When I went down to dinner, Mr. Saville was there. It was a relief, yet it piqued me that he should ask any one to come on the first day, though how we could have met alone at table in our sullen estrangement I cannot tell. The Rector was in a very precise clerical dress, his manners were a great deal too fine and careful for a man of breeding, and he seemed to be so much alive to his “position,” and so careful to keep it up, that I perceived at once that he must have been raised to this, and that he was not a gentleman either by birth or early training. By some strange logic, I thought of this as an additional offence to me. I did not care to inquire what my husband’s motives had been in giving the living to this person. I did not take time to think that probably he had been appointed before Edgar Southcote had conceived his plan for my deception. I thought he had meant to insult me by surrounding me thus with his mean relatives, and depriving me even of the comfort of a suitable neighbor; but I resolved to show him that I was above this mortification, and all the more freely, because I said nothing to him, did I converse with the Rector. He told me of the church which wanted repairs—he said restoration, but I was not acquainted with the ecclesiastical science so fashionable at the time; he told me that his sister had begun to embroider a cloth for the altar—that the very vestments, the sacred vessels for the altar—everything was falling into decay—that the last rector, “a worthy man, he believed, but lamentably lax in his church principles,” had whitewashed the interior of the unfortunate church—had barbarously removed the remnants of an ancient screen of carved stonework—had taken up a mutilated brass in the chancel, and laid down a plain flag-stone in its stead; which things, Mr. Saville said pathetically, had so much disgusted the people, that there really had arisen a dissenting place of worship in this formerly orthodox village, and his people were led astray from the true path under his very eyes. Had Mr. Saville told me ofan epidemic raging in Cottisbourne, of some deadly disease abroad, and no one bold enough to nurse the patients, I should have been more satisfied—but such things would arise, no doubt; and in the mean time, I should have been glad to have worked with my own hands at the restorations, if these were necessary, though, alas! I was disappointed, and could not feel that there was any martyrdom in making an altar-cloth.
All the conversation during dinner was carried on between the Rector and myself. My husband scarcely spoke; he looked at us eagerly, keenly, as if he would have read my thoughts. I could perceive what was passing in his mind; he had given up the Hester of his imagination, as I had given up the Harry of mine; and he was trying to make himself acquainted with what I was now.
When I returned alone to the drawing-room, and once more sat down by the fire, a pang of pain and self-reproach came over me for a moment, as I thought what a great change had indeed passed upon me; and how unlike I was my former self. But then I asked who caused this, and once more established myself on my old ground. When the gentlemen joined me again, I resumed my conversation with the Rector, and now at last he propounded something which suited my views.
“There were a number of old people in the village,” he said, “some bed-ridden, some palsied, a burden upon their children, and imperfectly attended to in the midst of more clamorous claims. My sister, too, long had the idea of placing herself at the head of a sort of almshouse, where these poor creatures could be nursed and taken care of. My sister is an energetic person, Mrs. Southcote, and though, of course, like other ladies, accustomed to very different pursuits, has a natural love for work, and great tenderness to her fellow-creatures. She thinks, with the assistance of a few kind-hearted ladies, hired help might also be dispensed with—an apostolic work, Mrs. Southcote, washing the feet of the poor.”
“Ah, yes! that is what I wanted to hear of,” I said; “who is your sister, Mr. Saville—is she here?”
“I am surprised that Mr. Southcote has not informed you, Madam,” said the clergyman, with momentary acrimony; “my sister, Miss Saville, resides with me, and as a near neighbor, naturally looked for an introduction to you—a relation too, I may say, by marriage,” he concluded, with a ceremonious bow.
I felt my cheeks burn—but I subdued my pride of blood. “I will call on her to-morrow,” I said.
“Nay, permit me,” said Mr. Saville, with another bow. “Miss Saville is the oldest resident in the parish; she will have pleasure in calling on you.”
Again my natural hauteur almost got the better of me. So! I was to be on ceremonious stately terms with Miss Saville, as though we were potentates of equal rank and importance—andrelatives, too!
“She will have the greatest satisfaction in communicating all her plans to you,” continued the clergyman. “Mr. Southcote would have had her come to-night; but my sister was too well aware how indecorous such an intrusion on your privacy would be. Ladies understand the regulations of society much better than we do.”
In pure mockery, I bowed to Mr. Saville as ceremoniously as he bowed to me; but there was a great deal of bitterness in my satirical courtesy, which he, good man, took in perfect sincerity. My husband had been standing by a little table, where was a vase of beautiful hot-house flowers, which it must have been some trouble to get for me, and was pulling the costly blossoms to pieces, as if he did not know what he was about. When he saw the curl of my lip, as I bowed to hisrelation, he came forward hastily and began to converse with him.
How much indebted I was to Mr. Southcote! how much disappointed that Miss Saville had not come!
WEhad just set out together to begin our work. It was a raw winter day, damp and foggy, and the heavy haze fell white and stifling over our flat fields, but was not dense enough to hide the dreary line of road, nor the dull depths of distance round us. We were dressed in great cloaks and hoods of dark grey cloth, with small black bonnets under our hoods; and each of us carried a basket—while Miss Saville had a little leathern case, containing medicines, hanging from the girdle round her waist. She was a tall, stiff woman, with a frosty face, and angular, thin frame. I cannot tell how she looked in summer—very much out of place, I should think, for this dull, foggy, cold day seemed too gentle for her, and you could fancy a keen frosty wind constantly blowing in her face. Her manners were like her brother’s, very fine and elaborate at first; but by-and-by she forgot, as he never did, that she was talking to Mrs. Southcote of Cottiswoode, and began to tell me of her plans, as she might have told any ignorant girl, and showed no special respect for me. When she came to her natural tone, I could not help being better pleased with her. She was much more in my way than the Reverend Mr. Saville was. She did not say a word about charity or benevolence; but she told me how she intended to manage the old people, and how, with one servant and a lady coming to help her every day, she could keep a home for them all together, and keep them comfortable, if the means were provided for her.
“Extremely disagreeable work, I don’t doubt, for you dainty young folks,” said Miss Saville, who no longer thought it necessary to pick her language; “but I had my own old father to mind for long enough, and it’s nothing to me.”
“Disagreeable!” said I, “what does it matter? I wonder what right we have to agreeable things!”
“Well—I am glad you think so!” said Miss Saville, with a grim smile. “You will be the more thankful for what has fallen to your share; for very few people, I can tell you, have to provide disagreeables for themselves, as you have. They are almost all ready-made, and not very well liked when they come.”
I had nothing to say to this. Nor could I have expected that she would understandme. We were walking quickly, for it required no small exertion to keep up with Miss Saville, who strode along in her thick boots with a manly disregard of every obstacle—along the lane which led to the village. Just before we reached Cottisbourne, we passed the Rectory. Miss Saville looked up at it as she passed, and so did I. I was startled to see a face looking out from the window, which I recognised, or fancied I recognised. It was a weather-beaten face, unshaven and slovenly, and stooped forward with an inquisitive, sidelong glance. I tried to recollect where I had seen it. Could this be Saville—theSaville—the man who brought Edgar Southcote to Cottiswoode? I was disposed to think so. My companion gazed at him a moment, and then waved her hand impatiently, as if to bid the man go from the window. Yet I had been now three weeks at Cottiswoode, had frequently seen the clergyman and his sister, but had never heard of another. I wondered why they concealed him—I wondered if itwashe; but Miss Saville never spoke.
