CHAPTER VIII.
"WHAT WAS A SPECK EXPANDS INTO A STAR."
"Had the landlady of the house in Great Ormond Street been anybody in the world except my old nurse, I doubt if any philanthropic purpose would have inspired me with the boldness to carry through the work I had undertaken. To appear before the average lodging-house keeper within half an hour of midnight, and with such aprotégéeas Esperanza Campbell upon my hands, would have required the courage of a lion; and I was at that time a particularly shy and sensitive young man, brought up in the retirement of a country house and in the society of a mother whom I loved very dearly, but, as we are told to love God, with fear and trembling. My constitutional shyness, the natural outcome of narrow surroundings, had kept me from making friends at the University, and I believe it was sheer pity that had prompted Gerald Standish to take me under his wing. His kindness was rewarded by finding me a likable companion, whose character supplied some of the qualities which were wanting in his bright and buoyant disposition. We were real friends; and remained friends until the end of his too-brief life.
"So much to explain that it was only my confidence in my old nurse's indulgence which enabled me to cut the knot of the difficulty in disposing of Esperanza Campbell.
"My faithful Martha and her excellent husband were sleeping the sleep of the just in a ground-floor room at the back of the house, while their maid-servant slumbered still more soundly in a back attic. Happily Martha was a light sleeper, had trained herself to wake at the lightest cry in seasons of measles or whooping-cough, teething or infantile bronchitis; so my second application to the bell and knocker brought a prompt response. Bolts were drawn, a key was turned, a chain was unfastened, the door was opened a couple of inches, and a timid voice asked what was wanted.
"'It is I, Martha, George Beresford. I've brought you a lodger.'
"'Oh, come now, Mr. George, that's one of your jokes. You've been to the theatre, and you're playing a trick upon me. Go home now, do, like a dear young gentleman, and come and have a cup of tea with me some afternoon when you've got half an hour to spare.'
"'Martha, you are keeping a very sweet young lady out in the cold. For goodness' sake, open the door, and let me explain matters.'
"'Can't she take her in?' asked Gerald, impatiently, from the cab.
"Martha opened the door, and exhibited herself reluctantly in her casual costume of flannel dressing-gown and tartan shawl.
"'Whatdoyou mean, Mr. George? What can you mean by wanting lodgings for a young lady at this time of night?'
"'Sounds queer, don't it?' said Gerald, who had bounded up the steps and burst into the wainscoted hall, lighted only by the candle Martha was carrying. 'The fact is, we're in a difficulty, and Mr. Beresford assures me you can get us out of it.'
"And then in fewest words and with most persuasive manner he explained what we wanted, a home and a protector for a blameless young girl whom the force of circumstances had flung upon our hands at half-past eleven o'clock in the evening. Somehow we must get rid of her. She was a gentleman's daughter, and we could not take her to the workhouse. Reputation, hers and ours, forbade that we should take her to an hotel.
"Not a word did Gerald say about table-turning or spirit-rapping. He was shrewd enough to guess that any hint at theséancewould have prejudiced honest Martha against our charge.
"'I'm sure I don't know what to do,' said Martha; and I could see that she was suspicious of Gerald's airy manner, and doubtful even of me. 'My husband's fast asleep. He isn't such a light sleeper as I am. I don't know what he would say——'
"'Never mind what he would say,' interrupted Gerald. 'What you have to say is that you'll take Miss Campbell in and give her a tidy room somewhere—she ain't particular, poor thing!—and make her comfortable for a week or two while she looks out for a situation.'
"'Oh, she's on the look-out for a situation, is she?' said Martha, evidently mollified by the idea of a bread-winning young person. 'You see, Mr. George,' she went on, appealing to me, 'in London one can't be too particular. This house is what Benjamin and I have to look to in our old age; we've put our little all into it; and if the young lady happened to be rather dressy; or sang comic songs; or went to the theatre in cabs; or had gentlemen leave letters for her; why, it would just be our ruin. Our first floor is let to one of the most particular of widow ladies. I don't believe there's a more particular lady in London.'
"'My dear Martha, do you think I'm a fool or a knave? This girl is a village organist's daughter——'
"'Ah, Mr. George, they must all begin,' said Martha, shaking her head philosophically.
