THIS union, following so close upon our complete severance from each other, astonished everybody. We frightened Ellen. When she came to call me next morning, and saw the other sleeping by me, she thought it was witchcraft; but I did not mind that I rose, and dressed very quietly, not to wakeher. She was sleeping deeply at last, the sleep of exhaustion. During all papa’s illness she had not rested at all, and at last sorrow and watching had worn her out. But I need not go over at length everything that happened. We told kind Mrs Tufnell and Mrs Stephens, our nearest neighbours; and I believe they told it to many in the parish; but Mary and I neither knew nor heard what went on out of our house. I had got to call her Mary, as he did; I liked it now—it no longer seemed to interfere with me. I thought my voice sounded round and soft like his when I said her name: Mary. It is a pleasant name to say, though it is my own. I got to admire it, being hers—I, who had hated her for being so called. But all that was changed now.
I do not quite know how our business was settled, for I know nothing about business. ThisI know, that she managed it all herself, as she had said; she would not let Spicer have anything to do with it. She wrote about the money to an old friend of papa’s, and got it invested and all settled. Half was for her and half for me. It brought us in about £85 a year. We settled to let the first floor, two rooms furnished as a sitting-room and bed-room, which would pay our rent; and we got three or four little pupils, who came every day, and whom we taught. Everything was very closely calculated, but we decided that we could manage it. We had never been used to be rich, neither one nor the other: and though when all was well I had dreamed of going away among strangers, yet now I could not help chiming in with that desperate desire of hers to avoid separation and remain together. She used to tell me stories of how she had been when she was a governess. How she had lived upstairs in a schoolroom alone in the midst of a great houseful of people; how when she came downstairs she was in the society without belonging to it; and how when any one in the family was kind to her they got into trouble. What she said was quite vague, but it was not comfortable; and by degrees my dreams and ideas were modified by her experience. But I could not be cured of my follies all in a moment, even by grief. After a while I began to dream again; and now my dreams were of my high estate being discovered somehow whenI was seated lonely in that schoolroom, trying to get through the weary evening. I used to make a picture to myself of how the lady of the house would come penitent and ashamed, and make a hundred apologies; and how I would say to her, that though her other governesses might not turn out to be Lady Marys, yet did not she think it would be best to be kind and make friends of them? Lady Mary! I clung to my absurdity, though I began to be old enough to see how ridiculous it was. How could I ever turn out to be anybody now—now that papa was gone? But when a girl is but sixteen there are often a great many follies in her head which she would be deeply ashamed of if any one knew them, but which please her in secret as she dreams over them.
My life was altogether changed by papa’s death. It is dreadful to say so, but it was not changed for the worse. Perhaps I had been happier in the old days before Mary was ever heard of, when he and I used to sit together, not talking much, and walk together, thinking our own thoughts—together yet without much intercourse. I had been quite content then, having enough to amuse me in my own fancies, as he, I supposed, had in his. But now I began to be able to understand why he had wearied for real companionship, now that I knew what real companionship was. We lived together, Mary and I, in a different way.We talked over everything together; the smallest matter that occurred, we discussed it, she and I. She had the art of working everything that happened, into our life, so that the smallest incident was of importance. Even in those very first days, though her heart was broken, she soothed me. “Mary,” she said, with her lips trembling, “we cannot be always crying; we must think of something else whenever we can; we musttryto think of other things. God help us; we must live, we cannot die.” And then she would break down; and then dry her eyes, and talk of something, of anything. When we got our little pupils, that was a relief. She went into her work with all her heart. Her attention never seemed to wander from the business, as mine constantly did. We had four little girls; they came for two hours in the morning and two in the afternoon. When they went away we had our walk. In the evening we did our needlework, and she made me read aloud, or sometimes play, and she taught me to sing. We used to stop and cry at every second bar when we began, but by degrees that hysterical feeling passed off. I was never away from her. I had constant companionship, communion,—talk that kept me interested and even amused. I got to be—I am almost ashamed to confess it—happier than I had been for a long time, perhaps than I had ever been in my life.
We had lived like this for about three months,and had got used to it, when something came to make a little change. Mary and I rarely spoke of our secret. It seemed to be my secret as well as hers, and I tried all I could to take care of her, with a secret awe which I never expressed. I could not have spoken of it; I should have been ashamed; but the mysterious sense of what was coming was always in my mind. The needlework which we used to do in the evenings filled me with strange feelings. I never dared ask what this or that was for. I was afraid and abashed at the very sight of the little things when they happened to be spread out and showed their form. It was making them which made me a good needlewoman: perhaps you will think that is of no great importance in these days of sewing-machines; but oh, to have let a sewing-machine, or even a stranger’s hand touch those dearest little scraps of linen and muslin! Nothing but the finest work, the daintiest little stitches, would do for them. I used to kiss them sometimes in my awe, but I would not have asked questions for the world. This is a digression, however; for what I was going to say had nothing to do either with our work or our secret. All this time we had not let our first floor—and it was with great satisfaction in her looks that Mrs Stephens came in one day and told us that she had heard of a lodger for us. “He is a gentleman, my dears,” she said, “quitea gentleman, and therefore you may be sure he will giveno trouble that he can help. He is an engineer, and has something to do, I believe, about the new railway; otherwise he lives at home somewhere about Hyde Park, and moves in the very best society. When I say an ‘engineer,’ I mean a ‘civil’ one, you know, which is, I am told, quite the profession of a gentleman. He will want the rooms for six months, or perhaps more. His name is Durham; he is cousin to the Pophams, great friends of mine, and if the lodgings suit him he would like to come in at once.”
Mary had given a little start, I could not tell why. There seemed no reason for it. Her work had fallen out of her hands; but she picked it up again and went on. “His name is—— What did you say, Mrs Stephens?—a civil engineer?”
“Yes, my love, a civil engineer—Durham, his name is. He will come with me to-morrow, if you are agreeable, to see the rooms.”
Mary made a visible pause. She looked at me as if she were consulting me; it was a curious, appealing sort of look. I looked back at her, but I could not understand her. What did I know about Mr Durham, the civil engineer? Mrs Stephens was not so observant as I was, and probably she never noticed this look. And then Mary said, “Very well. If they suit him, we ought to be very thankful. I should have preferred a lady——”
“My dear, a lady is a great deal more at homethan a man, and gives more trouble,” said Mrs Stephens; “very different from a man who is out all day. And then, probably he will dine almost always at his West-end home.”
The idea was funny, and I laughed. The notion of the West-end home amused me; but I could not help observing that Mary, who was always ready to sympathise with me, did not smile. Her head was bent over her work. She did not even say anything more on the subject, but let Mrs Stephens go on and make all the arrangements for coming next day. I thought of this after; and even at the time I noticed it, and with some surprise.
Next day, just as we were going out for our walk, Mary, who had been at the window, started back, and went hurriedly into the little room behind, which had once been papa’s study. “Mary,” she said, “there is Mrs Stephens and—— her friend. Go with them, please, to see the rooms. I am not quite well: I would rather not appear.”
