Cheyne did not look displeased at the girl’s outburst. If she had led up to this point, she could not have received it more calmly.
“There, there! you need not excite yourself, child!” she said, more gently. “I only wanted to know what you would say. So Miss Mewlstone has been to you, I hear?—and Miss Middleton, too? but that’s her benevolence. Of course Miss Mattie comes out of curiosity. How I do detest a fussy woman, with a tongue that chatters faster than a purling brook! What do you say? No harm in her?” for Phillis had muttered something to this effect. “Oh, that is negative praise! I like people to have a little harm in them: it is so much more amusing.”
“I cannot say I am of your opinion,” returned Phillis, coldly: she was rather ashamed of her fit of enthusiasm, and cross in consequence.
“My dear, I always thought Lucifer must have been rather an interesting person.” Then, as Phillis looked scandalized, and drew herself up, she said, in a funny voice, “Now, don’t tell your mother what I said, or she will think me an improper character; and I want to be introduced to her.”
“You want to be introduced to my mother!” Phillis could hardly believe her ears. Certainly Mrs. Cheyne was a most inexplicable person.
“Dressmakers don’t often have mothers, do they?” returned Mrs. Cheyne, with a laugh; “at least, they are never on view. I suppose they are in the back premises doing something?”
“Shelling peas, for example,” replied Phillis, roused to mischief by this: “that is mother’s work this morning. Dorothy is old and single-handed, and needs all the help we can give her. Oh, yes! I will take you to her at once.”
“Indeed you must not, if it will inconvenience her!” returned Mrs. Cheyne, drawing back a little at this. She was full of curiosity to see the mother of these singular girls, but she did not wish to have her illusion too roughly dispelled; and the notion of Mrs. Challoner’s homely employment grated a little on the feelings of the fine lady who had never done anything useful in her life.
“Oh, nothing puts mother out!” returned Phillis, in an indifferent tone. The old spirit of fun was waking up in her, and she led the way promptly to the parlor.
“Mother, Mrs. Cheyne wishes to see you,” she announced, in a most matter-of-fact voice, as though that lady were a daily visitor.
Mrs. Challoner looked up in a little surprise. One of Dorothy’s rough aprons was tied over her nice black gown, and the yellow earthenware bowl was on her lap. Phillis took up some of the green pods, and began playing with them.
“Will you excuse my rising?—you see my employment,”195observed Mrs. Challoner, with a smile that was almost as charming as Nan’s; and she held out a white soft hand to her visitor.
The perfect ease of her manner, the absence of all flurry, produced an instant effect on Mrs. Cheyne. For a moment she stood as though at a loss to explain her intrusion; but the next minute one of her rare sunshiny smiles crossed her face:
“I must seem impertinent; but your daughters have interested me so much that I was anxious to see their mother. But I ought to apologize for disturbing you so early.”
“Not at all; all hours are the same to me. We are always glad to see our friends: are we not, Phillis? My dear, I wish you would carry these away to Dorothy and ask her to finish them.”
“Oh, no! pray do nothing of the kind,” returned Mrs. Cheyne, eagerly. “You must not punish me in this way. Let me help you. Indeed, I am sure I can, if I only tried.” And, to Phillis’s intense amusement, Mrs. Cheyne drew off her delicate French gloves, and in another moment both ladies were seated close together, shelling peas into the same pan, and talking as though they had known each other for years.
“Oh, it was too delicious!” exclaimed Phillis, when she had retailed this interview for Nan’s and Dulce’s benefit. “I knew mother would behave beautifully. If I had taken the Princess of Wales in to see her, she would not have had a word of apology for her apron, though it was a horrid coarse thing of Dorothy’s. She would just have smiled at her, as she did at Mrs. Cheyne. Mother’s behavior is always lovely.”
“Darling old mammie!” put in Dulce, rapturously, at this point.
“I made some excuse and left them together, because I could see Mrs. Cheyne was dying to get rid of me; and I’m always amiable, and like to please people. Oh, it was the funniest sight, I assure you!—Mrs. Cheyne with her long fingers blazing with diamond rings, and the peas rolling down her silk dress; and mother just going on with her business in her quiet way. Oh, I had such a laugh when I was back in the work-room!”
It cost Phillis some trouble to be properly demure when Mrs. Cheyne came into the work-room some time afterwards in search of her. Perhaps her mischievous eyes betrayed her, for Mrs. Cheyne shook her head at her in pretended rebuke:
“Ah, I see; you will persist in treating things like a comedy. Well, that is better than putting on tragedy airs and making yourselves miserable. Now I have seen your mother, I am not quite so puzzled.”
“Indeed!” and Phillis fixed her eyes innocently on Mrs. Cheyne’s face.