"'She is in mourning for her father—an orphan—friendless and unhappy——'
"'As for conduct, propriety, and all that kind of thing, I'll answer for her as if she were my own sister,' put in Gerald, in his splendidly reckless way; 'and that being the case, I hope you are not going to keep the poor young lady sitting out there in a cold cab till to-morrow morning.'
"Martha listened to Gerald, and looked at me.
"'If you're sure it's all right, Mr. George,' she murmured, 'I'd do anything in the world to oblige you; but this house is our all——'
"'Yes, yes,' Gerald exclaimed impatiently. 'You told us that before. Bring her in, George. It's all settled.'
"This was a happy stroke, for old Martha would have stood in the hall with her guttering candle and in her deshabille of flannel and tartan debating the matter for another quarter of an hour; but when I brought the pale girl in her black frock up the steps, and handed her into the old woman's care, the motherly heart melted in a moment, and hesitancy was at an end.
"'Poor young thing; why, she's little more than a child! How pale and cold you look, poor dear. I'll go down and light a bit of fire and warm a cup of broth for you. My second floor left the day before yesterday. I'll soon get the bedroom ready for you.'
"'That's as it should be,' said I. 'You'll find yourself safe and comfortable here, Miss Campbell, with the kindest woman I know. I'll call in a few days, and see how you are getting on.'
"I slipped a couple of sovereigns into my old nurse's palm as I wished her good night. The cabman brought in the poor little wooden trunk, received a liberal fare, and went his way in peace, while Gerald and I walked to the Tavistock, glad to cool down after the evening's excitement.
"'What an adventure!' said he. 'Of course I always knew it was humbug, but I never thought it was quite such transparent humbug.'
"'That girl would have taken any one in,' said I.
"'What, because she's young and pretty, after a rather sickly fashion?'
"'No, because she was so thoroughly in earnest, and believed in the thing herself.'
"'You really think she was a dupe and not an accomplice?'
"'I am sure of it. Her distress was unmistakable. And at her age, and with her imaginative nature——'
"'What did you know of her nature?' he asked sharply.
"The question and his manner of asking it pulled me up suddenly, as a dreamer of morning dreams is awakened by the matter-of-fact voice of the servant who comes to call him.
"What did I know of her? What assurance had I that her sobs and lamentation, her pathetic story of the father so loved and mourned, were not as spurious as the rest of the show, as much a cheat as the iron rod and the leather strap? How did I know? Well, I could hardly have explained the basis of my conviction, but I did know; and I would have staked my life upon her honesty and her innocence.
"I woke next morning to a new sense of responsibility. I had taken this helpless girl's fate into my hands, and to me she must look for aid in chalking out a path for herself. I had to find her the means of earning her daily bread, reputably, and not as a drudge. The problem was difficult of solution. I had heard appalling descriptions of the lot of the average half-educated governess—the life harder, the pay less, than a servant's. Yet what better than a nursery governess could this girl be? at her age, and with her attainments, which I concluded were not above the ordinary schoolgirl's. The look-out was gloomy, and I was glad to shut my eyes to the difficulties of the situation, telling myself that my good Martha would give the poor child a comfortable home upon very moderate terms—such terms as I could afford to pay out of my very moderate allowance, and that in a month or two something—in the language of the immortal Micawber—would turn up.
"There was but another week of the Long, a week which under ordinary conditions I should have spent with my widowed mother at her house in the country, but which I decided to spend in London, accepting Gerald's invitation to share his rooms in Arundel Street, and do a final round of the theatres; an invitation I had previously declined. During that week I was often in Great Ormond Street, and contrived to learn a great deal more about Esperanza's character and history. Of her history all she had to tell; of her character, which to me seemed transparent as a forest streamlet, all I could divine. I called in Ormond Street on the second day of her residence there, and found good Nurse Martha in the best possible humour. It was four o'clock in the afternoon, and she insisted that I should stop for a cup of tea, and as tea-making—that is to say, the art of producing a better cup of tea than anybody else could produce from the same cannister, kettle, and teapot—had always been a special talent of Martha's, I was glad to accept her hospitality.
"Miss Campbell had gone for a little walk round the squares, she informed me.
"'She doesn't care about going out,' explained Martha; 'she'd rather sit over a book or play the harmonium. But I told her she must take an airing for her health's sake.'