“I am so stupid; I shall not know what to say,” I began.
“You will do very well,” said Mary, and disappeared and shut the door. I had no time to think more of this, for the stranger came in directly with Mrs Stephens; and in my shyness I blushed and stammered while I explained. “She is not very well,” I said; “I am to show you. Will you please—sit down; will you come upstairs?”
“You will do very well,” said Mrs Stephens, patting me on the shoulder. “This is Mr Durham, Mary, and I don’t think he will eat any of us. It is a nice light, airy staircase,” she said, as she went up, not to lose any opportunity of commending the house. “A capital staircase,” said Mr Durham, with a cheery laugh. I had scarcely ventured to look at him yet, but somehow there was a feeling of satisfactoriness diffused through the air about him. I cannot explain quite what I mean, but I am sure others must have felt the same thing. Some people seem to make the very air pleasant: they give you a sense that all is well, that there is nothing but what is good and honest in the place where they are. This is what I felt now; and when we got upstairs I ventured to look at him. He was tall and strong and ruddy, not at all like any hero whom I had ever read of or imagined. There was nothing “interesting” about him. He looked “a good fellow,” cheery, and smiling, and active, and kind. He settled at once about the rooms. He laughed out when Mrs Stephens said something about their homeliness. “They are as good as a palace,” he said; “I don’t see what a man could want more.” The sitting-room was the room papa died in, and it cost me a little pang to see them walking about and looking at the furniture; but when people are poor they cannot indulge such feelings. We learn to say nothing about them, and perhaps that helps to subduethem. At all events, I made no show of what I was thinking, and it was all settled in a few minutes. He was to come in on Saturday, and Ellen was to work for him and wait upon him. I could not help thinking it would be pleasant to have him in the house.
And thus there commenced another period of my life, which I must speak of very briefly,—which indeed I do not care to speak of at all, but which I will think about as long as I live. I did not see very much of him at first. I was nearly seventeen now, and very shy; and Mary watched over me, and took great pains not to expose me to chance meetings with the stranger, or any unnecessary trouble. Ellen managed everything between us. She was a good, trustworthy woman, and we did not require to interfere; she was full of praises of Mr Durham, who never gave any trouble he could help. But one night, when I was taking tea with Mrs Stephens, he happened to come in, and we had the pleasantest evening. He knew a song I had just learned, and sang a second to it in the most delightful deep voice. He talked and rattled about everything. He made Mrs Stephens laugh and he made me laugh, and he told us his adventures abroad till we were nearly crying. When it was time for me to go he got up too, and said he would go with me. “Oh, it is only next door; I can go alone,” I said, in my shyness. “It is only next door, but Ilive there too, and I am going to work now,” he said. “To work! when all the rest of the world are going to bed?” said Mrs Stephens; “you will make yourself ill.” How he laughed at that! his laugh sounded like a cheery trumpet. He did not mean to kill himself with work. “But I hope you will let me come to tea again,” he said. How pleased Mrs Stephens was! She always says she likes young people, and we had spent such a pleasant night.
Many more of these pleasant evenings followed. Sometimes when we were sitting quiet after tea, she would send for me suddenly; sometimes she would write a little note in the afternoon. This expectation filled my life with something quite new. I had never had many invitations or pleasures before: I had never expected them. When we sat down to work after tea I had known that it was for the whole evening, and that no pleasant interruption would disturb us. But now a little thrill of excitement ran through my whole life. I wondered, would a note come in the afternoon? If it did not come, I wondered whether the bell would ring after tea, and Ellen come in saying, “If you please, ma’am, Mrs Stephens’s compliments, and would Miss Mary go in, and take her music?” Mary never interfered; never said “Don’t go.” She looked at me sometimes very wistfully; sometimes she smiled and shook her head at me, and said I was getting dissipated.Once or twice she looked anxious, and told me a story, which I only half understood, of girls who met with people they liked, and were very happy, and then lost sight of them ever after. Mary was very clever at telling stories, and I was fond of listening; but she did it so well and delicately that I fear I never thought of the moral—never, at least, till all the harm was done and it was too late.
I would not have any one think, however, that Mr Durham either meant or did any harm. To say so would be very wrong. It was as imperceptible with him as with me. He went quite innocently, as I did, to cheer up Mrs Stephens, and because an evening’s chatter with a little music was pleasant; and by degrees we thought less and less of Mrs Stephens and more and more of each other. If any one meant anything beyond this, it was she who was the guilty person. She would nod off to sleep in her easy-chair while we were talking. She would say, with a sleepy smile, “Don’t mind me, my dears. The light is a little strong for my eyes. That is why I close them—but I like the sound of your voices even when I don’t hear what you say.” Alas, if she had heard everything that had been said it might have been better. After a while he began to say strange things to me while she had her doze. He talked about his family to me. He said he hoped I should know them some day. He said his mother wasvery kind and wise—“a wise woman.” These were the very words he used. And then he said—— other things; but that was not till the very, very last.
One morning we met in the little hall. It was raining, and it was a holiday, and when he insisted on following me into the schoolroom, what could I do—I could not shut him out. He seemed to fill the whole room, and make it warm and bright. I do not think we had ever been quite alone before. He came to the window and stood there looking out upon the bare bit of smoky grass and the water-butt. And then all at once he came to me and took my hand. “If I had a nice little house out in the country, with flowers and trees about it, a bright little house—Mary—would you come and be my little wife, and take care of it and me?”
Oh, what a thing to have said to you, all at once, without warning, in the heart of your own dull little life, when you thought you were to work, and pinch, and put up with things, for ever! It was different from my old fancy. But how poor a thing to have been found out to be Lady Mary in comparison with this! What I said is neither here nor there. We stood together in the little old study, among the forms where we had our little scholars, as if we had been in a fairy palace. I was not seventeen. I had no experience. I thought of nothing but him, and what he said. It was not mypart to think of his father and mother, and what he would do, and what he wouldn’t do. He was a great deal older than I was; about thirty, I believe. Of course, I thought of nothing but him.
“Do you know,” he said, after a long time, “I have never seen your stepmother, Mary? I have been three months in the house, and I have never seen her. I must go and see her now.”
“Oh, wait a little,” I said; “wait a day. Let us have a secret all to ourselves one day.” How foolish I was!—but how was I to know?
He consented after a while; and then he made me promise to bring her out at a certain hour in the afternoon, that he might meet us at the door and see her. I made all the arrangements for this with a light heart. Though it was very difficult to hide from her what had happened, I did so with a great effort. I persuaded her to come out earlier than usual. She did not resist me. She was kinder, more tender, than I had ever known. She began to say something of a story she had to tell me as we went out. I went first and opened the door, and stood aside on the white steps to let her go out. Her crape veil was thrown back. Though she was still pale, there was a tint of life upon her cheeks. She was more like herself in her refined, delicate beauty, more like a lily, my favourite image of her, than she had been for ever so long.