“No; but I am not going to make you vain by telling you what I think of her: indiscriminate praise is not wholesome. Now, when are you coming to see me?—that is the point in question.”196
“Dorothy will bring home your dress on Saturday,” replied Phillis, a little dryly. “If it requires alteration, perhaps you will let me know, and of course I will come up to the White House at any time.”
“But I do not mean to wait for that. You are misunderstanding me purposely, Miss Challoner. I want you to come and talk to me one evening,—any evening. No one but Miss Mewlstone will be there.”
“Oh, no!” responded Phillis, suddenly turning very red:
“I do not think that would do at all, Mrs. Cheyne. I do not mean to be rude or ungrateful for your kindness, but—but––” Here the girl stammered and broke down.
“You wish, then, to confine our intercourse to a purely business relation?” asked Mrs. Cheyne, and her voice had a tone of the old bitterness.
“Would it not be better under the circumstances? Forgive me if I am too proud, but––”
“Oh, you are proud, terribly proud!” returned Mrs. Cheyne, taking up her words before she could complete her sentence. “You owe me a grudge for what I said that night, and now you are making me pay the penalty. Well, I am not meek: there is not a human being living to whom I would sue for friendship. If I were starving for a kind word, I would sooner die than ask for one. You see, I am proud too, Miss Challoner.”
“Oh, I did not mean to hurt you,” returned Phillis, distressed at this, but determined not to yield an inch or bend to the sudden caprice of this extraordinary woman, who had made her suffer so once.
“To be hurt, one must have feelings,” returned this singular person. “Do not be afraid, I shall not attempt to shake your resolution: if you come to me now it must be of your own free will.”
“And if I come, what then?” asked Phillis, standing very straight and stiff, for she would not be patronized.
“If you come you will be welcome,” returned Mrs. Cheyne; and then, with a grave inclination of the head, she swept out of the room.
CHAPTER XXVII.A DARK HOUR.
“I should go one evening, if I were you: it is easy to see that Mrs. Cheyne has taken a fancy to you,” said Nan, who was much interested by this recital; but to this Phillis replied, with a very decided shake of the head,—
“I shall do nothing of the kind; I was not made to be a fine197lady’sprotegee. If she patronized me, I should grow savage and show my teeth; and, as I have no desire to break the peace, we had better remain strangers. Dear Magdalene certainly has a temper!” finished Phillis, with a wicked little sneer.
Nan tried to combat this resolution, and used a great many arguments: she was anxious that Phillis should avail herself of this sudden fancy on the part of Mrs. Cheyne to lift herself and perhaps all of them into society with their equals. Nan’s good sense told her that though at present the novelty and excitement of their position prevented them from realizing the full extent of their isolation, in time it must weigh on them very heavily, and especially on Phillis, who was bright and clever and liked society; but all her words were powerless against Phillis’s stubbornness: to the White House she could not and would not go.
But one evening she changed her mind very suddenly, when a note from Miss Mewlstone reached her. A gardener’s boy brought it: “it was very particular, and was to be delivered immediate to the young lady,” he observed, holding the missive between a very grimy finger and thumb.
“My dear young lady,—
“Pride is all very well, but charity is often best in the long run, and a little kindness to a suffering human being is never out of place in a young creature like you.
“Poor Magdalene has been very sadly for days, and I have got it into my stupid old head—that is always fancying things—that she has been watching for folks who have been too proud to come, though she would die sooner than tell me so; but that is her way, poor dear!
“It is ill to wake at nights with nothing but sad thoughts for company, and it is ill wearing out the long days with only a silly old body to cheer one up; and when there is nothing fresh to say, and nothing to expect, and not a footstep or a voice to break the silence, then it seems to me that a young voice—that is, a kind voice—would be welcome. Take this hint, my dear, and keep my counsel, for I am only a silly old woman, as she often says.
“Yours,Bathsheba Mewlstone.”
“Oh, I must go now!” observed Phillis, in an embarrassed voice, as she laid this singular note before Nan.
“Yes, dear; and you had better put on your hat at once, and Dulce and I will walk with you as far as the gate. It is sad for you to miss the scramble on the shore; but, when other people really want us, I feel as though it were a direct call,” finished Nan, solemnly.
“I am afraid there is a storm coming up,” replied Phillis, who had been oppressed all day by the heavy thundery atmosphere:198she had looked so heated and weary that Nan had proposed a walk by the shore. Work was pouring upon them from all sides: the townspeople, envious of Mrs. Trimmings’s stylish new dress, were besieging the Friary with orders, and the young dressmakers would have been literally overwhelmed with their labors, only that Nan, with admirable foresight, insisted on taking in no more work than they felt themselves able to complete.