"I was disappointed at not finding Esperanza in the tidy back parlour to which Nurse Martha ushered me—a room of exemplary neatness and snugness, enlivened by those living presences which always make for cheerfulness—vulgar as we may deem them—a glass tank of gold fish, a canary bird, and a magnificent tabby cat, sleek, clean, luxuriously idle, in purring contemplation of the bright little fire in the old-fashioned grate, that grate with hobs which reminded me of my nursery deep in the heart of the country.
"'Now you sit down in Blake's armchair, Mr. George, and let's have a talk over missy. I shouldn't have taken those two sovereigns from you the night before last if I hadn't been all of a muddle with the suddenness of the thing. I don't want to be paid in advance for doing a kindness to a helpless girl.'
"'No, Martha; but since the helpless girl was on my hands, it's only right I should pay you somehow, and we may as well settle that question at once, as it may be several weeks before Miss Campbell is able to find a suitable situation.'
"'Several months, more likely. Do you know how young she is, Mr. George?'
"'Eighteen.'
"'Eighteen last birthday—only just turned eighteen, and she's much younger than most girls of eighteen in all her ways and thoughts. She's clever enough with her hands, poor child. Nothing lazy or lolloping about her—made her own bed and swept and tidied her own room without a word from me; but there's a helplessness somewhere. I believe the weakness is in her thoughts. I don't know how she'll ever set about getting a situation—I don't know what kind of situation she's fit for. She's much too young and too pretty for a governess.'
"'Not too young for a nursery-governess, surely.'
"'A nursery-governess means a nursery-maid without a cap, Mr. George. I shouldn't like to see her brought to that. I've taken to her already. Benjamin says, with her sweet voice and pretty face, she ought to go on the stage.'
"I was horrified at the idea.
"'Martha, how can you speak of such a thing? Have you any idea of what the life of a theatre means for an inexperienced girl—for a beautiful girl, most of all?'
"'Oh, I've heard there are temptations; but a prudent young woman can take care of herself anywhere, Mr. George; and an imprudent young woman will go wrong in a country parsonage, or in a nunnery. If Miss Campbell is to earn her own living, she'll have to face dangers and temptations, go where she may. She'll have to take care of herself, poor child. There'll be nobody else to take care of her. I've heard that young women are well looked after in the better class of theatres—at Mr. Charles Kean's, for instance. I knew a young person that used to walk on inLouis the Eleventh—dressed as a page, in blue and gold—and she told me that Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kean wasthatparticular——'
"'The Keans are making a farewell tour in Australia, and will never go into management again, Martha. You are talking nonsense.'
"Poor Martha looked crestfallen at this reproof.
"'I dare say I am, Mr. George; but, for all that, I don't think Miss Campbell will ever do much as a governess. It isn't in her. There's a helplessness, and a bendingness, and droopingness, if I may say so, about her character that won't do for a governess. The only mistress that would keep her is the kind of mistress that would make a slave of her.'
"'Hard lines,' I said, getting up and walking about the little back parlour.
"It was a third room quite at the back of the substantial Georgian house; and there was scant space for my restlessness between the old square piano, which served as a sideboard, and the fireplace by which my dear old Martha sat looking at me with a perturbed countenance.
"I began to think I had let myself in for a bad thing. What was I to do with this girl, whose fate I had in some measure taken into my hands? It had seemed easy enough to bring her to this quiet shelter, which she might leave in a week or so, braced up and ready to fight her battle of life—the battle we all have to fight somehow—a self-supporting young woman. Self-supporting, that was the point. I now remembered with terror that there is a large class of persons upon this earth whom not even the scourge of poverty can make self-supporting; a vast multitude of feeble souls who resign themselves from the beginning of things to drift upon the stream of life, and are never known to strike out and swim for any shore, and so drift down to the ocean of death. Of these are the poor relations for whom something is for ever being done, and who never do anything for themselves; of these the feeble scions of patrician family trees, who are always waiting for sinecures under Government.
"God help her, poor soul, if she was one of these invertebrates; and God help me in my responsibility towards her.