I had begun to smile to myself at the success ofour trick, when suddenly I got frightened, I could scarcely tell how. Looking up, I saw him standing on the pavement gazing at her, confounded. I can use no other word. He looked bewildered, confused, half wild with amazement. As for Mary, she had stopped short on the step. She was taken strangely by surprise too; for the first moment she only gazed as he did. Then she dropped her veil, and stepped back into the house. “I have forgotten something,” she said; and turned round and went upstairs to her room. He came in, too, and went upstairs after her, passing without looking at me. His under lip seemed to have dropped; his cheerful face had lost all its animation; his eyes had a wild, bewildered stare in them. What did it mean? oh! what did it mean?
I did not know what to do. I wondered if he had followed her to speak to her, or what was the meaning of those strange looks. I lingered in the hall holding the handle of the door, feeling miserable, but not knowing why. In two or three minutes she came downstairs. “I had forgotten my handkerchief,” she said; and we went out together as if nothing had happened. But something had happened, that was certain. She did not talk very much that day. When we were coming home she said to me, quite suddenly, “Was it your doing; Mary, that I met Mr Durham at the door?”
“He said it was so strange he had never seen you,” I said.
“Yes; but you should have known I would not do that for nothing. You should not have been the one to betray me, Mary. I knew Mr Durham once. He is associated with one of the most painful portions of my life.”
“Oh, Mary dear! I did not know——”
“You did not know, and I did not want you to find out; but never mind, it is done. It need not, I hope, do any harm to you.”
That was a very strange day: the excitement of the morning, and then the other excitement; and to feel that I had a secret from her, and that he was seated upstairs giving no sign, taking no notice of our existence all day long. I was so agitated and disturbed that I did not know what to do. At last I settled myself in the schoolroom to do some translations. When one has been looking for a long time for a holiday, and something happens to spoil the holiday when it comes, it is worse even than if that something had happened on an ordinary day. I think Mary was glad to be left to herself, for instead of our ordinary companionship, she sat in the parlour at work all the long afternoon, and I in the schoolroom. One of the doors was half opened between us. She could hear my pen scratching on the paper, and the rustling of the leaves of my dictionary—and I could hear her moving softlyover her work. It was autumn by this time, and the days were growing short, and neither of us cared to ring for tea; and I think Ellen was cooking dinner for Mr Durham and forgot us at the usual hour. We still sat as we had been all the afternoon when the twilight came on. I laid down my pen, having no light to write by, when I heard some one knock softly at the parlour door.
Mary made no reply. She sat quite still, never stirring. The knock came again; then I, too, put my paper away from me and listened. The door opened, and some one came into the parlour. How well I knew who it was! I listened now so intently that nothing escaped me. How could it be wrong? He must have come to talk to her of me.
“Mary!” he said. I rose up softly in my excitement, thinking it was me he was calling; but before I could move further a strange consciousness came over me that it was not me he meant. The old feeling with which I had heard my father call Mary came into my very soul—but worse, a hundred times worse. Oh, had he too another Mary besides me?
“Mary!” he said, breathless, and then paused. “How has all this come about? Why do I find you here? What does it mean? There are many explanations which I have a right to ask. You disappear from me—sent away—I know not how; and then—not to count the years that have passed—after these three months, in which you must have known me, I find you by chance——”
She knew that I was within hearing, and that whatever she said to him must be to me too. If that was a restraint upon her, I cannot tell. I felt sorry for her vaguely in my mind; but yet I did not move.
“I did not wish you to find me at all,” she said, very low. “Mr Durham, there is and can be nothing between you and me.”
“Nothing!” he said; “what do you mean, Mary? Why, there is all the past between us—a hundred things that cannot be undone by anything in the future. You know how many things there are connected with you which are a mystery to me—things not affecting you alone, but others. How you went away, for instance; and what became of you, and how much my mother had to do with it? You must have known the moment I found you that all these questions remained to be asked.”
“All these questions,” she said, “are made quite unimportant by two things. First, that I am the wife, though now the widow, of a man I loved dearly—and that you have begun to love, begun to think of, some one very different from me.”
“Ah!” he said, with a strange brief utterance of distress. Whether he was grieved to think of the wrong he was doing me, or whether the strange position he stood in troubled him, I cannot tell; but there was pain in the cry he gave—“ah!”with a little shiver. “You have abundance of power to pain me,” he said, very low, “but it seems strange you should upbraid me. Yes, I have begun to think of some one else; but that does not prevent me from being deeply startled, deeply moved, by the sight of you.”
There was a little silence then, and I came to myself slowly. I woke as it were out of a trance. She knew I was there, but he did not. I had no right to hear his secrets without warning him. I tried to get up, but could not at first. I felt stiff and weary, as if I had been travelling for days together. I could scarcely drag myself up from my chair. The sound I made in rising might have warned him, but I do not think he heard. Before I could drag myself to the door and show I was there, he had begun again.
“Mary,” he said, lingering upon the name as if he loved it, “this is not a time for recrimination. Tell me how you left Chester Street, and what my mother had to do with it? and then, if you choose, I will never see you again.”
“Is it for your mother, or for me?”
I did not hear the answer. I could not stay longer. I got to the door somehow, and threw it open. I was too much bewildered to know what I was doing, or to think. I came out with a little rush as feeble creatures do. “I want to get away. I want to go out. I cannot stay there all day and hear you talking,” I said. I wasnot addressing either her or him. The sound of my voice must have been very piteous, for I remember it even now.
“Mary!” he cried.
Oh, what a difference in the sound! This time his voice was startled, pained, almost harsh, with a kind of reproof in it: not as he said Mary to her. Oh, papa, papa! it was you first who taught me the difference. I gave a hoarse little cry. I could not speak. Millions of words seemed to rush to my lips, but I could not say any of them. “I have been here long enough,” I managed to stammer out. “Let me go—let me go!” Next moment I was in the dark, in the silence, in my own little room, kneeling down by the bedside, crying and moaning to myself. I did not know why. I had heard nothing wrong; but it seemed to me that all my life was over, and that it did not matter what came next.
And, indeed, I cannot tell what came next. She came up to me, and told me the whole story, and in a vague sort of way I understood it. She was not to blame. He had been fond of her (everybody was fond of her) when she was the governess in his mother’s house; and it had been found out, and his mother was harsh, and she had gone suddenly away. There was nothing in this which need have made me unhappy, perhaps—so people have said to me since—but then I was very young; and I had been happy—and now I was miserable. Ilistened to her, and made no answer, but only moaned. The night passed, I cannot tell how. I did not sleep till late in the morning; and then I fell asleep and did not wake till noon. Then what was the use of going downstairs? I stayed in my room, feeling so weary, so worn out. It was Saturday, a half-holiday, and there was nothing to do. She came to me and spoke to me again and again; but I gave her very little answer. And he took no notice—he sent no message, no letter—not a word of explanation. He never asked my pardon. In my misery I thought I heard voices all the day as if they were talking, talking—and he never sent a message or note or anything to me. And then, after a long talk, as I fancied, with him, she would come to me. “Mary, this must not be. You must get up. You must be like yourself. Neither Mr Durham nor I have done you any wrong, Mary.”