We were close upon the village now. The first group of two or three houses stood by themselves upon the brown grass of the meadow-land around. They seemed to have no gardens, no trees, nothing to protect or shelter them; but stood apart among the grass, which pressed round their very walls and doorsteps, as if it grudged the little bit of ground they occupied. There were some plants in the window of almost every house, poor, shabby plants, crushed against the green gauze curtain suspended across the three lower panes, darkening the light; but doing little elseby way of compensation. The want of gardens seemed to disconnect them strangely from the soil on which they stood. There was no beauty or sentiment about them; but only very poor, meagre, hungry poverty. Beyond them, a very small stream, which made no sound in the heavy, deadened atmosphere, wound through a field, with some low willows standing by, like a class of unkempt boys at school. A little further on, withdrawn into a grassy mass, was the village well, with its bucket and windlass; and then came Cottisbourne proper, a cluster of houses oddly placed, with strange little narrow lanes winding among them, as intricate as a child’s puzzle: some brown and dingy, with the thatched roof clinging upon them like a growth of nature—some brilliantly whitewashed, with great patches of damp, from the rain, upon their walls. One or two carts tilted up, stood in a corner of the bit of common which belonged to the village. About them, and in them, were a number of children, whose voices scarcely woke the sullen air to cheerfulness. The houses stood about in genuine independence, every one faring as it pleased him, and the wealthy cottager’s pig sniffed the same air as his master, and placidly meditated upon the doings of his master’s next neighbor, whose open cottage door was opposite the piggery. There surely was no want of work to do, for any one who cared to take in hand the reformation of the little commonwealth of Cottisbourne.
Miss Saville proceeded to business, while I looked on. She went forward to the children in the cart, and lugged down the reckless urchins who came clambering into it, just in time to prevent an accident, as the heavy body of the cart, high in the air, where they had been climbing, was suddenly thrown off its balance, and came down heavily, doing no harm, thanks to her exertion. “You little foolish things,” said the excited lady, “how often have I told you, you were not to go near these shocking things? you might all have been killed. I can’t be always looking after you, and if Jemmie Mutton had been killed when that cart fell, what do you think you would have done then?”
Not one of the little culprits was able to reply to this solemn question, and the lady continued, as they gaped at her, clustering together, stealing their hands underneath their pinafores, or putting finger in mouth, with awe and astonishment: “Depend upon it I shall make examples,” said Miss Saville, with solemnity. “Christmas is not so far off that I should forget what you are about now; and if I should hear of such a thing again, beware!”
Saying this in the tone of a Lord Chief-Justice, with an awful vagueness of expression, and penalties implied which only the threatened offenders knew the weight and import of, Miss Saville turned to enter a cottage. “I am obliged to keep them in awe of me, my dear,” she said, turning to me with complacent satisfaction, “and even to threaten them about their Christmas things. Some of them get quite an outfit of things when they attend school well, and say their catechisms; but children are a deal of trouble—the little good-for-nothings, they’re at it again!”
I was amused at Miss Saville’s contest with the children, yet somewhat disgusted withal. Like other visionaries, I was horrified when I descended to practise, or to see practised, what I had been dreaming. Your sweet docile children would have been out of my way, and unwelcome substitutes for the harder labors on which I had set my heart. But stupid children—children who gaped and curtsied—who folded their hands under their pinafores, and played in carts, and were held in terror of losing their annual dole at Christmas! this was quite a different martyrdom from what I had dreamed of. I had no vocation at all for this.
However, we had now entered the cottage. It was very poor, and had a sort of sofa or settle near the fire, on which was laid an old paralytic woman, whose shaking head and hand proclaimed at once how she was afflicted. A stout tall woman, the mistress of the cottage, went and came about the poor room, preparing the dinner, I suppose, but taking no notice of the invalid, that I could see, though her feeble half-articulatevoice seemed to run on nevertheless in an unfailing stream, and there was an eagerness in her gray bleared eye, which testified that this old woman, at least, though she had lost everything else, had not lost her interest in the world. She assailed us with a flood of imperfect words, which I could scarcely make out, but which seemed easy to Miss Saville, and a craving for news, and restless curiosity, which seemed very dreadful to me in this old, old woman. “So, she’s com’d home!” she said, and I knew she referred to me, “does she know her own mind by this time? Ah, ah, ah! it do make poor folks laugh to see the ways of the quality, that never know when they’re well.”
“Hold your peace, Sally,” said Miss Saville, imperatively, “the lady herself has taken the trouble to come from Cottiswoode to see you, you ungrateful old woman; and to see what she can do for you to make you comfortable; do you hear? You ought to thank her and show some feeling; but I am sure you poor folks in Cambridgeshire are the most ungrateful in the world.”
“The old folks you mean, Miss,” said the younger woman.
“You will call her Miss, ye unmannerly wench,” said the mother-in-law, chuckling; “Madam Saville, I know you—I know naught of the young one. Make me comfortable! I’m an old poor crittur, past my work, and I’ve had a stroke; and I want rest to my old bones. But these young uns, that’s able to stir about and help themselves, they think aught’s good eno’ for me.”
She began to whimper as she spoke. Alas—alas! the heroism of my vocation had deserted me. I felt nothing but disgust for the miserable old woman. I could not endure to go near her or touch her—it sickened me to think of the proposed asylum, and of doing menial services with my own hands to such a creature as this.
But Miss Saville was unmoved. I suppose she had no elevated ideas of self-martyrdom.
“Well then, Sally, that is just what I came to speak about,” she said; “you’re in the way in your son’s house; and you feel you’re in the way.”
“Who said it? was’t Tilda there?” cried the old woman, firmly. “I’ll make him wallop her—that I will, when the lad comes home. Where is an old woman to be welcome but with her children? Oh! you sarpent! it’s all along o’ you.”
“Matilda never said a word about it,” said the peremptory Miss Saville; “she has a great deal of patience with you, poor thing; for you’re an ill-tempered old woman! Be quiet, Sally, and listen to me. How would you like to be taken to a new house, and have all your little comforts attended to, and a room to yourself, and ladies to take care of you, eh? I would have charge of you, you understand, and this good young lady from the Hall, and others like her, would come every day to help me. What would you say to that, Sally?”
The younger woman, with unequivocal tokens of interest, had drawn nearer to listen; and was standing leaning upon the table, with her face turned towards us. Sally did not answer at first, and I watched the eager gleam of her old bleared eyes, and the nodding of her palsied head in silence.
“I don’t knaew,” said the old woman, “she’d be glad, I dare say; but am I agwoin to be put out of my way, to please Tilda? I’ll not have no prison as long as my Jim has a roof over his head. I’m not agwoin to die. I wants to hear the news and the talk, as well as another. I wants none o’ your fine rooms to lie all by myself, and never see nought but ladies—ladies! You’re grand, and you think poor folks worship you; but I’d rather see old Betty Higgins to come and tell me the news.”
“If that is all you have to say, Sally, we had better leave you,” said Miss Saville. “You shocking old woman, do you think you will live for ever? You’ll soon get news from a worse place than this world, if you don’t mind.”
“I’ll send for the parson when I’ve made up my mind to it, that I’m agwoin to die,” said Sally; “but here, give it to me, lady; don’t give it to Tilda—she’ll spend it on her own, andnever think on the old woman. Well, you’ve a soft hand: where’s your white bonnet and your white veil, and all your grandeur? What’s the good of coming to poor folks all muffled up like madam there? You’re no show, you’re not—you should have come like a picture. Now, Tilda, get me some brandy and a drop o’ tea, and tell Betty Higgins to come and sit by me while you’re gone.”