"I was an only son; the heir to a small estate in Suffolk, and an income of something under three thousand a year. I was not quite twenty years of age, and I had to maintain myself at the most expensive college in Cambridge on an allowance that many of the rich young men with whom I associated would have considered abject penury. I was not in a fast set. I did not hunt—indeed, with my modest income, hunting would have been impossible; but I was not without tastes which absorbed money; the love of choice books and fine engravings, the fancy for curios picked up here or there, the presence of which gave interest to my rooms, and, perhaps, helped to reconcile me to many long hours within closed doors. I had hitherto been most careful to live within my income, for I knew that it was as much as my mother could afford to give me, taking into consideration her devotion to the estate which was to be mine by-and-by, and the maintenance and improvement of which had been to her as a religion. Her model cottages, her home-farm, the village church, to whose every improvement her purse had largely contributed, these were the sources of expenditure which kept her comparatively poor, and which forbade any kind of extravagance on my part.
"All these facts were in my mind that afternoon as I paced the narrow bounds of old Martha's sitting-room.
"'She will have to get her living,' I said severely, as the result of these meditations, which showed me no surplus income for philanthropy.
"Had my mother been as some men's mothers, I might naturally have contemplated shifting the burden upon her shoulders. I might have told her Esperanza's story, and handed Esperanza over to her care as freely as if I had picked up a stray cat or dog. But my mother was not one of those soft, impressionable women who are always ready to give the reins to sentiment. She was a good woman, and devoted much of her life and means to doing good, but her benevolence was restricted to the limits of her parish. She would hardly listen to a tale of sorrow outside her own village.
"'We have so much to do for our own people, George,' she used to tell me; 'it is folly to be distracted by outside claims. Here we know our return for every shilling we give. We know the best and the worst about those we help.'
"Were I to tell her Esperanza's story, her suggestions for helping me out of my difficulty would be crueller than old Martha's. She would be for sending the girl into service as a housemaid, or for getting her an assisted passage to the Antipodes on an emigrant ship.
"Martha came to my rescue in my trouble now as she had done many a time when I wore a kilt, and when my naked knees had come into abrupt collision with a gravel path or a stony beach.
"'She'll have to be older and wiser before she gets her own living, Mr. George,' said Martha; 'but don't you trouble about her. As long as I've a bed or a sofa to spare, she can stop with me and Benjamin. Her bite and sup won't hurt us, poor thing, and I don't want sixpence from you. She shall stop here free gratis, Mr. George, till she finds a better home.'
"I gave my old nurse a hug, as if I had been still the boy in the Macdougal kilt.
"'No, no, Martha; I'm not going to impose on your generosity. I shall be able to pay yousomething. Only I thought you might want two or three pounds a week for her board, and I could not manage that for an indefinite period."
"'Two or three pounds! Lor, Mr. George, if that's your notion of prices, Cambridge land-ladies must be 'arpies. Why, I only get two guineas for my drawing-room floor, as a permanency, and lady-tenants even begrudge half a crown extra for kitchen fire. Let her stop here as long as she likes, Mr. George, and never you think about money. It's only her future I'm thinking of, for there's a helplessness about her that——Ah, there she is,' as the hall door slowly opened. 'I gave her my key. She's quite one of us already.'
"She came quietly into the room, and took my offered hand without shyness or embarrassment. She was pale still, but the fresh air had brought a faint tint of rose into the wan cheeks. She looked even younger and more childlike to-day in her shabby mourning frock and poor little black straw hat than she had looked the night before last. Her strong emotion then had given more of womanliness to the small oval face. To-day there was a simplicity in her aspect, as of a trusting child who took no thought of the future, secure in the kindness of those about her.
"I thought of a sentence in the gospel. 'Consider the lilies how they grow.' This child had grown up like a lily in the mild atmosphere of domestic love, and had been the easy dupe of a delusion which appealed to her affection for the dead.
"'I called to see if you were quite comfortable and at home with Mrs. Blake,' I said, far more embarrassed by the situation than Esperanza was.
"'Yes, indeed I am,' she answered in her sad sweet voice. 'It is so nice to be with some one so kind and clean and comfortable. The Frau was notveryunkind; but she was so dirty. She gave us such horrid things to eat—the smell of them made me ill—and then she said I was affected and silly, and the Herr used to say I might starve if I could not eat their food. It made me think of my happy home with father, and our cosy little tea-table beside the fire. We did not always have dinner,' she added naively; 'neither of us cared much for that.'