“Oh, don’t call me Mary!” I said; “call me some other name. If you knew how different it sounds when it is said to you, not to me.”
And then she would look at me with her eyes full of tears, and sit down by me, and say no more. And so passed this bitter day.
NEXT day was Sunday. When I woke up, early, I recollected all that had happened with a flush of overwhelming shame. How childishly, how foolishly I had behaved. I was very, very wretched; but I was ashamed, and pride got the upper hand. I dressed myself carefully, and went downstairs, resolved not to show my misery at least, to be proud and forget it. “If he does not care for me,” I said to myself, “I will not care for him.” I passed his room very softly that I might not wake him. There was early morning service in St Mark’s now, for the curate who had succeeded poor papa was very High Church. I stole out and went to this early service, and tried to be good, and to give myself up to God’s will. Yes, it must have been God’s will—though how it could ever be God’s will that anybody should be false, or unkind, or cruel, I could not tell. I know it is right, however, whatever happens that vexes you, to accept it as if it must be the will of God. I tried to do that, and I was not quite so miserable when I went home. Ellen opened the door to me, looking frightened. “I thought you was lost, too, Miss,” she said. “I have been to church,” Ianswered, scarcely noticing her words. Breakfast was laid in the little parlour. It was very, very tidy, dreadfully tidy—everything was cleared away—the basket with the work and all the little things, and every stray thread and remnant. All of a sudden it occurred to me how little I had been doing to help of late. Instead of working I had been spending the evenings with Mrs Stephens. I did not even know how far the “things” were advanced, and it seemed strange they should all be gone. Of course it was because of Sunday. After a while Ellen brought in the coffee. She had still the same frightened look. “Missis wasn’t with you at the early service, Miss Mary?” “Oh, no,” I said, surprised at the question; “perhaps she is not up.”
“She’s never lain down all night,” said Ellen; “she was worrited and worn off her legs going up and down to you yesterday, Miss—you that was quite well, and had no call to your bed. She was a deal more like it, the dear. She’s never lain in her bed this blessed night, and I can’t find her, high or low.”
I scarcely waited to hear this out, but rushed up to her room. The bed had not been touched since yesterday. A little prayer-book lay on it, as if she had been praying. The room was in perfect good order—no litter about it. The little “things” were not to be seen. One of her dresses hanging against the wall made me think for amoment she was there, but it was only an old dress, and everything else was gone. Oh the terror and the pain and the wonder of that discovery! I could not believe it. I rushed through all the house, every room, calling her. Mr Durham heard me, and came out to the door of his room and spoke to me as I passed, and tried to take my hand, but I snatched it away from him. I did not even think of him. I can just remember the look he had, half-ashamed, appealing with his eyes, a little abashed and strange. I scarcely saw him at the time—but I remember him now, and with good reason, for I have never seen him again.
And I have never seen Mary again from that day. Mrs Stephens came in to me, startled by the news her servants had carried her; and she told me she had heard a carriage drive off late on the previous night, but did not think it was from our door. She knew nothing. She cried, but I could not cry; and it was Sunday, and nothing could be done—nothing! even if I had known what to do. I rushed to Spicer’s, and then I was sorry I had gone, for such people as they are never understand, and they thought, and think to this day, that there was something disgraceful in it. I rushed to Mrs Tufnell, not expecting to find her, for now it was time for church. The bells had done ringing, and I had already met, as I walked wildly along, almost allthe people I knew. One woman stopped me and asked if Mrs Peveril was taken ill, and if she should go to her. “Poor thing, poor thing!” this good woman said. Oh, she might well pity us—both of us! But to my surprise Mrs Tufnell was at home. She almost looked as if she expected me. She looked agitated and excited, as if she knew. Did she know? I have asked her on my knees a hundred times, but she has always shaken her head. “How should I know?” she has said, and cried. I have thought it over and over for days and for years, till my brain has whirled. But I think she does know—I think some time or other she will tell me. It is a long time ago, and my feelings have got a little dulled; but I think some time or other I must find it out.
This wonderful event made a great change in my life. I began at once, that very day, to live with Mrs Tufnell in the Square. She would not let me go home. She kissed me, and said I was to stay with her now. Mr Durham came twice and asked to see me; but I could not bear to see him. Then Mrs Stephens came with a letter. He said in it that I must dispose of him; that he, was in my hands, and would do whatever I pleased; that he had been startled more than he could say by the sudden sight of one whom he had loved before he knew me; but that if I could forgive him any foolish words he might have said, then he hoped we might be happy. Inshort, he was very honourable, ready to keep his word; and I felt as if I hated him for his virtue—for treating me “honourably!” Was that what all his love and all my happiness had come to? I sent him a very short little note back, and it was all over. He went abroad soon after, and I have never heard of him any more.
And thus my story ended at seventeen. I wonder if there are many lives with one exciting chapter in them, ending at seventeen, and then years upon years of monotonous life. I am twenty-three now. I live with Mrs Tufnell. I am daily governess to one little girl, and I have my forty pounds a-year, the interest of poor papa’s insurance money. I am very well off indeed, and some people think I need not care to take a pupil at all—better off, a great deal, than I was in Southampton Street; but how different! I heard very soon after that Mary had a little boy. It was in the papers, but without any address; and I had one letter from her, saying that we had made a mistake in trying to live together, and that she was sorry. She hoped I would forgive her if she had been mistaken, and she would always think of me and love me. Love me? Is it like love to go away and leave me alone? Two people have said they loved me in my life, and that is what both have done.
However, after that letter I could not do anything more. If she thought it was a mistake forus to live together, of course it was a mistake. And I had my pride too. “I always felt it was a doubtful experiment,” Mrs Tufnell said when people wondered, “and it did not answer—that was all.” And this is how it was settled and ended—ended, I suppose, for ever. Mrs Tufnell is very good to me, and as long as she lives I am sure of a home. Perhaps I may tell you her story one of these days; for she has a story, like most people. She tells me I am still very young, and may yet have a life of my own; but in the meantime the most I can do is to take an interest in other people’s lives.
IHAD not intended to carry on any further a history which is chiefly about myself; but events are always occurring which change one’s mind from day to day, and alter one’s most fixed resolutions. I do not pretend to understand people who make unchangeable decisions, and certainly I am not one of them. Besides, common fairness requires that I should allow Mrs Peveril to have the same privilege as myself, and tell things her own way. I could not have imagined, had I not seen it, the difference there was between the aspect of things to her and to me. I suppose it is true after all that everybody has his or her own point of view, which is different from all others. Of course we realise this fact quite clearly in a great poem like “The Ring and the Book;” but to recognise it in one’s own small affairs has somehow a much stranger, more surprising effect. What an odd difference it would make in the world if we could all see ourselves now and then with other people’s eyes! I confess that the girl in her story, who was Mr Peveril’s daughter, is very much unlike the girl in mine—and yet the same somehow, as may be traced out with a little trouble. Thisis humbling, but it is for one’s good, I suppose. When you look at yourself in a mirror, you have so much interest in yourself that your defects don’t strike you—you can’t help being the first figure—the most important; but to feel that all along you are not important at all—anything but the first figure, a mere shadow, scarcely noticed! it has a very odd effect—sometimes laughable, sometimes rather the reverse; but this was what now happened to me.