I retreated with a shudder when she dropped my hand. Her cold touch sickened me, and I could not bear the sharp twinkling of those half-closed eyes, and the palsied motion of her head, as she looked into my face, and spoke to me. I was very glad to escape from the cottage when poor ‘Tilda, a subdued, broken-hearted woman, not very tasty, went away to execute her commission. I was very much shocked on the borders of my new enterprise, very much disgusted, and almost staggered in my purpose. Yes! I had thought of nursing the sick and taking care of the aged; but I did not think of such sordid, selfish, wretched old age as this.
And yet, these were my own people—old retainers and dependants of the house. I had not been without acquaintances among the cottagers, when I was a girl at Cottiswoode; yet I recognised few of the blank faces which stared at me now. As we threaded the strange, narrow turnings, from cottage to cottage, I had to make no small effort to remind myself that it was clearly my business. Unpleasant! how I scorned the word and myself, for thinking of it—what was pleasant to me?
Miss Saville had not been silent all this time, though I paid no great attention to her. She was not disgusted; she had been accustomed to such scenes, and took them with perfect coolness; and I was astonished to find that she was not even displeased, nor inclined to shut out this wretched old Sally from the benefits of her asylum.
“You must not mind what that thankless old creature says,” said Miss Saville. “I know how to deal with them; and poor Matilda would be a happy woman if that old tyrant was away.You may trust to me to manage her. I promise you, she’ll not struggle long with me.”
I only shuddered with disgust. I could not anticipate very heroically my own promised assistance to wait upon this old Sally.
We were now at another cottage, where the door was closed, and we had to knock for admittance. It was opened by an elderly woman, fresh-complexioned, yet careworn, with scissors and pincushion hanging by her side, and some work in her hand. The furniture of the little room was very scanty, and not very orderly, but clean enough; and from the cuttings and thread upon the floor, the litter on the little deal table, and the work in the woman’s hand, I saw that she must be the village dressmaker. The lower part of the window, as usual, was screened by a coarse curtain of green gauze, and three flower-pots with dingy geraniums stood on the window-sill, with a prayer-book and a work-box, and a range of reels of cotton standing between. Here, as in the previous cottage, an old woman occupied the corner by the fire; but this one was placed in a large wooden elbow chair, gay with a cover of cotton print, which had been a gown before it came to its present preferment, and was tidily dressed, and had some knitting in her hands. A girl of twelve sat by the table helping her mother—a younger one was washing potatoes in a corner, while a little girl of three or four, sitting on the corner of the fender close to the fire, seemed to be exerting her powers for the general entertainment of the industrious family. When we entered, the mistress of the house, after her first greeting to Miss Saville, stepped aside to let us enter, and looked earnestly at me. The signs of her occupation helped me to a remembrance of her. I looked at her with a puzzled curiosity, trying to recall the changed face in its widow’s cap.
“Miss Hester,” she cried. “I humbly beg your pardon, ma’am, but I made sure it was you.”
She curtsied again and again, and seemed so unaffectedly glad, that my heart warmed in spite of myself. Miss Saville wasquite thrown into the shade. The children made their little curtsies, the old woman endeavored to rise, a chair was carefully wiped by poor Mary’s apron, and placed between the window and the fire for me; and Granny made a moving explanation of “her rheumatiz, that made her unmannerly.” I was restored to satisfaction. I do not think I had been so much pleased since I came to Cottiswoode. Yes! these were my own people.
“We’ve had a deal of trouble, Miss—ma’am—a deal of trouble,” said Mary, putting the corner of her apron to her eyes. “There was first poor Tom fell ill and died, and all the little uns had the fever, and Granny took the rheumatiz so bad, that she never can move out of her chair. It’s been hard to get the bit and the sup for them all, lady. But now Alice gets a big wench; and little Jane goes of errands, and Farmer Giles gives ’em a day’s work now and again, weeding and gathering stones; and I’m a bit easier in my mind—but, oh! it’s been hard days in Cottiswoode since you and the good old Squire went away.”
I knew no reason Mary had to call my father the good old Squire: yet I was pleased with the appellation. “Come to the Hall, Mary, and Alice will see if there is anything for you,” I said; “and you must tell me what poor old Granny wants, and what I can do for her. Granny, do you recollect me?”
“I rechlet your grandmama, Miss,” said the old woman, “better than you—that was the lady, she stood for my Susan, next to Mary, that I buried fifty years come Whitsuntide. I kneawn all the family, I do. I rechlet the young gentlemen, and Mr. Brian, that never had his rights. This Squire is his son, they tell me. Well, you’ve com’d and married him, Miss, and I bless the day; everything’s agwoin on right now. The Southcote blood’s been kind to me and mine, and I wish well of it, wishing ye joy, Miss, and a welcome home.”
I bowed my head in silent bitterness. Wishing me joy! what a satire it seemed.
“Are you very busy, Mary?” said Miss Saville. “Now do you think, if Alice had not come to school, and been taught herduty, she would have sat there so quietly helping her mother. I don’t believe anything of the kind.”
“Thank you all the same, Ma’am, it done her a deal of good gwoing to school,” said Mary, with a submissive, yet resolute courtesy, “but she always was a good child.”
“I don’t say she’s a good child now—she’s doing no more than her duty,” said Miss Saville, with a peremptory little nod; “there’s nothing worse for children than to praise them to their faces. There’s that boy of yours, not half an hour ago, if I had not been at hand, he might have broken his neck, clambering into the cart on the edge of the common. I am sure, how these children escape with their lives, with nobody to look after them, is a constant wonder to me.”
“Providence is always a-minding after them,” said Mary, “poor folks’ children is not like rich folks; and my boy can take a knock as well as another—I’m not afraid.”
“Well, now I have something to tell you of,” said Miss Saville.
“Since Mrs. Southcote has come home, she wishes to do good to you all like a Christian lady; and I’m going to take a house, or have one built here at Cottisbourne, and live in it myself, and take care of the old people who are helpless, and a burden on their families. Mrs. Southcote, and other good ladies, will come to help me, and the old folks shall be well taken care of, and have comfortable rooms and beds, and be a burden to nobody. What do you say to that, Granny? Mary has plenty to do with her own family, and I dare say doesn’t always get much time to mind you, and you’d be off her hands, and make her easier in her mind, for I’m sure you know very well how much she’s got to do.”
A shrill hoohoo of feeble, yet vehement sobbing interrupted this speech. “I’m a poor old soul,” said the hysterical voice of Granny; “but I toiled for her and her children, when I had some strength left, and I do what I can in my old days—God help me! My poor bit o’ bread and my tater—a baby ‘ud eat as much as me. Lord help us! you don’t go for to say my own child would grudge me that?”
“Folks had best not meddle with other folks’ business,” said Mary, with an angry glance towards Miss Saville. “You mind your knitting, mother, and don’t mind what strangers say. You ladies is hard-hearted, that’s the truth—though you mean kind—begging your pardon, Ma’am,” she said, with a curtsey to me; “but I work cheerful for my mother—I kneaw I do. I no more grudge her nor I grudge little Polly, by the fire. She’s been a good mother to me, and never spared her trouble; and ne’er a one of the childer but would want their supper sooner than miss Granny from the corner. And for all so feeble as she is, there’s a deal of life in her,” said Mary, once more putting up to her eyes the corner of her apron. “She’ll tell the little uns’ doins, it’s wonderful to hear—and talks out o’ the Bible of Sundays, that the parson himself might be the better—and knits at her stocking all the week through. They kneaws little that says my mother’s a burden. Alice ‘ud break her heart if she hadn’t Granny to do for, every day.”