"She hung over old Martha's shoulder with affectionate familiarity, and the horny old hand which had led my infant steps was held up to clasp hers, and the withered old face smiled.
"'See how she gets round us,' said Martha, nodding at me. 'Benjamin is just as bad. And you should hear her play the 'armonian of an evening, and sing 'Abide with me.' You'd hardly hear her without shedding tears.'
"'Do you think you can be happy here for a few weeks?' I asked.
"'Yes, as happy as I can be anywhere without father. I dreamt of him last night—such a vivid dream. I know he was near me. It was something more than a dream. I heard his voice close beside my pillow calling my name. I know his spirit was in the room. It isn't because the Herr and his wife were cheats that there isnolink between the living and the dead. I know there is a link,' she insisted passionately, her eyes brimming with sudden tears. 'They are not dead—those we dearly love—only removed from us. The clay is gone; the soul is hovering near, blessing, comforting us.'
"She sobbed out her grief, hiding her face upon Martha's substantial shoulder. I could speak no word of consolation; nor would I for worlds have argued against this fond hallucination, the dream of sorrowing love.
"'I shall not see thee. Dare I sayNo spirit ever brake the bandThat stays him from the native land,Where first he walk'd when clasp't in clay?No visual shade of some one lost,But he, the Spirit himself, may comeWhere all the nerve of sense is numb;Spirit to Spirit, Ghost to Ghost.'
"'I shall not see thee. Dare I sayNo spirit ever brake the bandThat stays him from the native land,Where first he walk'd when clasp't in clay?No visual shade of some one lost,But he, the Spirit himself, may comeWhere all the nerve of sense is numb;Spirit to Spirit, Ghost to Ghost.'
"'I shall not see thee. Dare I sayNo spirit ever brake the bandThat stays him from the native land,Where first he walk'd when clasp't in clay?
"'I shall not see thee. Dare I say
No spirit ever brake the band
That stays him from the native land,
Where first he walk'd when clasp't in clay?
No visual shade of some one lost,But he, the Spirit himself, may comeWhere all the nerve of sense is numb;Spirit to Spirit, Ghost to Ghost.'
No visual shade of some one lost,
But he, the Spirit himself, may come
Where all the nerve of sense is numb;
Spirit to Spirit, Ghost to Ghost.'
"I quoted those lovely lines in a low voice as I walked softly up and down the darkening room; and then there was silence save for soothing wordless murmurs from Martha, such murmurs as had served to hush my own baby sorrows.
"'There's the kettle just on the boil,' cried the great soul, cheerily, when Esperanza's sobs had ceased; 'and I know Mr. George must be wanting his cup of tea.'
"She rose and bustled about in her dear old active way. She lit a lamp—an inartistic cheap paraffin-lamp, but the light was cheerful. The tea-table arranged by Martha was the picture of neatness. She set Esperanza the feminine task of making toast. The poor child had the prettiest air of penitence as she kissed Martha's hand, and then knelt meekly down, with the fireglow crimsoning the alabaster face and neck, and shining on the pale gold hair and rusty black frock.
"'I'm afraid I'm very troublesome,' she said apologetically; 'but, indeed, I'm very grateful to you, sir, for taking care of me that dreadful night, and to dear Mrs. Blake for all her kindness to me.'
"'Mrs. Blake is the quintessence of kindness. I am very glad to think you can live happily here until she or I can find some nice situation for you.'
"She had been smiling softly over her task, but her face clouded in an instant.
"'A situation. That's what everybody said at Besbery! We must find her a situation. And then Miss Grimshaw wanted me to be a dressmaker.'
"'You shall not be a dressmaker. I promise that.'
"'But, oh, what am I to be? I don't know half enough for a governess. I couldn't teach big girls German and French and drawing. I couldn't teach little boys Latin. And that's what everybody wants of a governess. I've read the advertisements in the newspapers.'
"'And as to being a nursery-governess, why, it's negro slavery!' said Martha.
"'I wouldn't mind the drudgery, only I hate children!" said Esperanza.
"This avowal shocked me. I looked at the soft, childlike countenance, and the speech seemed incongruous.
"'I have never had anything to do with children since my sister Lucy died,' she explained. 'I shouldn't understand them, and they would laugh at me and my fancies. After Lucy's death, I lived alone with father, always alone, he and I. The harmonium and the organ in the church close by were our only friends. Our clergyman was just civil to father, but I don't think he ever liked him. I heard him once tell the Bishop that his organist was an eccentricity. An eccentricity! That was all he could say about my father, who was ever so much cleverer than he.'