I must add, however, that a long time passed over before I could even think that Mrs Peveril might have something to say on her side. It was not because of the rupture between Mr Durham and myself, and the sudden conclusion of that dream and all that it seemed likely to bring with it. No doubt these things embittered all my feelings about her; but yet I was reasonable enough to come to see that it was not her fault—that she had kept out of the way with all her might—and that after all she could not foresee that another complication might arise between him and me. She could not of course foresee this; and even if she had foreseen it, what could she have done? I think it shows I was not unfair in my judgment, for a girl of seventeen, to say that I soon came to see that. But though I did not blame her, of course I was embittered against her, and took refuge in being very angry with her on other grounds. That she should have said our livingtogether was a mistake was the chief of these. Why was it a mistake? Did she mean to say it was my fault? If it was simply her fault, as I felt sure it was, why did she call it a mistake? Why not say plainly out, “I was wrong, and so we got into trouble?” How easy it seems to be for people to acknowledge themselves in the wrong! but not so easy for one’s self, somehow. I never met anybody who liked doing it, though I have met with so many who ought to have done it, and to whom it would have been so simple—so easy, I thought; but that never seemed to be their opinion. Mrs Tufnell, who is in some things a very odd old lady, says it never is anybody’s fault. “There was never any quarrel yet,” she will say, “but there were two in it—there was never any misunderstanding but two were in it. There is no such thing as absolute blame on the one side and innocence on the other. Even in your affairs, Mary, my dear——” But this I never can see nor allow. How could I be to blame? Only seventeen, and knowing so little of the world, and expecting everybody to be good and true, and say just what they thought. When a man said he was fond of me, how was I to put up with his having been fond of somebody else? And when a woman professed to be thinking of me, was it natural that I could be pleased to know she had been thinking of herself? I could not help behaving just as I did. It was the onlynatural, the only possible way; but for them, they ought to have known better, they ought to have thought of me. On the whole that is the thing that hurts one—that goes to one’s heart. People think of themselves first—when they ought to be thinking of you, they think of themselves first. I suppose it is the same all over the world.
The way in which I first heard Mary’s story was simple enough. After years of a dull sort of quiet life at Mrs Tufnell’s—who was very good to me, and very kind, but who, of course, could give to me, a girl, only what she, an old woman, had to give—the quietest life, without excitement or change of any kind—she had a bad illness. It was not an illness of the violent kind, but of what, I suppose, is more dangerous to an old woman, a languishing, slow sickness, which looked like decay more than disease. The doctors said “breaking up of the constitution,” or at least the servants said so, who are less particular than the doctors, and shook their heads and looked very serious. I was less easily alarmed than anyone else, for it seemed to me a natural thing that an old lady should be gently ill like that, one day a little better and the next a little worse, without any suffering to speak of. It was not until after she was better that I knew there had been real danger, but she must have felt it herself. The way in which her sense of her precarious condition showed itself was anxiety forme. I remember one evening sitting in her room by the fire with a book; she was in bed, and I had been reading to her, and now she was dozing, or at least I thought so. Things appear (it is evident) very differently to different people. I was extremely comfortable in that nice low easy-chair by the fire. It was a pretty room, full of pictures and portraits of her friends, so full that there was scarcely an inch of the wall uncovered. The atmosphere was warm and soft, and the tranquil repose and ease of the old lady in the bed somehow seemed to increase the warmth and softness and kindly feeling. She was an additional luxury to me sitting there by the fire with my novel. If any fairy had proposed to place her by my side as young and as strong as myself, I should have rejected the proposal with scorn. I liked her a great deal best so—old, a little sick, kind, comfortable, dozing in her bed. Her very illness—which I thought quite slight, rather an excuse for staying in this cosy room and being nursed than anything else—heightened my sense of comfort. She was not dozing, as it happened, but lying very still, thinking of dying—wondering how it would feel, and planning for those she should leave behind her. I knew nothing of these thoughts, no more than if I had been a thousand miles away: and fortunately neither did she of mine. I was roused from my comfortable condition by the sound of her voice calling me. Irose up half reluctantly from the bright fire, and the little table with the lamp and my book, and went and sat by her in the shade where I could not see the fire; but still the sentiment of comfort was predominant in me. I gave my old lady her mixture, which it was time for her to take, and advised her to go to sleep.
“You must not doze this time,” I said; “you must go right off to sleep, and never wake till morning. Everything is put right for the night, and I shall not go till you are asleep.”
“I was not dozing,” she said, with that natural resentment which everybody feels to be so accused; and then, after a moment, “Mary, I was thinking of you. If I were to die, what would you do?”
I was very much shocked, and rather frightened; but when I looked at her, and saw by the dim light that she did not look any worse, I felt rather angry. “How unkind of you!” I said, “to speak so! You frightened me at first. What would it matter what became of me?”
“It would matter a great deal,” she said. “It would make everything so much worse. I don’t want to die, Mary, though I daresay I should be a great deal better off, and get rid of all my troubles——”
“Oh, it is wicked to talk so!”
“Why should it be wicked? I can’t help thinking of it,” she said, lying in her warm cosy bed. It made me shiver to hear her. I began to cry, ratherwith a chill, wretched sense of discomfort in the midst of all the warmth than anything else; upon which she put her hand on my shoulder and gave me a little shake, and laughed at me softly. “Silly child!” she said—but she was not angry. There was a very grave look on her face behind the smile. Dying was strange to her as well as to me, though she was very old.
“But, Mary,” she went on, “I want to read you something. I want you to think again about some one you once were very fond of. I have some news of Mrs Peveril——”
“Oh!” I said; and then I went on stiffly, “I hope she is well.”
“She is quite well—and—your little brother. I wish you would see them. All that happened was so long ago; I think you might see them, Mary.”
“I never made any objection to seeing them,” I said, more and more stiffly, though my heart began to leap and thump against my breast. “You forget I had nothing to do with it. It was she who went away. She said it was a mistake.”
“You are an unforgiving child. You did not try to enter into her feelings, Mary.”
“How could I?” I said. “Did she wish me to enter into her feelings? Did she ever give me a chance? She said it was a mistake. What was there left for me to say?”
“Well, well,” said the old lady, “I don’t defend her. I always said she was wrong; but still Ihave been hearing from her lately, Mary. I have three or four letters which I should like you to read——”
“You have been hearing from her without ever telling me!”
“Bless the child! must I not even get a letter without consulting her? But, Mary, I am a free agent still, and I can’t be kept in such order,” she said, half laughing. “Give me that blotting-book, and my keys, and my spectacles, and bring the lamp a little closer.”
Indignant as I was, I was comforted by all these preparations. And when she had put on her spectacles and opened the blotting-book, sitting up in bed, my mind was so much relieved that my indignation floated away. “It is a pretty thing for you to talk of dying, and frighten people,” I said, giving her a kiss, “with your cheeks like two nice old roses.” She shook her head, but she smiled too: she felt better, and got better gradually from that hour.