“Well! I must say I think it very ungrateful of you,” said Miss Saville, “when I undertake she should be well taken care of, and Mrs. Southcote would come to see her almost every day. You’re a thankless set of people in Cottisbourne. You do not know when people try to do you good. There’s old Sally—”
“You don’t name my mother with old Sally there?” cried Mary, with indignation. “You wouldn’t put the likes of her under a good roof! I won’t have you speak, Ma’am—I won’t indeed. My mother and old Sally! in one house!”
“I think it possible,” said Miss Saville, with a little asperity, “that God might choose to take even old Sally to Heaven. She’s a naughty old woman—a cross, miserable old creature—and what she’d do there, if she was as she is, I can’t tell. But God has never said, so far as I know, ‘Old Sally shan’t come to Heaven.’”
This rebuke cast poor Mary into silence. She continued in a tremulous, half-defiant, half-convinced state for a few minutes, and then wiped her eyes again, and answered in a low tone:
“I wouldn’t be unneighborly, nor uncharitable neither—and God knows the heart—but my mother and old Sally wouldn’t agree, no ways—and I’d work my fingers to the bone sooner than let Granny go.”
“You must take your own way, of course,” said Miss Saville. “I only wanted to befriend you, my good woman. No—I’m not offended, and I don’t suppose Mrs. Southcote is either. What we propose is real kindness both to Granny and you—but, oh no! don’t fear—there are plenty who would be glad of it.”
Mary turned to me with a troubled glance; she thought that perhaps her balked benefactor was angry with her too.
“Is there anything Granny would like—or you, Mary? Could I help you?” said I. “Is there anything I could do myself for you?”
Mary made a very humble, reverential curtsey.
“You’re only too good, Ma’am,” said Mary. “There’s always a many things wanted in a small family. I’d be thankful of work, Miss, if you could trust it to me, and do my best to please—and Alice is very handy, and does plain hemming and seaming beautiful. Show the lady your work, Alice. If there were any plain things, Ma’am, to do—”
“But, Mary, I am sure you have too much to do already. I would rather help you to do what you have, than give you more work,” said I.
Mary looked up at me with a startled glance, and then with a smile.
“Bless your kind heart, lady! work’s nat’ral to me—pleasure is for the rich, and labor’s for the poor, and I’m content, I’d sooner sit working than go pleasuring; but it’s another thing with the likes of you.”
Miss Saville was already at the door, and somewhat impatient of this delay, so I hurried after her, arranging with Mary that she was to come that afternoon to Alice at Cottiswoode. When we got out of the house, Miss Saville took me to task immediately.
“You don’t understand the people, my dear,” said Miss Saville. “Mary was very right about the work: it’s far better to give employment than to give charity—and that’s not to save your purse, but to keep up their honest feelings. They’re independent when they’re working for themselves, and they’re bred up to work all their life; and for you to speak of going to help them, it would only make them uneasy, and be unsuitable for you.”
“But I wish to help them—and giving work to Mary does not stand in the place of working myself,” said I, with a little petulance.
“Oh, of course, if you want to do it for pleasure that’s quite a different thing—but I really don’t understand that,” said Miss Saville, abruptly.
“I do not wish it for pleasure,” said I, growing almost angry; but I did not choose to explain myself to her, and it was a good thing that she should confess that she did not understand me.
We visited a number of poor houses after this, but I found nothing encouraging in any of them. There were one or two old people found, who were quite willing to be received into Miss Saville’s asylum—they were all poor stupid old rustics, all helpless with some infirmity, but I did not find that there was anything heroic now in the prospect of waiting upon and serving them. It was not courage nor daring, nor any high and lofty quality which would be required for such an undertaking, but patience—patience, pity, and indeed a certain degree of insensibility, qualities which I neither had nor coveted. I was much discontented with my day’s experience—I was known and recognised latterly wherever we went, and though I had no recollection of the majority of the claimants of my former acquaintance, I was very ready to give them money, and did so to the great annoyance of Miss Saville. As we threaded our way through the muddy turnings, she lectured me on the evils of indiscriminate almsgiving, while I, for my part, painfully pondered what I had to do with these people, or what I coulddo for them. Though I had read a good deal, and thought a little, I was still very ignorant. I had a vague idea, even now in my disappointment, when I found I could not do what I wanted, that I ought to do something—that these people belonged to us, and had a right to attention at our hands. But I could not lift these cottages and place them in better order. I could not arrange those encumbered and narrow bits of path. Could I do nothing but give them money? I was much discomfited, puzzled, and distressed. Miss Saville plodded along methodically in her thick boots, perceiving what she had to do, and doing it as everyday work should be done—but there was no room here for martyrdom—and I could not tell what to do.
VISITORS! I did not know how to receive them; and not only visitors but relatives of my own—of my mother’s—her only remaining kindred. I went down with a flutter at my heart to see my unknown kin. He was with them, Alice told me, and I composed myself as well as I could before I entered the room; for by this time we had grown to a dull uncommunicating antagonism, and his presence stimulated me to command myself. It was past Christmas now, and we had spent more than two months in this system of mutual torment. We had been once or twice asked out, and we had gone and behaved ourselves so as not to betray the full extent of the breach between us; but we asked no one to our house—a house in which dwelt such a skeleton; and nobody can fancy how intolerable this drearytête-a-tête, in which each of us watched the other, and no one spoke save the few necessary formalities of the table, became every day. Yet how every day we began in the same course, never seeking to separate—keeping together as pertinaciously as a couple of lovers, and with the strangest fascination in this silent contest. To look back upon this time is like a nightmare to me. I feel the heavy stifling shadow, the suppressed feverish excitement, the constant expectation and strain of self control when I think of it. I wonder one of us was not crazed by this prolonged ordeal; I think a few days of it would make me frantic now.
I stood for a moment at the door listening to their voices before I entered—they were cordial, sincere voices, pleasant to hear, and in spite of myself I brightened at the kindly sounds. There were three of them—father, mother, and daughter—andwhen I entered the room, the first thing I saw was a pretty sweet girlish face, very much like the portrait which Mr. Osborne gave me of my mother, looking up all smiles and dimples at my husband’s. I cannot tell how it happened, but for the moment it struck me what a much more pleasant home this Cottiswoode would have been, had that sunny face presided over it—and what a dull sullen heavy countenance in comparison was that clouded and unhappy face which glanced back at me as I glanced at the mirror. I wondered whathethought on the subject, or if it had crossed his fancy; but I had no time to pursue the question, for suddenly I was overwhelmed in the shawl and embrace of a large kind smiling woman, the mother of this girl.
She held me by the hands after the first salutation, and looked at my mourning dress and my pale cheeks, and said, “poor dear!” She was herself very gay in an ample matronly finery, with satin skirts, and a great rich shawl, with a width and a warmth in her embrace, and a soft faint perfume about her which were quite new to me. Her fingers were soft, large, and pink and delicate; her touch was a positive pleasure. There are some people who make you conscious of your own appearance by the strange contrast which you feel it bears to theirs. Mrs. Ennerdale was one of those; I felt how cloudy, how dull, how unreal it was, living on imaginary rights and wrongs, and throwing my life away, when I felt myself within the warm pressure of these kindly human arms.
Mr. Ennerdale was a Squire like other Squires, a hearty comfortable country gentleman, with nothing much to distinguish him from his class—he shook hands with me very warmly, and looked still more closely in my face than his wife had done. “You’re alittlelike your mother, Mrs. Southcote,” he said in a disappointed tone, as he let me go. I might have been when I was happy; but I certainly was not now.