“No,” she would say to some disappointed customer, “our hands are full just now, and we cannot undertake any more orders at present: we will not promise more than we can perform. Come to me again in a fortnight’s time, and we will willingly make your dress, but now it is impossible.” And in most cases the dress was brought punctually at the time appointed.
Phillis used to grumble a little at this.
“You ought not to refuse orders, Nan,” she said, rather fretfully, once. “Any other dressmaker would sit up half the night rather than disappoint a customer.”
“My dear,” Nan returned, in her elder-sisterly voice, which had always a great effect on Phillis, “I wonder what use Dulce and you would be if you sat up sewing half the night, and drinking strong tea to keep yourselves awake? No, there shall be no burning the candles at both ends in this fashion; please God we will keep our health, and our customers; and no one in their senses could call us idle. Why, we are quite the fashion! Mrs. Squails told me yesterday that every one in Hadleigh was wild to have a gown made by the ‘lady dressmakers.’”
“Oh, I daresay!” replied Phillis, crossly, for the poor thing was so hot and tired that she could have cried from pure weariness and vexation of spirit: “but we shall not be the fashion long when the novelty wears off; people will call us independent, and get tired of us; and no wonder, if they are to wait for their dresses in this way.”
Nan’s only answer was to look at Phillis’s pale face in a pitying way; and then she took her hand, and led her to the corner, where her mother’s Bible always lay, and then with ready fingers turned to the well known-passage, “Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labor unto the evening.”
“Well, Nan, what then?”
“Evening is for rest,—for refreshment of mind and body: I will not have it turned into a time of toil. I know you, Phillis; you would work till your poor fingers got thin, and your spirits were all flattened out, and every nerve was jarring and set on edge; and you would call that duty! No, darling,—never! Dulce shall keep her roses, and we will have battledore and shuttlecock every evening; but, if I have to keep the key of the work-room in my pocket, you and Dulce shall never enter it after tea.” And Nan’s good sense, as usual, carried the day.199
Phillis would much rather have joined her sisters in their walk than have turned in at the gloomy lodge-gates.
“‘All ye who enter here, leave hope behind,’”
she quoted, softly, as she waved her hand to Nan.
The servant who admitted her looked a little dubious over his errand.
“His mistress was in her room,” he believed, “and was far too unwell to see visitors. He would tell Miss Mewlstone, if the young lady liked to wait; but he was sure it was no use,”—all very civilly said. And as Phillis persisted in her intention of seeing Mrs. Cheyne, if possible, he ushered her into the library, a gloomy-looking room, with closed blinds, one of which he drew up, and then went in search of Miss Mewlstone.
Phillis did not find her surroundings particularly cheerful. The air was darkened by the approaching storm. A sullen cloud hung over the sky. The library windows opened upon the shrubberies. Here the trees were planted so thickly that their shade obscured much of the light. The room was so dark that she could only dimly discern the handsome bindings of the books in the carved oak book-cases. The whole of the furniture seemed sombre and massive. The chair that the footman had placed for her was covered with violet velvet, and was in harmony with the rest of the furniture.
Dreary as the room looked, it was nothing to the shrubbery walk. A narrow winding path seemed to vanish into utter darkness. In some places the trees met overhead, so closely had they grown.
“If I were the mistress of the White House,” Phillis said to herself, “I would cut every one of those trees down. They must make this part of the house quite unhealthy. It really looks like a ‘ghost walk’ that one reads about.” But scarcely had these thoughts passed through her mind when she uttered a faint cry of alarm. The dark room, the impending storm, and her own overwrought feelings were making her nervous; but actually, through the gloom, she could see a figure in white approaching.
In another moment she would have sought refuge in the hall, but contempt at her own cowardice kept her rooted to the spot.
“She was an utter goose to be so startled! It was—yes, of course it was Mrs. Cheyne. She could see her more plainly now. She would step through the window and meet her.”
Phillis’s feelings of uneasiness had not quite vanished. The obscurity was confusing, and invested everything with an unnatural effect. Even Mrs. Cheyne’s figure, coming out from the dark background, seemed strange and unfamiliar. Phillis had always before seen her in black; but now she wore a white gown, fashioned loosely, like a wrapper, and her hair, which at other times had been most carefully arranged, was now200strained tightly and unbecomingly from her face, which looked pallid and drawn. She started violently when she saw Phillis coming towards her, and seemed inclined to draw back and retrace her steps. It evidently cost her a strong effort to recover herself. She seemed to conquer her reluctance with difficulty.