But in the meantime I had to listen to these letters. Perhaps if it had not been that my old lady was ill, I should have been offended to find that she had deceived me, and had known about Mary all along. It was a deception, though she did not mean any harm. “She had thought it best,” she said, “to let time soften all our feelings, before she told me anything about it.” However, I must not enter into all the discussions we hadon this subject. It is only fair that Mary should have her turn, and tell her story as I have told mine. It is not a connected story like mine, but you will see from it what kind of a life hers had been, and what sort of a woman she was. She is different from the Mary I thought—and yet not different either—just as I am different from the girl I thought I was, and yet very like too, if you look into it. I cannot tell what my feelings were as I read first one bit and then another, and a great deal more which I do not think it necessary to quote here. One moment I was furious with her—the next I could have kissed her feet. These people who send you from one extreme of feeling to another, who do wrong things and right things all in a jumble, take a greater hold upon you, somehow, than better people do, who are placid and always on the same level—at least I think so. I started by calling her Mrs Peveril—and here I am already saying Mary, as of old, without knowing! And Mrs Tufnell wishes me to go and see her. She has even made me promise as a kind of reward to herself for getting better. Since she takes it in this way, I shall have to go—and sometimes I fear it, and sometimes I wish for it. Will it make any difference to me? Will the old love come back, or the still older feeling that was not love? Shall I think of that “Mary” that sounded always so much sweeter to her than to me? Or shall I remember only the time whenshe was everything to me—when she charmed me out of my grief and loneliness, and told me her secret, and made me her companion, and was all mine? I do not know. I begin to tremble, and my heart beats when I think of this meeting; but in the meantime Mary has a right to her turn, and to tell the story her own way. It is all in little bits taken from Mrs Tufnell’s letters, and sometimes may appear a little fragmentary; but I can only give it as it came to me.
WHEN I went to be governess at Mrs Durham’s I was quite young. I had been “out” before, but only as nursery governess. Mine was not a very regular or, perhaps, a very good kind of education. My mother had been a governess before me, and not one of very high pretensions, as governesses are nowadays. I don’t think she ever knew anything herself, except a little music and a little French, which she had forgotten before my time. How my father and she met, and, still more wonderful, how they took to each other, is a thing I never could make out. Perhaps I was most fond of her, but certainly I was most proud of him, and liked to copy his ways, and to believe what my mother often said—that I was a Martindale every inch of me. This, poor soul, she meant as a reproach, but to me it sounded like a compliment. I was very silly and rather cruel, as young people are so often. My father had a great deal of contempt for her, and not much affection; and though I had a great deal of affection, I borrowed unconsciously his contempt, and thought myself justifiedin treating her as he did. She was wordy and weak in argument, and never knew when to stop. But he—when he had stated what he intended to do—would never answer any of her objections, or indeed take any notice of them, but listened to her with a contemptuous silence. I took to doing the same; and though I know better now, and am sorry I ever could have been so foolish and so unkind, yet the habit remains with me—not to take the trouble to reply to foolish arguments, but to do what I think right without saying anything about it. This habit, I may as well confess, has got me into trouble more than once; but I do not say that I am prepared to give it up, though I know I have taken harm by it, and no good, so far as I am aware.
We were very poor, and I had been a nursery governess and a daily governess when I was little more than a child. When my poor mother died a little money came, and then I got a few lessons to improve me in one or two different accomplishments; and then I took Mrs Durham’s situation. My father was one of the wandering men who live a great deal abroad; and I had learned French and enough German to make a show, in the best way, by practice rather than by book. “French acquired abroad”—that was what was put for me in the advertisement, and this I think was my principal recommendation to Mrs Durham. Her eldest son was at home at the time—a young manjust a little older than myself. She was a kind woman, and unsuspicious. She thought George only a boy, and perhaps about me she never thought at all—in connection with him, at least. I used to be encouraged at first to make him talk French, and great was the amusement in the school-room over his pronunciation and his mistakes. They were all very kind when I come to think of it. They were as fearless and trustful with me as if I had belonged to them. And then by degrees I found out that George had fallen in love with me. I think I may say quite certainly that I never was in love with him, but I was a little excited and pleased, as one always is, you know, when that happens for the first time. It is so odd—so pleasant to feel that you have that power. It seems so kind of the man—one thinks so when one is young—and it is amusing and flattering, and a thing which occupies your mind, and gives you something agreeable to think of. I do not say this is the right way of thinking on such a subject, but it is how a great many girls feel, and I was one of them. I had never thought seriously of it at all. It seemed so much more like fun than anything else; and then it is always pleasant to have people fond of you. I liked it; and I am afraid I never thought of what it might come to, and did not take up any lofty ground, but let him talk, and let him follow me about, and steal out after me, and waylay me in the passages. I did this withoutthinking, and more than half for the amusement of it. I liked him, and I liked the place he took up in my life, and the things he said, without really responding to his feelings at all.
When it was found out, and there was a disturbance in the house about it, I came to my senses all at once, with such a hot flush of pain and shame that I seem to feel it yet. They had been so kind to me, that I had never felt my dependence; but now, all in a moment I found it out. His mother was frightened to death lest he should marry me! She thought me quite beneath him; me—a Martindale all over—a gentleman’s daughter—much better than she was! This roused a perfect tempest in me. It was my pride that was outraged, not my feelings; but that pride was strong enough and warm enough to be called a passion. I did what I could to show his mother that nothing in the world could be more indifferent to me than he was, but she would not be convinced; and at last I determined to do what my father often had done when my mother was unreasonable—to withdraw out of the discussion at once and summarily, without leaving any opportunity for further talk. My father was living then. He was at Spa, which was not very difficult to reach. One evening, after Mrs Durham had been talking to me (George had been sent away, but I was not sent away because they were sorry for me), I stayed in the school-room till they were all at dinner, and then I carried all mythings, which I had made up into bundles, down to the hall with my own hands, and got a cab and went off to the railway station. I bought a common box on my way, and packed them all into it. I tell you this to show how determined I was; not even one of the servants knew how I had gone, or anything about me. It was winter, and the Durhams dined at half-past six; so I had time enough to get off by the night train to Dover. I had not a very large wardrobe, you may suppose, but I left nothing behind me but some old things. I was not particular about crushing my dresses for that one night. I remember, as if it were yesterday, the dark sea and dark sky, and great, chill, invisible, open-air world that I seemed to stand alone in, as the steamboat went bounding over those black waves, or ploughing through them, to Ostend. There was a great deal of wind, but the sea had not had time to rise, and there was the exhilaration of a storm without its more disagreeable consequences. The vessel did not roll, but now and then gave a leap, spurning the Channel spray from her bows. Oh how I recollect every particular! You might think a lonely girl in such circumstances—flying from persecution, if you like to put it so—flying from love; with nothing but a very uncertain welcome to look to from a very unsatisfactory father, and no prospect but to face the world again and get her bread somehow—was as sad a figure as could be imagined. But I wasnot sad. I had a high spirit, and I loved adventure and change. I felt as if the steamboat was me, going bounding on, caring nothing for the sea or the darkness. The wind might catch at us, the water might dash across our sides, the sky might veil itself—who cared? We pushed on, defying them all. A poor governess as good as turned out of my situation because the son of the house had fallen in love with me—a penniless creature without a home, with not a soul to stand by me in all that dark world. And yet I don’t remember anything I ever enjoyed more, than that journey by night.