And then Flora came to me, shyly but frankly—holding my hand with a lingering light clasp, as if she expected a warmer salutation from her new found cousin. She was a year youngerthan I, very pretty, very fresh and sweet like a half-blown rose. She took her place upon a low chair close by me, and kept her sweet blue eyes on my face when I spoke, and looked at me with great interest and respectfulness. Poor young innocent Flora!—shedid not wonder that I looked ill, or question what was the matter with me. She was not skilled, nor could discriminate between unhappiness and grief.
It was not jealousy that crossed my mind, nor anything approaching to it. I only could not help fancying to myself how different everything would have been had she been mistress of Cottiswoode—how bright the house—how happy the master. It was a pleasure to look at the innocent sweet face. I admired her as only women can admire each other. I was not shy of looking at her as a man might have been. I had a pure pleasure in the sweet bloom of her cheek, the pretty turn and rounding of its outline. I had a great love of beauty by nature, but I had seen few beautiful people. Many a time the sweet complexion of Alice, and her comely bright face, had charmed me unawares, and I was a great deal more delighted with Flora now.
Mrs. Ennerdale took me aside, after a few minutes, to talk to me after a matronly and confidential fashion, for I was not well, and did not look well. But her kindness and her sympathy confused me, and I was glad to come back to my old place. Flora followed me with her eyes as I followed her—my sad clouded looks woke Flora’s young tender heart to respect and affectionate wistfulness. I don’t think she ventured to talk much to me, standing apart as I did, to her young fancy, upon my eminence of grief, but she looked up with such an earnest regard in my face, that I was more soothed than by words. When Mrs. Ennerdale began to settle her plumage, and to express her hope to see us soon, a sudden idea seized upon me. I took no time to think of it, but acted on my impulse in a moment. I suddenly became energetic, and begged that Flora might stay a few days with me. Flora looked up with an eagerseconding look, and said, “I should be so glad,” in her youthful whispering tone. The papa and mamma took counsel together, and my husband started slightly and looked with a momentary wonder in my face; but I suppose he had almost ceased to wonder at anything I could do.
“Well, I am sure you must have need of company, my dear,” said the sympathetic Mrs. Ennerdale, “and Flora is a good girl too, but must I send her things, or how shall we do? We thought of asking Mr. Southcote and yourself to come to Ennerdale, but I never dreamt of you keeping Flora. Well, dear, well, you shall have her, and I’ll see about sending her things; and, Flora, love, try if you cannot get your poor dear cousin to look cheerful, and recollect exercise,” said the experienced matron, turning aside to whisper to me, “remember, dear, it is of the greatest consequence, walk every day—be sure,everyday.”
There was some delay consequent on my request and the new arrangements, but in less than half an hour the elder pair drove off, and left Flora with me. I took her up-stairs with a genuine thrill of pleasure—I think the first I had felt since I entered the house, to show her her room, and help her to take off her cloak. “But come out first, do, and have a walk,” said Flora. “Mamma says you ought to go out; and it is so pleasant to feel the wind in your face. It nearly blew me away this morning—do come!”
“Are you not tired?” said I.
“Tired!—oh no! I am a country girl,” said Flora, with a low sweet laugh, as pretty and youthful as her face, “and when the boys are at home, they never let me rest. I always take a long time to settle down after the holidays. Dear Mrs. Southcote! I hope I will not be too noisy, nor too much of a hoyden for you—for you are not well I am sure.”
“Oh, yes! I am well,” I said, half displeased at this interpretation of the moody face which looked so black and clouded beside Flora’s. “Will you wait for me, Miss Ennerdale, while I get ready?”
“Don’t call me Miss Ennerdale, please don’t,” entreated the girl; “papa says we are as good as first cousins, for his father was your mamma’s uncle, and his mother was her aunt. Do you not know, Mrs. Southcote? your grandpapa and mine were brothers, and they married two sisters—that is how it is—and we are as good as first cousins—and I think, you know, that we ought to call each other—at least, that you ought to call me by my own name.”
“Very well, we will make a bargain,” said I; “do you know my name, Flora?”
“Oh yes! very well—it is Hester,” said Flora, with a blush and a little shyness. “I have no other cousins on papa’s side—and I always liked so much to hear of you.”
“Why?”
“Because—I can’t tell, I am sure!” said Flora, laughing. “I always could see my other cousins, but never you—and so few people knew you; and do you know,” she added quietly, lowering her tone, and drawing near to me, with that innocent pathos and mystery which young girls love, “I think my father, when he was young, was very fond of your mamma.”
“Strange! he, too! everybody must have loved her,” I said to myself, wonderingly.
“Yes, he says he never saw any one like her,” said Flora, with her sweet girlish seriousness, and perfect sincerity.
“Did no one ever say you were like me?” I asked.
Her face flushed in a moment with a bright rosy color.
“Oh, dear Mrs. Southcote! do you think so? I should be so proud.”
“I thought we were to call each other by our Christian names?” said I; “but you must wait for me till I get my bonnet.”
“Let me fetch it—is not that your room?” said Flora, following; “oh! who is that with such a kind face? Is that your maid, Mrs.—cousin?”
“Come and you shall see her, Miss—cousin,” said I, unable to arrest the happy and playful fascination of this girl; “she is mymaid and my nurse, and my dearest friend, too, Flora—my very dearest friend—Alice, this is Miss Ennerdale, my cousin.”
Alice started to her feet very hurriedly, made a confused curtsey, and looked at the young girl. It was too much for the self-control of Alice. I believe she had become nervous and unsettled, like the rest of us; and now she turned suddenly away, her lips quivered, her eyes filled. Flora gazed at her shyly, and kept apart, knowing nothing of the cause of her emotion.
“Is she very like, Alice?” said I, in an under tone.
“Very like, dear! God bless her! it’s like herself again. Miss Hester, is her name Helen?” asked Alice with a sob.
“No.”
The glance of disappointment on Alice’s face was only momentary.
“It ought not to have been, either; I’m glad it is not, dear—ah, Miss Hester! if she had but been your sister!”
“No, Alice, you would have loved her best; and I could not have borne that,” said I, still in a whisper; “but she is to stay with me. I will not let her go away again, till she is weary of Cottiswoode.”
And Alice, dear, kind, faithful Alice, who had no thought but for me, was grateful to me for seeking my own pleasure thus. I felt as if I had done her a favor, when I heard her “bless you, my darling!” Ah, this humble love was very consolatory; but I am not sure that it was very good for me.
I was not very strong nor able to walk as I had been used to do. But I felt the sweet exhilaration of the wind upon my face, and looked with pleasure along the level road, to see the thatched houses of Cottisbourne clustering as if for a gossip under the sunshine, and the great sky descending in its vast cloudy parallels to the very edge of these boundless featureless fields. The hum in the air so different from the hum in summer; the sharp, far-away bark of that dog, which always does bark somewhere within your range of hearing in a winter landscape; the shriller harping of the leafless elms, a sound so distinct from thesoft rustling of their summer foliage—everything had a clear, ringing, cheering sound—and Flora went on by my side, the embodiment and concentration of all the lesser happiness, with a gay light tripping pace like a bird’s, and all her heart and mind in sweet harmonious motion with her young graceful frame. I had always, myself, been the youngest in our little household—it was a new pleasure to me, and yet a strange, unusual sensation, to find myself thrown into the elder, graver, superior place, and this young creature with me, whom I could not help but treat like a child, a younger sister, rich in possession of youth, which I had never known.