“So you have come at last, Miss Challoner,” she said, fixing her eyes, which looked unnaturally bright, on Phillis. Her voice was cold, almost harsh, and her countenance expressed no pleasure. The hand she held out was so limp and cold that Phillis relinquished it hastily.
“You said that I should be welcome,” she faltered, and trying not to appear alarmed. She was too young and healthy to understand the meaning of the word hysteria, or to guess at the existence of nervous maladies that make some people’s lives a long torment to them. Nevertheless, Mrs. Cheyne’s singular aspect filled her with vague fear. It did not enter into her mind to connect the coming storm with Mrs. Cheyne’s condition, until she hinted at it herself.
“Oh, yes, you are welcome,” she responded, wearily. “I have looked for you evening after evening, but you chose to come with the storm. It is a pity, perhaps; but then you did not know!”
“What would you have me know?” asked Phillis, timidly.
Mrs. Cheyne shrugged her shoulders a little flightily.
“Oh, you are young!” she returned; “you do not understand what nerves mean; you sleep sweetly of a night, and have no bad dreams: it does not matter to you happy people if the air is full of sunshine or surcharged with electricity. For me, when the sun ceases to shine I am in despair. Fogs find me brooding. An impending storm suffocates me, and yet tears me to pieces with restlessness: it drives me hither and thither like a fallen leaf. I tire myself that I may sleep, and yet I stare open-eyed for hours together into the darkness. I wonder sometimes I do not go mad. But there! let us walk—let us walk.” And she made a movement to retrace her steps; but Phillis, with a courage for which she commended herself afterwards, pulled her back by her hanging sleeves.
“Oh, not there! it is not good for any one who is sad to walk in that dark place. No wonder your thoughts are sombre. Look! the heavy rain-drops are pattering among the leaves. I do not care to get wet: let us go back to the house.”
“Pshaw! what does it matter getting wet?” she returned, with a little scorn; but nevertheless she suffered Phillis to take her arm and draw her gently towards the house. Only as they came near the library window, she pointed to it indignantly. “Who has dared to enter that room, or open the window! Have I not forbidden over and over again that that room should be used? Do you think,” she continued, in the same excited way, “that I would enter that room to-night of all nights!201Why, I should hear his angry voice pealing in every corner! It was a good room for echoes; and he could speak loudly if he chose. Come away! there is a door I always use that leads to my private apartments. I am no recluse; but in these moods I do not care to show myself to people. If you are not afraid, you may come with me, unless you prefer Miss Mewlstone’s company.”
“I would rather go with you,” returned Phillis, gently. She could not in truth say she was not afraid; but all the same she must try and soothe the poor creature who was evidently enduring such torments of mind: so she followed in silence up the broad oak staircase.
A green-baize door admitted them into a long and somewhat narrow corridor, lighted up by a row of high narrow windows set prettily with flower-boxes. Here there were several doors. Mrs. Cheyne paused before one a moment.
“Look here! you shall see the mysteries of the west wing. This is my world; downstairs I am a different creature—taciturn, harsh, and prone to sarcasm. Ask Mr. Drummond what he thinks of me; but I never could endure a good young man—especially that delicious compound of the worldling and the saint—like the Reverend Archibald. See here, my dear: here I am never captious or say naughty things!”
She threw open the door, and softly beckoned to Phillis to enter. It was a large empty room,—evidently a nursery. Some canaries were twittering faintly in a gilded cage. There were flowers in the two windows, and in the vases on the table: evidently some loving hands had arranged them that very morning. A large rocking-horse occupied the centre of the floor: a doll lay with its face downwards on the crimson carpet; a pile of wooden soldiers strutted on their zigzag platform,—one or two had fallen off; a torn picture-book had been flung beside them.
“That was my Janie’s picture-book,” said Mrs. Cheyne, mournfully: “she was teaching her doll out of it just before she was taken ill. Nothing was touched; by a sort of inspiration,—a foreboding,—I do not know what,—I bade nurse leave the toys as they were. ‘It is only an interrupted game: let the darlings find their toys as they put them,’ I said to her that morning. Look at the soldiers, Bertie was always for soldiers,—bless him!”
Her manner had grown calmer; and she spoke with such touching tenderness that tears came to Phillis’s eyes. But Mrs. Cheyne never once looked at the girl; she lingered by the table a moment, adjusting a leaf here and a bud there in the bouquets, and then she opened an inner door leading to the night-nursery. Here the associations were still more harrowing. The cots stood side by side under a muslin canopy, with an alabaster angel between them; the little night-dresses lay folded on the pillows; on each quilt were the scarlet dressing-gown and the202pair of tiny slippers; the clothes were piled neatly on two chairs,—a boy’s velvet tunic on one, a girl’s white frock, a little limp and discolored, hung over the rails of the other.