"She said this with pride, almost with defiance, looking me in the face as if she were challenging me to dispute the fact.
"'Was your father very clever?' I asked her, keenly interested in any glimpses of her history.
"'Yes, I am sure he was clever, much cleverer than the common run of people. He loved music, and he played beautifully. His touch upon the old organ made the church music sound angelic. Now and then there was some one in the church—some stranger—who seemed to understand his playing, and who was astonished to find such an organist in a village church—an out-of-the-way village like ours. But for the most part people took no notice. It didn't seem to matter to them whether the choir sang well or badly; but when they sang false it hurt father just like bodily pain.'
"'Did he teach you to play?'
"'A little. But he wasn't fond of teaching. What I know of music I found out chiefly for myself—just sitting alone at the organ, when I could get one of the choir boys to blow for me, touching the keys, and trying the stops, till I learnt something about them. But I play very badly.'
"'Beautifully! beautifully!' ejaculated Martha. 'You draw tears.'
"'You sang in the choir, I think?' I said.
"'Yes; there were four young ladies, and a lady's-maid with a contralto voice, and I was the sixth. There were about a dozen men and boys, who sat on the other side of the chancel. People said it was a good choir for a village church. Father was so unhappy when we sang badly that we could not help trying hard to sing well.'
"I remembered those seraphic soprano notes in Handel's thrilling melody, and I could understand that at least one voice in the choir had the heavenly ring.
"'Well,' I said at last, 'we must hope for the best. Something may turn up that will suit you better than governessing. And in the mean time you can make yourself happy with my old nurse. I can answer for it she'll never be unkind to you.'
"'I'm sure of that. I would rather stay here and be her servant than go among strangers.'
"'What, wear an apron and cap and wait upon the lodgers?' I said, laughing at the absurdity of the idea. She seemed a creature so far removed from the useful race of neat-handed Phyllises.
"'I should not mind.'
"The clock in the hall struck six, and I had promised Gerald to be ready for dinner at half-past, as we were to go to a theatre afterwards—the Adelphi, where Jefferson was acting inRip Van Winkle. I had to take a hurried leave.
"'Don't you worry yourself abouther, Mr. George,' said Martha, as she let me out at the street door; ' I'll keep her as long as ever you like.'
"I told Martha that I should send her a little money from time to time, and that I should consider myself in her debt for a pound a week as long as Miss Campbell stayed with her.
"'She'll want a new frock, won't she?' I asked. 'The one she wears looks very shabby.'
"'It looks what it is, Mr. George. It's all but threadbare, and it's the only frock she has in the world, poor child! But don't you trouble about that either. You gave me two sovereigns. One of those will buy the stuff, and she and I can make the frock. I've cut out plenty of frocks in my day. I used to make all your mother's frocks once upon a time.'
"In the bloom of her youth she had nursed my mother; she had nursed me in her sturdy middle life; and now in her old age she was ready and willing to care for this girl for whose fate I had made myself responsible.
"Gerald received me with his customary cheeriness, though I was ten minutes after the half-hour, and the fried sole had frizzled itself to dryness by that delay.
"'I've some good news for you!' he exclaimed, in his exuberant way. 'It's all right.'
"'What's all right?'
"'Yourprotégée. I've written to the parson at Besbery. The story she told us was gospel truth.'
"'I never thought it was anything else.'
"'Ah, that's because you're over head and ears in love with her,' said Gerald.
"I felt myself blushing furiously, blushing like a girl whose secret penchant for the hero of her dreams stands revealed. Of course I protested that nothing was farther from my thoughts than love; that I was only sorry for the girl's loneliness and helplessness. Gerald obviously doubted me; and I had to listen to his sage counsel on the subject. He was my senior by two years, and claimed to be a man of the world, while I had been brought up at my mother's apron-string. He foresaw dangers of which I had no apprehension.
"'There is nothing easier to drop into than an entanglement of that sort,' he said. 'You had much better fall in love with a ballet-girl. It may be more expensive for the moment, and there may be a bigger rumpus about it, but it won't compromise your future.'