This will show you—and you may show it to Mary to convince her—how much I cared for George Durham. I suppose he was in love with me—at least what a young man not much over twenty considers love. That is six years ago; and probably he has always had a recollection, all this time, that he was in love with me, and thinks that he ought to have been faithful. I should not wonder if there was a kind of remorse in his mind to find that he had fallen in love with Mary, and cared for me no longer. It is a superstition with some people that, however foolish their first fancy was, they ought to hold by it; but I must say that I think it was very foolish, not to say cruel, of both of them, to make this breach on account of me.
I got another situation after that, and did well enough—as governesses do. I never complained,or thought I had any reason to complain. I taught all I knew—not very much, but enough for most people. As for education, as people talk nowadays—of awakening the minds, and training the dispositions, and re-creating the children, so to speak, intellectually and morally—I never thought of such a thing; and why should I? That is the work of a mother, appointed by God, or of some great person endowed with great genius or influence—not of a young woman between eighteen and five-and-twenty, indifferently trained herself, with quite enough to do to master her own difficulties and keep herself afloat. I was not so impertinent, so presumptuous, or so foolish as to have any such idea. I taught them as well as I could; I tried to make them as fond of books as I was myself—I tried to get them to talk like gentlewomen, and not to be mean or false. I was not their mother, or their priest, but only their teacher. I had no theory then; but after one is thirty, one begins to have theories; and I can see what I meant in my earlier time by the light of what I think now. However, this is not much to the purpose. I was a successful governess on the whole; I got on very well, and I had nothing to find fault with. It is not a very happy life—when you are young, and hear pleasant sounds below-stairs, and have to sit reading by yourself in the school-room; when there is music and dancing perhaps, and merry talk, and you are left alone in that bare place with maps onthe walls, and one candle—a girl does not feel happy; though on the whole, perhaps, the school-room is better than to sit in a corner of the drawing-room and be taken no notice of—which is the other alternative. There are a great many difficulties in the position altogether, as I can see now that I am older. When the governess is made exactly like one of the family, the eldest son will go and fall in love with her and bring everybody into trouble. It is hard for the lady of the house as well. However, after George Durham, I was careful, and I never got into difficulty of that kind again. Four years after I left the Durhams I had a bad illness—rheumatic fever. My people were very kind to me, but I was too proud to be a burden on them; and as soon as I could be moved I left and went into lodgings, and was ill there till I had spent all my money; it was only then that I had recourse to the Spicers. Perhaps I ought to confess that, though Mr Spicer is my uncle, I was ashamed of him and disliked him. I have felt angry at my poor mother all my life for having such relations; but of course there they were, and had to be made the best of. My money lasted till I was almost well, but not well enough for another situation. My father had died in the meantime; and only then I sent to the Spicers, and asked if they would take me in for a time. I was a good needlewoman; I knew I could repay them well for keeping me. That is how I went to them.What followed no one could have foreseen. You know how it was.
I cannot talk about my husband—yet. How could I talk about that which was everything to me, which changed my life, which made me another creature? People may love you, and it makes but little difference to you. It is pleasant, no doubt; it softens your lot; it makes things bearable which would not be bearable. I had known that in my life. But to love—that is another thing. That is the true revelation—the lifting up of the veil. It is as different from simply being loved as night is from day. I suppose few women are, as I was, in circumstances to feel this sudden lighting up of existence all of a sudden. Most women have a great deal to love, and know that condition better than the other. They would not make so much fuss about being loved did they not already possess the other gift. But I had never really loved anybody, I suppose. Various people had loved me. I had liked it, and had done what I could to be kind and agreeable to them. Some (women) I had been very fond of. It seems to me now that the world must have been a most curious, cloudy sort of place in my early youth—a dim place, where nothing moved one very much; where daylight was quite sober and ordinary, and nothing out of oneself was exciting.When I saw Mr Peveril first I had no warning of what was coming. I did not feel even interested in him. He seemed too gentle, too soft for my liking. What attracted me was, I think, chiefly the fact that he was the only educated man I ever saw there—the only being, man or woman, who was not of, or like, the Spicers. This was my only feeling towards him for the first two or three times I saw him—but then——.
I am afraid I did not think very much about Mary when we were married. Of course I meant to do my duty by her: that goes without saying. And her resistance and dislike did not make me angry. They rather amused me. It seemed so odd that she should think herself of consequence enough to be so deeply offended. She, a girl, with all her life before her—fifteen—of no present importance to any mortal, though no doubt she would ripen into something after a while. When Mr Peveril distressed himself about what he called her want of respect to me, I used to smile at him. He would have made her love me by force had that been possible—as if her little sullenness, poor child, made any difference! It was quite natural, besides—only foolish, if she could but have seen it. She was a naughty child, and she thought herself a virgin-martyr. I hope it is not wicked of me to be amused by that virgin-martyr look. I know it so well. I have seen it over and overagain in all sorts of circumstances. To say a tragedy-queen is nothing. There is a sublime patience, a pathos about your virgin-martyrs, which far outdoes anything else. Poor little Mary! if I had not seen that she was quite happy in her own thoughts, even when she thought herself most miserable, I should have taken more notice of it. I can’t tell what she was always thinking about—whether it was some imaginary lover or romance of her own that she kept weaving for hours together; but it kept her happy anyhow. She was very provoking sometimes—never was there such a spoiled child. She balked me thoroughly in one thing, and would not let me be her governess as well as her stepmother; which was what I wished. How often should I have liked to box her little impertinent ears, and then laugh and kiss her into good-humour! But in that point there was nothing to be done. I had to leave all to time, in which I hoped—without, alas! having the least thought, the least provision, how short my time was to be. You will see that I am not one to linger upon my private feelings. I have said nothing to you about my happiness. I can say nothing about my grief. The beautiful life stopped short—the light went out—an end seemed to come to everything. I cannot say more about it. Everything ended—except one’s pulse, which will go on beating, and the long hours and days that have to be got through somehow,and the bread that has to be eaten in spite of one’s self—and has to be earned too, as if it were worth the while.