“Everything just the same,” murmured the poor mother. “Look here, my dear,”—with a faint smile—“these are Bertie’s slippers: there is the hole he kicked in them when he was in his tempers, for my boy had the Cheyne temper. He was Herbert’s image,—his very image.” She sighed, paused, and went on: “Every night I come and sit beside their beds, and then the darlings come to me. I can see their faces—oh, so plainly!—and hear their voices. ‘Good-night, dear mamma!’ they seem to say to me, only Bertie’s voice is always the louder.”
Her manner was becoming a little excited again; only Phillis took her hand and pressed it gently, and the touch seemed to soothe her like magic.
“I am so glad you come here every night,” she said, in her sweet, serious voice, from which every trace of fear had gone. “I think that a beautiful idea, to come and say your prayers beside one of these little beds.”
“To say my prayers!—I pray beside my darlings’ beds!” exclaimed Mrs. Cheyne, in a startled voice. “Oh no! I never do that. God would not hear such prayers as mine,—never—never!”
“Dear Mrs. Cheyne, why not?” She moved restlessly away at the question, and tried to disengage herself from Phillis’s firm grasp. “The Divine Father hears all prayers,” whispered the girl.
“All?—but not mine,—not mine, or I should not be sitting here alone. Do you know my husband left me in anger,—that his last words to me were the bitterest he ever spoke? ‘Good-by, Magdalene: you have made my life so wretched that I do not care if I never live to set foot in this house again!’ And that to me,—his wedded wife, and the mother of his children,—who loved him so. Oh, Herbert! Herbert!” and, covering her face, the unhappy woman suddenly burst into a passion of tears.
CHAPTER XXVIII.THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER.
Phillis kept a sad silence: not for worlds would she have checked the flow of tears that must have been so healing to the tortured brain. Besides, what was there that she, so young and inexperienced, could say in the presence of a grief so terrible, so overpowering? The whole thing was inexplicable to Phillis. Why were the outworks of conventionality so suddenly thrown203down? Why was she, a stranger, permitted to be a witness of such a revelation? As she sat there speechless and sympathizing, a faint sound reached her ear,—the rustle of a dress in the adjoining room,—footsteps that approached warily, and then paused; a moment afterwards the door closed softly behind them. Phillis looked round quickly, but could see nothing; and the same instant a peal of thunder rolled over their heads.
Mrs. Cheyne started up with an hysterical scream, and caught hold of Phillis. “Come,” she said, almost wildly, “we will not stay here. The children will not come to-night, for who could hear their voices in such a storm? My little angels!—but they shall not see me like this. Come, come!” And, taking the girl by the arm, she almost dragged her from the room, and led the way with rapid and disordered footsteps to a large luxurious chamber, furnished evidently as a dressing-room, and only divided from the sleeping-room by a curtained archway.
As Mrs. Cheyne threw herself down in an arm-chair and hid her face in her hands, the curtain was drawn back, and Miss Mewlstone came in with an anxious, almost frightened expression on her good-natured countenance. She hurried up to Mrs. Cheyne and took her in her arms as though she were a child.
“Now, Magdalene, now, my dear,” she said, coaxingly, “you will try to be good and command yourself before this young lady. Look at her: she is not a bit afraid of the storm:—are you, Miss Challoner? No, just so; you are far too sensible.”
“Oh, that is what you always tell me,” returned Mrs. Cheyne, wrenching herself free with some violence. “Be sensible,—be good,—when I am nearly mad with the oppression and suffocation, here, and here,” pointing to her head and breast. “Commonplaces, commonplaces; as well stop a deluge with a teacup. Oh, you are an old fool, Barby: you will never learn wisdom.”
“My poor lamb! Barby never minds one word you say when you are like this.”
“Oh, I will beg your pardon to-morrow, or when the thunder stops. Hark! there it is again,” cowering down in her chair. “Can’t you pray for it to cease, Barby? Oh, it is too horrible! Don’t you recollect the night he rode away,—right into the storm, into the very teeth of the storm? ‘Good-bye, Magdalene; who knows when we may meet again?’ and I never looked at him, never kissed him, never broke the silence by one word; and the thunder came, and he was gone,” beating the air with her hands.
“Oh, hush, my dear, hush! Let me read to you a little, and the fever will soon pass. You are frightening the poor young lady with your wild talk, and no wonder!”
“Pshaw! who minds the girl? Let her go or stop; what do I care? What is the whole world to me, when I am tormented like this? Three years, four years—more than a thousand204days—of this misery! Oh, Barby! do you think I have been punished enough? do you think where he is, up in heaven with the children, that he forgives and pities me, who was such a bad wife to him?”