"This friendly remonstrance had no effect upon my conduct during the few remaining days of the long vacation. I went to Ormond Street a second and a third time in the course of those few days. I took Esperanza to an afternoon concert at the St. James's Hall, and enjoyed her ecstasy as she listened to Sainton and Bottesini. For her, music was a passion, and I believe she sat beside me utterly unconscious of my existence, with a soul lifted above earth and all earthly feelings.
"'You were happy while the music lasted,' I said, as we walked back to Ormond Street, by a longish round, for I chose the quietest streets rather than the nearest way.
"'More than happy,' she answered softly. 'I was talking with my father's spirit.'
"'You still believe in the communion of the dead and the living,' I said, 'in spite of the tricks your German friends played upon you?'
"'Yes,' she answered steadfastly, 'I still believe. I shall always believe there is a bridge between earth and heaven—between the world we can see and touch and the world we can only feel with our hearts and minds. When I hear music like that we heard just now—those long-drawn singing notes on the violin, those deep organ tones of the 'cello—I feel myself carried away to a shadowy world where I know my father and mother are waiting for me. We shall all be together again some day, and I shall know and understand, and I shall feel her light touch upon my forehead and my hair as I have felt it so often in my dreams.'
"She broke down, crying softly as she walked by my side. I soothed her as well as I could, soothed her most when I talked of those she had lost, questioning her about them. She remembered her mother dimly—a long, last illness, a pale and wasted face, and gentle hands and loving arms that used to be folded round her neck as she nestled against the sick-bed. That sick-room, and the dim light of wintry afternoons, and the sound of the harmonium as her father played soft music in an adjoining parlour, were things that seemed to have lasted for years. She could not look behind them. Her memory of mother and of home stopped on the threshold of that dimly lighted room.
"Her father was a memory of yesterday. He had been her second self, the other half of her mind.
"'He believed in ghosts,' she said, 'and in second sight. He has often told me how he saw my mother coming downstairs to meet him, with a shroud showing faintly above her white summer gown, the night before she broke a blood-vessel and took to her bed in her last illness.'
"'An optical delusion, no doubt; but it comes natural to a Scotchman to believe such things. He should not have told you.'
"'Why not? I like to know that the world we cannot see is near us. I should have died of loneliness if I had not believed my father's spirit was still within reach. I don't mind about those people being impostors. I begin to think that the friends we have lost would hardly talk to us through the moving up and down of wooden tables. It seems such a foolish way, does it not?'
"'Worse than foolish; undignified. The ghosts in Virgil move and talk with a stately grandeur; Shakespeare's ghosts are kingly and awful. They strike terror. It has remained for the nineteenth century to imagine ghosts that flit about a shabby parlour and skip from side to side of the room and flutter round a table, and touch, and rap, and tap, and pat with viscous hands, like the touch of a toad. Samuel Johnson would not have sat up a whole night to see a table heaved up and down, or to be touched on the forehead by a chilly, unknown hand.'
"'I don't care what you say about those things,' she answered resolutely. 'There is a link between life and death. I don't know what the link is; but though my father may be dead to all the world besides he is not dead to me.'
"I did not oppose stubborn common sense to this fond delusion. It might be good for her to believe in the things that are not. The tender fancy might bridge over the dark gulf of sorrow. I tried to divert her mind to lighter subjects—talked to her of this monstrous London of which she knew nothing, and of which I knew very little.
"On the following evening I took Esperanza and my old nurse to a theatre, a form of entertainment in which Martha especially delighted. I was not very happy in my choice of a play. Had I taken myprotégéeto see Jefferson, she would have been touched and delighted. Unluckily I chose another theatre where a burlesque was being played which was just a shade more vulgar than the average burlesque of those days. Esperanza was puzzled and disgusted. I discovered that her love of music was an exclusive passion. She cared for nothing else in the way of art. I tried her with a picture-gallery, only to find her ignorant and indifferent. Two things only impressed her in the whole of the National Gallery—a landscape of Turner's, and a portrait by Reynolds, in which she fancied a resemblance to her father.