I wonder at myself sometimes, and you will wonder, that I did not break down under my grief. It was my first real grief, as that which preceded it had been my first real happiness. I have even envied the people who got ill and who could go to bed, and darken their windows and lie still and let the sword go through and through them in quietness, instead of writhing on it as I did; but that must be nature. My first instinct was to snatch at something, to lay hold upon something, lest I should be carried away by some fiery flood or other. And what I snatched at was Mary. I love Mary. You may think I have not acted as if I did; but that is nothing; and she does not love me. But still I have that distinct feeling for her which I never experienced till her dear, dear father (oh, my God, my God, why is it that my child will never call him so!) showed me the way. I have had a great deal to bear from her; she is not like me; and there are many things I dislike in her. But all that does not matter. And it is not as I loved him—but yet I love her. All I remember about those dark days was that I laid hold upon Mary. She could not escape from me when I seized her so—few, very few, people can. To resist kindness is easy enough, but downrightlove has a different kind of grasp; you cannot get free of that. It is because there is so much fictitious love in the world that people are not aware of the power of the true.
I secured her—for the time. You may say it did not last very long; but that was not my fault; it was because she too, in her time, woke up from her affection for me, and all the torpor of her youth, and heard the call of love, and got up and left those that did but love her. The time we lived together was a strange dreamy time, between blank despair and a kind of languid happiness. Sometimes I would feel almost happy because of what was coming, and then I would be plunged into that horror of darkness, that shadow of death, which is of all things on earth the most terrible—worse, a thousand times worse, than death itself. I say this with confidence, because I as good as died once. I was so ill that I had floated off into that unconsciousness which would have been death had they left me alone; and it was not unpleasant. Had they left me alone I should have died, therefore I am justified in saying that this was death; and it was not disagreeable—just a soft floating away, a gradual growing dim and shutting out, without any of that sense of desertion and loneliness which one feels must be so strong in the dying. But the shadow of death is very terrible. No one can exaggerate its terror. When it seizes upon thesoul, all that surrounds you is lost in one sea of misery. The waves and the billows pass over you. You feel as if you could not endure, could not last through that flood of pain—and yet you do last. The great billow passes over, and there is a calm, and your soul is so fatigued and worn out that it lies exhausted, and a languor of rest, which is almost ease, passes over it. This was how I lived for three months with Mary; until the shock of the other who thrust himself into our life—the stranger, who was no stranger, came.
His first appearance was nothing but an insignificant trouble, a mere annoyance to me,—why should I care? I had not thought of him at all for years; and I never had thought of him much. But still I did not want him there: he annoyed me; he was a kind of constant menace of more annoyance to come. But I don’t know what steps I could have taken. It was a long time before I could realise that he would fall in love with Mary. I rather think it is difficult to believe that a man who has loved you will love some one else. That is—if you are quite indifferent to him; it is so much easier then, to believe in his faithfulness. The idea did not occur to me. I feared a little for Mary once or twice, and tried to warn her; but she was always a dreamy sort of girl, and it was hard to tell when a new influence came over her. She had lived in dreams of one kind or other ever since I knew her; and I knew nothing, really nothing, about whatwas going on, till that unhappy afternoon when he recognised me, and came in and talked foolishly in Mary’s hearing, about things that had happened so long before. Poor child!—I don’t blame her, for her foolishness was natural enough. She thought I had stolen away her lover, as I had stolen away her father. She would not listen to me, and when she did listen to me she did not believe me; and there on the other hand was he, demanding explanations. Good heavens, what right has a man like that to ask explanations—a man one had never cared for, and would have died of? He worried me so that I could not be civil. What with grief, and what with vexation at the turn things had taken, and disappointment in Mary, and illness in myself, I had no patience with the man, maundering on about things that had happened ages before, that were of no importance to any living being. When he waylaid me on my way to her, keeping me back from her, in her agony of temper and mortification and humiliation, what I could have done to him! I was in a nervous state, I suppose, and easily irritated. I could have struck him when he came out and worried me. And there was Mary turning her face to the wall, shutting out the light, shutting her ears, determined to be miserable. Oh! when I toiled up and down stairs going to her, when I felt ill and knew that nobody cared, when I saw her absorbed in her foolish misery, and him tormenting himself and meabout dead nonsense that never had been anything, you may excuse me if I had very little patience. After a night of it I got tired and sick of the whole business. It seemed too hard to be obliged to put up with all this folly on the eve of being ill. And who would care whether I was ill or not, if things went on so?
Then I took my resolution suddenly, as I had done before. It was not with the hope and high spirit that had kept me up when I went off to Ostend that I left Southampton Street, my own house. I was sick and tired, that was all. I could not be troubled to go on. I was worried and impatient and indignant—and then Mary had a friend to take care of her. I went away. I went to an hospital after a while in the same irritated hopeless state, feeling that it did not matter what happened; and there my boy was born. Well! what did it matter? They are for honest, poor women, these hospitals—and Heaven knows I was poor enough, but honest. One cares for one’s self only when one has other people who care. I had nobody. I did not lose heart altogether, because that is not my nature. I could not if I would; but what did I care for what people would think or for what they might say? no more than for the buzzing of the flies. I should never even hear of it—there was nobody to tell me, nobody to pay any attention. I thought most likely I should die; but I did not calculate upon dying, for by that time I knew Ihad strength to go through a great deal. And so I did. My boy was quite strong and well, and I got quite well and strong too. Often I have thought this showed how little heart I must have; but I could not help it. I got quite strong. I reflected seriously whether I should not try for a nurse’s place, which was very well paid, and where very little was required; but even if I could have parted with my boy, I had no one to trust with the care of him. So instead of doing this, I made shift to live for a whole year upon my forty pounds of income, with a little more which I earned by needlework. When you are a very good needlewoman, you can always earn something. I did very well; I made baby clothes; my eyes were strong, and my health was good, and I had my own baby to comfort me. There is nothing that comforts like a baby. When the child laughs, you laugh too. You laugh to make him laugh; first it is sympathy, then it is delight, till gradually you grow a baby too, and are amused at nothing, and happy for nothing, and live over again, beginning at the very beginning, in the child.
In this way I grew to be so tranquil, so eased in mind, and happy in heart, notwithstanding my loss, which I never forgot, that I was tempted to remain just as I was always; but then it occurred to me that I should lose all that I knew, that I would never be able to teach him, or to get himeducation, or to rise in the world, as I wanted to do for his sake; therefore it was clear I must do something else. This was what I did: I found out about a situation in a school after a great deal of inquiry. I went to the lady and told her my story; I said I would go to her for almost nothing if I might have my baby and a little maid to take care of him. When she heard of my “French acquired abroad,” my showy bit of German, my music, and how I would make myself as useful as ever she liked, having excellent health and no sort of prejudices about what I did, she closed with me. I had two rooms, and board for myself and the maid and the boy—no more at first—but I managed on that. And then by degrees we improved. She gave me first twenty pounds, then a little more. A baby’s white frock and a widow’s black gown do not cost much. We did very well. I have fifty pounds now the school has increased so much; and I believe I may have a share soon if all goes well. My French goes for a great deal, and even my name and my widow’s cap go for something, and everybody in the school likes to tell the story of the baby. Am I happy, do you say? I never stop to ask myself whether I am happy or not. One must form some idea of change in one’s mind, some thought of a possibility which might make one happier, before one would think of asking one’s self such a question. And as I have no reasonable prospect of ever being happier thanI am, I do not think about it. I am not unhappy—of that I am sure.