As Miss Mewlstone paused a moment to wipe the tears that were flowing over her old cheeks, Phillis’s voice came to her relief.
“Oh, can you doubt it?” she said, in much agitation. “Dear Mrs. Cheyne, can you have an instant’s doubt? Do you think the dead carry all these paltry earthly feelings into the bright place yonder? Forgive you—oh, there is no need of forgiveness there; he will only be loving you,—he and the children too.”
“God bless you!” whispered Miss Mewlstone. “Hush, that is enough! Go, my dear, go, and I will come to you presently. Magdalene, put your poor head down here: I have thought of something that will do you good.” She waved Phillis away almost impatiently, and laid the poor sufferer’s head on her bosom, shielding it from the flashes that darted through the room. Phillis could see her bending over her, and her voice was as tender as though she were soothing a sick infant.
Phillis was trembling with agitation as she stole down the dark corridor. Never in her happy young life had she witnessed or imagined such a scene. The wild words, the half-maddened gestures, the look of agony stamped on the pale, almost distorted features, would haunt her for many a day. Oh, how the poor soul must have suffered before she lost self-control and balance like this!
It was not the death of her children that had so utterly unnerved her. It must have been that bitter parting with her husband, and the remembrance of angry words never to be atoned for in this life, that was cankering the root of her peace, and that brought about these moods of despair.
Phillis thought of Coleridge’s lines,—
“And to be wroth with one we loveDoth work like madness on the brain,”—
as she took refuge in the dim drawing-room. Here, at least, there were signs of human life and occupation. A little tea-table had been set in one window, though the tea was cold. The greyhounds came and laid their slender noses on her gown, and one small Italian one coiled himself up on her lap. Miss Mewlstone’s work-basket stood open, and a tortoise shell kitten had helped itself to a ball of wool and was busily unwinding it. The dogs were evidently frightened at the storm, for they all gathered round Phillis, shivering and whining, as though missing their mistress; and she had much ado to comfort them, though she loved animals and understood their dumb language better than most people.205
It was not so very long, and yet it seemed hours before Miss Mewlstone came down to her.
“Are you here, my dear?” she asked, in a loud whisper, for the room was dark. “Ah, just so. We must have lights, and I must give you a glass of wine or a nice hot cup of coffee.” And, notwithstanding Phillis’s protest that she never took wine and was not in need of anything, Miss Mewlstone rang the bell, and desired the footman to bring in the lamp. “And tell Bishop to send up some nice hot coffee and sandwiches as soon as possible. For young people never know what they want, and you are just worried and tired to death with all you have gone through,—not being an old woman and seasoned to it like me,” went on the good creature, and she patted Phillis’s cheek encouragingly as she spoke.
“But how is she? Oh, thank God, the storm has lulled at last!” exclaimed the girl, breathlessly.
“Oh, yes; the storm is over. We have reason to dread storms in this house,” returned Miss Mewlstone, gravely. “She was quite exhausted, and let Charlotte and me help her to bed. Now she has had her composing-draught, and Charlotte will sit by her till I go up. I always watch by her all night after one of these attacks.”
“Is it a nervous attack?” asked Phillis, timidly, for she felt she was treading on delicate ground.
“I believe Dr. Parkes calls it hysteria,” replied Miss Mewlstone, hesitating a little. “Ah, we have sad times with her. You heard what she said, poor dear: she has been sorely tried.”
“Was not her husband good to her, then?”
“I am sure he meant to be kind,” returned Miss Mewlstone, sorrowfully, “for he loved her dearly; but he was passionate and masterful, and was one that would have his way. As long as it was only courtship, he worshipped the ground she walked upon, as the saying is. But poor Magdalene was not a good wife. She was cold when she ought to have been caressing, stubborn when she might have yielded; and sarcasm never yet healed a wound. Ah, here comes your coffee! Thank you, Evans. Now, my dear, you must just eat and drink, and put some color into those pale cheeks. Scenes like these are not good for young creatures like you. But when Magdalene is in these moods, she would not care if the whole world listened to her. To-morrow she will be herself, and remember and be ashamed; and then you must not mind if she be harder and colder than ever. She will say bitter things all the more, because she is angered at her own want of self-control.”
“I can understand that: that is just as I should feel,” returned Phillis, shuddering a little at the idea of encountering Mrs. Cheyne’s keen-edged sarcasms. “She will not like to see me any more; she will think I had no right to witness such a scene.”206
“It is certainly a pity that I wrote that note,” returned Mrs. Mewlstone, reflectively. “I hoped that you would turn her thoughts, and that we might avert the usual nervous paroxysm. When I opened the door and saw you sitting together so peacefully beside the children’s beds, I expected a milder mood; but it was the thunder. Poor Magdalene! She has never been able to control herself in a storm since the evening Herbert left her, and we went in and found her lying insensible in the library, in the midst of one of the worst storms I have ever witnessed.”