At fifteen, I think, I must have felt old beside Flora, and now at one-and-twenty—no great age, heaven knows!—I was struck with wonder and admiration at the beautiful youthfulness which was in every motion and every word of this simple pretty girl. My marriage, and my unhappiness, had increased the natural distance between us. I did not envy Flora; but I had a sort of reflective, half melancholy delight in looking at her—such as old people have, I fancy—which was strange enough at my years.
“Do you not like walking, cousin?” said Flora—“I think the fresh air is so sweet—I do not care whether it is summer or winter. I think I should like always to be out of doors. I always could dance when I feel the wind on my face like this.”
“But I am older than you, Flora,” said I.
Flora laughed, her sweet, low, ringing laugh—“I am sure you are not so much older than me, as I am older than Gus,” she said; “but mamma says when they are all at home, that I am the wildest boy among them. Do you like riding, cousin?”
“I never ride,” said I.
“Never ride?—oh! I am fond of horses!” cried Flora, “and a gallop along a delightful long road like this—why, it’s almost as good as flying. Will you try?—I am quite sure you are not timid, cousin. Oh, do let Mr. Southcote find a horse for you and try to-morrow. But, oh, I forgot!” she said with a sudden blush,which brought a still deeper color to my cheek, as she glanced at me, “perhaps it would not be right for you.”
There was a pause of momentary embarrassment, and Flora greatly distressed I could perceive, thinking she had annoyed me. At that moment, some children from the school at Cottisbourne passed us, going home, and made their clumsy bows and curtseys, which I only acknowledged very slightly as we went on. Flora, for her part, cast a wistful glance after the little rustics. “Will you not speak to them, cousin?” she asked with a little surprise—“have they not been good children?—I should so like you to see our school at Ennerdale. I always go there every day, and I am very fond of them. They are tidy pleasant children; and I believe, though it looks so vain to say it,” said Flora, breaking off with a laugh, “that they all like me.”
“I should not fancy that was so very extraordinary either,” said I; “other people do that, I suppose, besides the children at Ennerdale.”
“Yes, everybody is very good to me,” said Flora, with a quiet seriousness; “but then, you know, cousin, I have sometimes topunishthe children as well as to praise them. How do you do here? I am sure you know a great deal better how to manage than I do. Do you forgive them when they seem sorry, or do you keep up looking displeased at them? Mamma says I spoil them, because I only look angry for a moment; but you know I never am really angry, I only pretend, because it’s right.”
“Indeed, Flora, I do not know. I never visit the school; I have had so little to do with children,” I answered hastily.
Once more Flora cast an annoyed glance at me. This was more wonderful still than never riding—I began to grow quite a puzzler to Flora.
“Mamma has so many things to do, she seldom gets any time to help me,” continued the girl, rallying a little after a pause. “Do you know, cousin, mamma is a perfect Lady Bountiful; she is always busy about something—and when people tell her of it, she only laughs and says it is no credit to her—for she does it all for pleasure. Don’t you think it is very silly for people to praise ladies like mamma, or to find fault with them either? She is only kind to the village people because she likes to see them pleased and getting on well; and we all like company, cousin Hester, and we know the village people best and longest, and they are our nearest neighbors; and don’t you think it is right to be kind to them? But the Miss Oldhams, at Stockport House, say we are undermining their independence, and condescending to the poor.”
“I am sure your mamma must be quite right, Flora—but here comes some rain—I think we must go home,” said I.
Flora held up her fresh pretty face to it, and caught the first drops upon her cheeks.
“It is rather too cold,” she said, shaking them off with a pretty graceful motion, and beginning to run like a young fawn. “I like to be caught in a spring shower; but oh, cousin Hester, what shall I do if I get my dress wet, I haven’t another one till they send; and then, I am running and forgetting you. Don’t run—Idon’t care for being wet, if I may come down stairs in this frock after all. Oh! there is Mr. Southcote with a mantle for you, and an umbrella, and now I’ll run all the way home.”
She passed him with a laughing exclamation as he came up.Shecould not guess that this brief walk alone would be irksome to the young husband and wife, not four months married. I suffered him to wrap the mantle around me. I wondered almost to feel with what undiminished care he did it; and then we walked on side by side, in dreary silence, looking at the flying figure before us, with her mantle streaming behind her, and her fair curls escaping from the edge of her bonnet, as she turned round her laughing, glowing, pretty face to call and nod to us as she ran on. We did not speak to each other; we only looked at her, and plodded on slowly, side by side; and again the thought came upon me—and now, with a gush of pity for both of us, which overpowered me so that I could have thrown myself down there on the rainy roadside and cried. What ahappy manhewould have been had he brought Flora Ennerdale, instead of Hester Southcote, to Cottiswoode, as his bride.
I suppose the sight of her, and her innocence and happiness had moved him, too; for just when he left me, after our silent walk, he leaned over me for a moment, taking off my mantle, and whispering in a tremulous tone—“Dear Hester! I hope you will have pleasure in this good little girl’s society.” As he spoke, I caught his eye; there were tears in it, and a tender anxious look, as if he was very solicitous about me. I had great difficulty at the moment in restraining a great burst of tears. I was shaken almost beyond my own power of control. If I had waited another moment, I think I must have gone to him; clung to him, forgetting everything but one thing, and wept out all the tears in my heart. I fled to save reply. I am sure he heard me sob as I ran up stairs; but he did not know how I was almost overpowered—how a new love and tenderness, almost too much for me, was swelling like a sea in my heart. I fled to my own room, and shut myself in, and sank down upon the floor and cried. Alice had been speaking to him: I read it in his eye—but I—I could say nothing. I could not go, as his wife should have gone, to share with him the delight, and awe, and wonder, of this approaching future. I lay down upon the floor prostrate, with my face buried in my hands. I tried to restrain my sobs, but I could not. Long afterwards, I knew that he was watching, longing without the door, while I went through this moment of agony within—afraid to enter. If he had entered, perhaps—yet, why should I say perhaps? when I know it is quite as likely that my perverse heart would have started up in indignant anger at his intrusion, as that my pride and revenge would have given way before my better feelings; it was best as it was. I see all now; and how every event was related to its neighbor. I see I could not have done without the long probation, and the hard lessons which remained for me still.
When I recovered myself, it is strange how soon I hardened down once more into my former state. I had no longer anyfear of meeting him, or of yielding to my own weakness. I rose and bathed my face, though I could not take away the signs of tears entirely from my eyes, and then I remembered how I had neglected Flora, and went to seek her. I found her sitting on a stool before the fire in her own room, spreading out her dress round her to dry, and looking up in the face of Alice who stood beside her. What a pretty picture the two would have made! Flora’s wide dress spread out around her upon the soft varicolored hearthrug; her hair hanging half out of curl, and slightly wetted; her pretty hand held up before her to shield her cheek from the fire, so that you could trace every delicate little vein in the pink, half-transparent fingers, and her sweet face turned towards Alice, looking up at her; while Alice, on her part, looked down, with her kind motherly looks and fresh complexion; her snowy cap, kerchief, and apron, basking in the firelight. I was reluctant to break in upon them with my red eyes and heavy face.
“Oh, cousin! what will you think of me!” said Flora, starting as I entered. “I ought to have come to see how you were after being so hurried; but Alice began to talk to me, and we forgot. It is so comfortable here, and there is such a delightful easy-chair. Dear cousin Hester! sit down and stay with me here a little, till my dress is quite dry. You were not angry with me for running away?”