"My last Sunday before term began was spent almost entirely with Esperanza. I accepted Martha's invitation to partake of her Sunday dinner, and sat at meat with dear old Benjamin for the first time in my life, though I had eaten many a meal with his worthy wife in the days when my legs reached a very little way below the table and my manners were in sore need of the good soul's supervision—happy childish days, before governess and lesson-books had appeared upon the scene of my life; days in which life was one long game of play, interrupted only by childish illnesses that were like bad dreams, troubled and indistinct patches on the fair foreground of the childish memory. The good Benjamin ate his roast beef in a deprecating and apologetic attitude, sitting, I fear, uncomfortably, on the edge of his chair. Esperanza ate about as much solid food as a singing bird might have done; but she looked stronger and in better health than on the night of theséance, and she looked almost happy. After the roast beef and apple-tart, I took her to an afternoon service at St. Paul's, where the organ-music filled her with rapture.
"'I shall come here every Sunday,' she said, as we left the cathedral.
"I entreated her not to go so far alone, and warned her that the streets of London were full of danger for youth and inexperience; but she laughed at my fears, assuring me that she had walked about the meadows and coppices round Besbery ever since she could remember, and no harm had ever befallen her, though there were hardly any people about. I told her that in London the people were the danger, and exacted her promise that she would never go beyond the immediate neighbourhood of Great Ormond Street by herself. I gave her permission to walk about Queen's Square, Guilford Street, and Mecklenburgh Square. The neighbourhood was quiet and respectable.
"'I am bound to obey you,' she answered meekly. 'I owe you so much gratitude for your goodness to me.'
"I protested against gratitude tome. The only friend to whom she owed anything was my dear old nurse.
"I had a great terror of the perils of the London streets for a girl of her appearance. It was not so much that she was beautiful, but because of a certain strangeness and exceptional character in her beauty which would be likely to attract attention and arouse curiosity. The dreamy look in the large violet eyes, the semi-transparent pallor which suggested an extreme fragility, the unworldliness of her whole aspect were calculated to appeal to the worst instincts of the prowling profligate. She had an air of helplessness which would invite persecution from the cowardly wretches who make the streets of a great city perilous for unprotected innocence.
"She was ready to promise anything that would please me.
"'I do not care if I never go out,' she said simply. 'The lady who lives in the drawing-room has a harmonium, and she has told me I may play upon it every day—all day long, when she is out; and she has a great many friends, and visits a good deal.'
"'Oh, but you must go out-of-doors for your health's sake!' I protested. 'Martha or Benjamin must go with you.'
"'They have no time to go out-of-doors till after dark, poor things! they are so busy; but they will take me for a walk sometimes of an evening. I shall make them go out, for their own sakes. You need not feel anxious about me; you are too kind to think of me at all.'
"I could not help feeling anxious about her. I felt as if I were responsible for everything that could assail or hurt her; that every hair of her head was a charge upon my conscience. Her health, her happiness, her talents and tastes and fancies—it was mine to care for all these. Myprotégée, Standish called her. In this farewell walk through the dull Sunday streets, in the dull October twilight, it seemed as if she were much more than myprotégée—my dearest, most sacred care, the purpose and the promise of my life.
"To-night we were to say good-bye. We were to have parted at the door in Great Ormond Street; but, standing on the doorstep, waiting for the opening of that inexorable door, which would swallow her up presently, like a tomb, I felt all at once that I could not sacrifice this last evening. Standish was dining out. There would only be loneliness and a roast chicken awaiting me at half-past seven. The chicken might languish, uneaten; the ghosts might have the dull, commonplace room; I would finish the evening with Martha's tea and toast, and hear Esperanza sing her favourite numbers of Handel and Mendelssohn, to the accompaniment of an ancient Stoddart piano, a relic of the schoolroom in my Suffolk home, the piano on which my mother took her first music-lesson.
"It was an evening in Elysium. A back parlour is sometimes large enough to contain paradise. I did not question my own heart, or analyze my beatific sensations. I ascribed at least half my happiness to Handel and Mendelssohn, and that feeling of exaltation which only sacred music can produce. There were no anxious questionings in my mind till after I had said good-bye to Esperanza—good-bye, till the third week in December—and had left the house. Those uneasy questionings were inspired by my dear old Martha, who opened the hall door for me, and said gravely, as I shook hands with her—
"'It would never do, Mr. George. I know what kind of lady your mother is, as well as anybody. It would never do.'
"I did not ask her what it was that would never do; but I carried a new sense of trouble and difficulty out into the autumn wind.