“That was when he said those cruel words to her!” ejaculated Phillis.
“Yes. Did she repeat them? How often I have begged her to forget them, and to believe that he repented of them before an hour was over! Ah, well! the sting of death lies in this: if she had had one word, one little word, she would be a different woman, in spite of the children’s death. God’s strokes are less cruel than men’s strokes: the reed may be bruised by them, but is not broken. She had a long illness after the children were gone; it was too much,—too much for any woman’s heart to bear. You see, she wanted her husband to comfort her. Dr. Parkes feared for her brain, but we pulled her through. Ah, just so, my dear; we pulled her through!” finished Miss Mewlstone, with a sigh.
“Oh, how good you are to her! she is happy to have such a friend!” observed Phillis, enthusiastically.
Miss Mewlstone shook her head, and a tear rolled down her face.
“Oh, my dear, I am only an old fool, as she said just now. And, after all, the company of a stupid old woman is not much to a proud bonnie creature like that. Sometimes for days together she hardly opens her lips to me; we sit together, eat together, drive together, and not a word for Barby. But sometimes, poor dear! she will cling to me and cry, and say her heart is breaking. And Solomon was right: but it was not only a brother that is good for adversity. When she wants me, I am here, and there is nothing I will not do for her, and she knows it;—and that is about the long and short of it,” finished Miss Mewlstone, dismissing the subject with another sigh. And then she bade Phillis finish her coffee and put on her hat. “For your mother will be expecting you, and wondering what has become of you; and Phillips or Evans must walk with you, for it is past nine o’clock, and such a pretty young lady must not go unattended,” concluded the simple woman.
Phillis laughed and kissed her at this; but, though she said nothing of her intentions, she determined to dismiss the servant as soon as possible, and run on alone to the Friary. She had not forgotten her encounter with Mr. Drummond on her last visit to the White House; but to-night the storm would keep him in-doors.207
Evans, the new footman, was desired to escort her; but in the middle of the avenue Phillis civilly dismissed him.
“There is no need for two of us to get wet; and the rain is coming on very heavily,” she said.
The young man hesitated; but he was slow-witted and new to his duty, and the young lady had a peremptory way with her, so he touched his hat, and went back to the house.
“Such nonsense, having a liveried servant at my heels, when I am only a dressmaker!” thought Phillis, scurrying down the avenue like a chased rabbit.
Hitherto, the trees had sheltered her; but a glance at the open road and the driving rain made her resolve to take refuge in the porch of the cottage that stood opposite the gate. It was the place where Nan and her mother had once lodged; and, though all the lights were extinguished, and the people had retired to bed, she felt a comfortable sense of safety as she unlatched the little gate. Not even Mr. Drummond would discover her there.
But Phillis’s satisfaction was of short duration: the foolish girl was soon to repent of her foolhardiness in dismissing her escort. She little knew that her words to Evans had been overheard, and that behind the dripping shrubbery she had been watched and followed. Scarcely had she taken refuge under the green porch, and placed her wet umbrella to dry, before she heard the latch of the little gate unclosed, and a tall dark figure came up the gravel-walk. It was not Isaac Williams’s portly form,—she could discern that in the darkness,—and, for the moment, a thrill of deadly terror came upon the incautious girl; but the next minute her natural courage returned to her aid. The porch was just underneath the room where Isaac slept; a call of ‘help’ would reach him at once; there was no reason for this alarm at all. Nevertheless, she shrunk back a little as the stranger came directly towards her, then paused as though in some embarrassment:
“Pardon me, but you have poor shelter here. I am Mrs. Williams’s lodger. I could easily let you into the cottage. I am afraid the rain comes through the trellis-work.”
Phillis’s heart gave a great thump of relief. In the first place, Mrs. Williams’s lodger must be a respectable person, and no dangerous loafer or pickpocket; in the second place the refined cultured tones of the stranger pleased her ear. Phillis had a craze on this point. “You may be deceived in a face, but in a voice, never!” she would say; and, as she told Nan afterwards, the moment that voice greeted her in the darkness she felt no further fear.
“I have a dry corner here,” she returned, quietly; “it is only a thunder-shower, and I am close to home,—only down the road, and just round the corner, past the vicarage.”