She had drawn her delightful easy-chair to the fire, and coaxed me into it before I was aware. Once more I felt an involuntary relaxation and warming of my heart. This feminine and youthful pleasure—this pleasant gossiping over the fire, so natural and pleasant and unconstrained, was almost quite new to me. I did not know, indeed, what female society was. I had lived in ignorance of a hundred innocent and sweet delights which were very health and existence to Flora. My heart melted to my own mother when I looked at my new friend. I began to understand how hard it would be for such a creature to live at all under the shadow of a silent, passionate, uncommunicativeman like my father, even if he had not distrusted her.
“I am afraid I was crying,” said Flora, wiping something from her cheek, “for Alice was speaking of your mamma; and, cousin, Alice too thinks I am like her. I am so very glad to be like her; but papa said you were a little too, cousin Hester.”
“No, I do not think it,” said I. “I am not like her, I am like the gloomy Southcotes, Flora. I have missed the sweeter blood of your side of the house.”
“Dear cousin Hester! I think you are very melancholy,” said Flora, looking up at me affectionately. “Pray don’t speak of the gloomy Southcotes, you are only sad, you are not gloomy; and I do not wonder—I am sure if it were I,” the tears gathered heavily into her sweet blue eyes. No—Flora, like myself, six months ago, knew nothing of the course of time and nature. Flora could understand any degree of mourning for such a grief as mine.
Alice had met my eye with an inquiring and slightly troubled glance, and now she went away—we were left alone. Flora and I—for some time we sat in silence together, my eyes bent upon the fire, and hers on me. This sweet simple girl seemed to fancy that she had a sort of charge of me—to amuse and cheer me. After a short interval, she spoke again.
“I saw some beautiful flowers down stairs, are they from your green-house, cousin? Some one told me there was such a beautiful conservatory at Cottiswoode; do your plants thrive? Do you spend much time there? Are you fond of flowers, cousin Hester?”
“I used to like them very well,” I said; “but I do not think I have been in the conservatory here more than half-a-dozen times. Would you like to go now, Flora?”
“Oh, yes—so much! if it would not tire you,” said Flora, starting up; “we have only such a little shabby one at Ennerdale. Mamma used to say the nursery was her conservatory; but I am very fond of flowers. Oh, what a beautiful place!Did you use to have this when you were at Cottiswoode before? I think I could live here if this were mine!”
And she flew about, light-hearted and light-footed, through the pretty conservatory, which indeed looked a very suitable place for her. As I followed her languidly, Flora found flower after flower which she did not know, and came darting back to me to know the names, reckoning upon my knowledge, as it seemed, with the most perfect confidence. I did not know—I did not know—I had never observed it before. Her young bright face grew blank as she received always the same answer; and by-and-by she restrained her natural exuberance, and came and walked beside me soberly, and ceased to assail me with questions. I was not much satisfied with the change, but I caught Flora’s grave, anxious, wondering look at me, and knew that this and everything else was laid to the source of my sorrow, and that the sincerest pity and affectionate anxiety for me had risen in this young girl’s simple heart.
She brightened again into great but subdued delight, when I said that some of the flowers she admired most, should be put aside to go to Ennerdale, and when I plucked a few pretty blossoms for her to put in her hair—they were too good for that, she said, and received them in her hands with a renewal of her first pleasure. Then we went into the drawing-room, and sat down once more, looking at each other. “Do you work much, cousin Hester?” asked Flora, timidly, “for, of course, not thinking that you would wish me to stay, I brought nothing with me to do. Will you let me have something? I am sure you think so much, that you like working; but for me, I am always with mamma, and when we are busy, she says I do get through so much talk. Let me work, please, cousin Hester, it is so pleasant for two people to work together.”
“I have got no work, Flora,” said I, faltering a little. It was true enough, yet I had some little bits of embroideries in progress, which I did not like to show to her, or to any one, but only worked at in solitude and retirement, in my own room up-stairs.
This time Flora sighed as she looked at me, and then looked round the room in quest of something else. “Do you play, cousin Hester? are you fond of music? I know great musicians have to practise such a great deal,” she said, looking at me interrogatively, as if perhaps this might be a sufficient reason for my unaccountable disregard of village schools, and hot-house flowers and embroidery. For the moment, with her simple eye upon me, I felt almost ashamed for myself.
“No, Flora, I never touch the piano,” said I.
Flora rose and drew softly towards me with humility and boldness. “Dear cousin Hester,” said the innocent young girl, kneeling down upon a footstool beside me, and putting her pretty arm around my waist, “you are grieving very much and breaking your heart—oh! I am so very sorry for you! and I am not surprised indeed at all, for it is dreadful to think what such a loss must be; and no mamma to comfort you. But, cousin, dear, won’t you try and take comfort? Mamma says it will do you harm to be so very sad—though I know,” said Flora, leaning back upon my knee to look up into my face, and blushing all over her own as she spoke, “that something will make you very happy when the summer comes, for Alice told me so.”
This simple and unpremeditated appeal overpowered me. I leaned down my cheek upon hers, and put my arms round her, and no longer tried to control myself. She was alarmed at this outbreak, which was almost as violent as the former one in my own room, and when she had soothed me a little, she ran upstairs and came down breathless with some eau-de-cologne and water in a little china basin, and bathed my forehead with a dainty little handkerchief, and put back my hair and smoothed it as if she had been my nurse, and I a child. Then she wanted me to lie down, and conducted me tenderly upstairs for that purpose—when, however, I only put my dress in order for dinner, and went down again.
My husband encouraged her happy talk while we sat at table, and she told him, “Cousin Hester had been a little nervous, andwas so very sad, and could he tell her what to do, to amuse her cousin?” For my own part, I did not dare to meet his eye. Not only my own agitation, but the natural and happy life interposed between us in the person of this simple girl, made it a very great struggle for me to maintain my composure and self-control.
When we returned to the drawing-room, Flora drew her footstool to the fireside again, and sat down at my feet and told me of all her pleasant ways and life at home. Then she rose suddenly. “Would you like me to sing, cousin Hester? I cannot sing very well, you know; but only simple songs, and papa likes to hear me, at this time, before the lights come. Shall I sing? would it amuse you, cousin Hester?”
“Yes, Flora,” I said; she asked no more, but went away in her simplicity to the piano. Then while the evening darkened I sat by the fire which burned red and warm, but sent only a fitful variable glow into the corners of the room, listening to the young voice, as sweet and clear as a bird’s, singing song after song for my pleasure. They went to my heart, these simple words, these simple melodies, the pure affectionate sincerity of the singer, who never once thought of herself. I bowed myself down by the fire and hid my face in my hands, and in perfect silence, and strangely subdued and softened, wept quiet tears out of a full heart. She was still going on, when I became aware in an instant of another step beside me, and some one stooped over me, and kissed the hands which hid my face, and kissed my hair. My heart leaped with a violent start and throb; I looked up and raised myself on my chair. My husband had joined us! Flora perceived him, and I had but time to dry my wet eyes, when lights were shining in the cheerful room; and the music, and the charm, and this touch which once more had nearly startled me back into the natural woman, had vanished like the wintry twilight, and I was once more calm, grave, languid, the resentful, cloudy, reserved Mrs. Southcote, such a one as I had been ever since the first night when I was brought to Cottiswoode.
ITwas February, a mild, pensive spring day—for the spring was early that year—and Flora still remained with me. As Flora lived with us day by day, and saw the reserve and restraint between my husband and me, innocent and unsuspicious as her mind was, it was impossible, I think, that she should fail to discover something of how it was with us. But she was wise in her simplicity; she never made the very slightest allusion to anything she had discovered. Sometimes, indeed, when she thought me occupied, I saw a puzzled, painful shade come upon her sweet young face, as she looked from me to him—from him to me. I could guess that she was very unwilling to blame either of us, yet could not quite keep herself from wondering who was to blame; but the girl had a nice and delicate perception of right and wrong, which prevented her from hinting either suspicion or sympathy to me.
The house was changed while she remained in it. It was not easy to resist the sweet voice singing in those dull rooms; the light step bounding about involuntarily, the light, unburdened heart smiling out of the fair, affectionate face. I became very fond of my young relative. She stole into my confidence, and sat with me in my room, a more zealous worker at my little embroideries than even I was. I was constantly sending to Cambridge for things which I thought would please her; for Flora’s sake I began to collect a little aviary; for Flora’s sake I sent far and near for rare flowers. If Flora’s own good taste had not withheld me, I would have loaded her with jewels, which I never thought of wearing myself. All my happier thoughts became connected with her. She had all the charmof a young favorite sister, combined with the freedom of a chosen friend. We walked together daily, and my health improved, almost in spite of myself, and she drove me about in a little pony-carriage, which had never been used till she came. I think Flora was very happy herself, in spite of her wondering doubt about our happiness; and she made a great difference in the atmosphere of Cottiswoode.
While we were pursuing our usual walk to-day, we met Miss Saville. She was going to Cottisbourne, and went on with us, talking of her schemes of “usefulness.” I had given up the visitor’s uniform myself after a second trial, and had contented myself with sending money by the hands of Alice to Mary and Granny, and several other pensioners, whom, however, in my languor and listlessness, I never cared to visit myself. But I was surprised to find how much more easily Flora suited herself to Miss Saville, and even to the Rector, than I could do. She was deep in all their plans and purposes—she was continually asking advice about her own schemes at home from one or other of them. Their peculiarity of manners seemed scarcely at all to strike Flora. She said they were very good people—very active people—she was quite sure they would do a great deal for the village. I assented, because I did not care to oppose her; but I—poor vain fool that I was!—thought their benevolences trifling, and unworthy of me, who could find no excuse here for heroic deeds or martyrdom.
Miss Saville looked strangely annoyed and anxious to-day. I saw her brow contract at every bend of the road, and she cast searching glances about her, as if looking for somebody, and was not, I think, very well pleased to have encountered us. Sometimes she started, and turned to look back, and asked, “Did you hear anything?” as though some one was calling her. If Flora had observed her perturbation, I have no doubt we should have left her, for Flora’s delicate regard for others never failed, when it was exerted, to influence me; but Flora was not so quick of sight as I was, nor so learned in the signs of discomfort,and my mind was so indolent and languid, that I should have gone on quietly in any circumstances, and would not willingly undertake the exertion of changing my course for any cause. So we continued our way, and as we proceeded, Miss Saville told me that old Sally had changed her mind, and that she and a few others were quite ready to become inmates of her asylum now.
“But you—you surely would never condemn yourself to keep house with that miserable old woman!” said I, with a shudder. “You will think I am capricious for changing my mind, but indeed I did not think what a penalty it was. Pray don’t think of it, Miss Saville. Let me give her something every week to support her at home.”
“You have, indeed, changed your mind,” said Miss Saville, with a smile which was rather grim. “But, indeed, I don’t wonder at it. I never expected anything else, and it was only a fancy with you. You have enough of natural duties at home. But here is how the case stands with me, my dears. The Rector may marry—I hope he will—indeed, I may say that there is great hope of it. I have enough to keep myself, but I have nothing to do. I should like to be near William—I mean the Rector; but what would become of me if I was idle, do you think? I did once think of gathering a few clever girls about me, and setting up an establishment for church embroidery; but William—the Rector, I mean—very justly says, that I could not afford to give such expensive things away, and to receive payment for them—though only for the materials—would be unbecoming a lady; so I think it was quite a providential suggestion when I thought of taking care of the aged poor at Cottisbourne. Hark! did you hear any one call me, my dear?”
“No, Miss Saville. Are you looking for any one?” said Flora, perceiving our companion’s anxiety for the first time.
“No—no!—no!” said Miss Saville, hurriedly, “I cannot say I am. A friend who is visiting us, strayed out by himself—that is all. He does not know the country. I am afraid he mightmiss his way,” she continued, in a very quick, conscious, apologetic tone.
And suddenly there came to my recollection, the face I had once seen at the Rectory window. Could this man be undersurveillanceby them? Could he be crazy, or in disgrace? Could he have escaped? I became suddenly very curious—almost excited. I looked into the corners of the hedges, henceforward, as carefully as Miss Saville did herself.
And in my exaggerated disinterestedness, and desire for pain rather than pleasure, I was offended with her plain and simple statement of what her design was in setting up this asylum of hers. I said, not without a little sarcasm:
“If it is only for occupation, Miss Saville, I think Sally herself could give you enough to do.”
“Who is old Sally?” asked Flora, with a wondering glance at me.
“A wretched, ghastly, miserable old woman,” said, I; “one who would disgust even you, with all your meekness, Flora.”
“Mamma says we should never be disgusted with any one,” said Flora, in an under-tone—in which, shy as it was, my quick ear could not fail to detect a slight mixture of disapprobation.
“But this is a selfish, discontented, unhappy creature, who looks as if she could curse every one happier than herself,” said I.
“You give a hard judgment, Mrs. Southcote,” said Miss Saville, roused even to a certain dignity. “Did you ever consider what she has to make her discontented—great age, weakness, disease, and poverty? Do even such as you, with youth, and wealth, and everything that heart can desire, make the best always of the good things God gives them? I am sure you should do so, before you give her such names as wretched and selfish. Look what a difference between old Sally and you—and she’s had no education, poor old creature! to teach her to endure her evil things patiently. But I’ve seen thankless young folks take blessings as if they were curses—I have indeed.”
“Oh! here we are, close upon the school,” cried Flora, breathlessly eager to prevent a breach between us. “Are you able to be troubled, dear cousin Hester? Please do let us go in.”
I was not offended. I am not sure that this assault upon me was disagreeable to me at all. At the moment, it rather increased my respect for Miss Saville, and gave her importance in my eyes; though I confess, when I thought of it after, I did not derive a great deal of satisfaction from comparing myself, my temper, and my hardships, with those of old Sally.
Without any more words we entered the school—the half of it appropriated to girls and infants. As the startled children stopped in their classes, or got up from their seats, where they were boring and bungling over their soiled pieces of sewing, and made their clumsy curtseys, I took a seat which Flora brought me, and she began to dance about among them, overlooking their work, and inquiring about their lessons, and making awkward smiles and giggles among the little rustics, every one of whom hung her head, turning her crown instead of her face to Flora as the young lady approached. Dull, listless, separate, I sat and looked on, while Miss Saville talked to the schoolmistress, and singled out some of the elder girls for admonition or encouragement, and Flora ran about from form to form. Miss Saville represented the constituted authorities. Flora—sweet, pretty Flora!—was only herself, young, happy, affectionate—a spring of delight to everybody. I cannot tell what any one thought of me. After a little interval, I became conscious of myself, with a dull pain. I never was like Flora; yet I once was Hester Southcote—once I dressed magnificent dolls for Alice’s little niece, and enjoyed such innocent occupation, and had, among the very few who knew me, my own share of popularity—but what was I now?
“Cousin Hester!” said Flora, coming up to me, and bending down to whisper in my ear, “I should like to give them prizes, and have a little feast here—may I? they are always happy, andsuch a thing pleases everybody. May I tell Miss Saville and the teacher? Please do say yes—cousin Hester?”