“Past the vicarage!” in a tone of surprise: “why, there are no houses there!”208
“There is a very small one called the Friary,” returned Phillis, feeling herself color in the darkness, as she mentioned their humble abode. There was no answer for a moment, and then her mysterious neighbor continued:
“My good landlord seems to retire early; the whole place looks deserted. They are very early risers, and perhaps that is the reason. If you will allow me to pass, I will open the door and light a lamp in my little parlor. Even if you prefer to remain in the porch, it will look more cheerful.” And, without waiting for her reply, he took a key from his pocket, and let himself into the house.
Their voices had disturbed the owners of the cottage, and Phillis overheard the following colloquy:
“Dear sakes alive! what a frightful storm! Is there anything you want, Mr. Dancy?” in Mrs. Williams’s shrill tones.
“Not for myself, Mrs. Williams; but there is a young lady sheltering in the porch. I should be glad if you could come down and make her a little comfortable. The floodgates of heaven seem open to-night.”
“Dear, dear!” in a still more perplexed voice; “a young lady at this time of night,—why, it must be half-after nine. Very well, Mr. Dancy; beg her to come in and sit in your parlor a moment, and I will be down.”
But Phillis absolutely refused to comply with the invitation.
“I am not tired, and I am not a bit wet, and I like watching the rain. This is a nice little porch, and I have taken refuge here before. We all know Mrs. Williams very well.”
“She is a good creature, if she were not always in a bustle,” returned Mr. Dancy. “There, the lamp is lighted: that looks more comfortable.” And as he spoke he came out into the little hall.
Phillis stole a curious glance at him.
He was a tall man, and was dressed somewhat strangely. A long foreign-looking cloak and a broad-brimmed felt hat, which he had not yet removed, gave him the look of an artist; but, except that he had a beard and moustache, and wore blue spectacles, she could not gain the slightest clue to his features. But his voice,—it pleased Phillis’s sensitive ear more every moment; it was pleasant,—rather foreign, too,—and had a sad ring in it.
He leaned against the wall opposite to her, and looked out thoughtfully at the driving rain.
“I think I saw you coming out from the White House,” he observed presently. “Are you a friend of Mrs. Cheyne? I hope,” hesitating a little, “that she is very well.”
“Do you know her?” asked Phillis, in surprise.
“That is a very Irish way of answering my question; but you shall have your turn first. Yes; I used to know her many years ago, and Herbert Cheyne, too.”209
“Her poor husband! Oh! and did you like him?” rather breathlessly.
“Pretty fairly,” was the indifferent reply. “People used to call him a pleasant fellow, but I never thought much of him myself,—not but what he was more sinned against than sinning, poor devil. Anyhow, he paid dearly enough for his faults.”
“Yes, indeed; and one must always speak leniently of the dead.”
“Ah, that is what they say,—that he is dead. I suppose his widow put on mourning, and made lamentation. She is well, you say, and cheerful?”
“Oh, no! neither the one nor the other. I am not her friend; I only know her just little; but she strikes me as very sad. She has lost her children, and––”
“Ah!” Phillis thought she heard a strange sound, almost like a groan; but of course it was fancy; and just then good Mrs. Williams came bustling downstairs.
“Dear heart! why, if it is not Miss Challoner! To think of you, my dear miss, being out so late, and alone! Oh, what ever will your ma say?”
“My mother will scold me, of course,” returned Phillis, laughing; “but you must not scold me too, Mrs. Williams, though I deserve all I get. Mrs. Mewlstone sent Evans with me, but I made him go back. Country girls are fearless and it is only just a step to the Friary.”
“The rain is stopping now, if you will permit me to escort you. Mrs. Williams will be the voucher for my respectability,” observed Mr. Dancy, very gravely and without a smile; and, as Phillis seemed inclined to put him off with an excuse, he continued, more seriously: “Pardon me, but it is far too late, and the road far too lonely, for a young lady to go unattended. If you prefer it, I will go to the White House, and bring out the recreant Evans by force.”
“Oh, no; there is no need for that,” observed Phillis, hastily; and Mrs. Williams interposed volubly:
“Goodness’ sakes, Miss Challoner, you have no call to be afraid of Mr. Dancy! Why, Mr. Frank Blunt, that nice young gentleman who lodged with me ever so many years, recommended him to me as one of his best and oldest friends. Your ma knew Mr. Blunt, for he was here with her, and a nicer-spoken young gentleman she said she never saw.”
“That will do, Mrs. Williams,” returned Mr. Dancy, in rather a peremptory tone; and then, turning to Phillis, he said, more civilly, but still a little abruptly, as though he were displeased,—
“Well, Miss Challoner, do you feel inclined to trust yourself with me for the few hundred yards, or shall I fetch Evans?” And Phillis, feeling herself rebuked, unfurled her umbrella at once, and bade Mrs. Williams good-night by way of answer.