"They will not allow me to proceed upon my travels,Those gentle gales of Moselláy,That limpid stream of Rooknâbâd."
"They will not allow me to proceed upon my travels,Those gentle gales of Moselláy,That limpid stream of Rooknâbâd."
"I've no time for goin' courtin'," thought Jacob to himself as he sat drinking his port wine after dinner. "I've been here three days, and it's as much as I can afford for courtin'. But who's a rare fine lass is Miss Madge, an' I'll write her a bit of a letter."
Before leaving the Lodge, he thought it as well to prepare Mr. Anison's mind for what was to come, so he asked to go and see the works. As they were walking together, Ogden went abruptly into the subject of matrimony.
"Mother's been stoppin' at Whittlecup a good bit, 'long of our Isaac. I felt very lonesome at Milend 'bout th' oud woman, and I thought I s'd be lonesomer and lonesomer if who[18]'ere deead."
"No doubt she would be a very great loss to you," said Mr. Anison; "but Mrs. Ogden appears to enjoy excellent health."
Ogden scarcely heard this, and continued, "So I've been thinkin', like, as I 'appen might get wed."
"It would certainly be a good security against loneliness."
"I can afford to keep a wife. You may look at my banker's account whenever you like. I've a good property already in land and houses, and I'm building a new mill."
"There is no necessity for going into detail," Mr. Anison said deprecatingly; "every one knows that you are a rich man."
Ogden laughed, half inwardly. It was a chuckling little laugh, full of the intensest self-satisfaction. "They think they know," he said, "but they don't know—not right.Nobody knows what I'm worth, and nobody knows what I shall be worth. I'm one o' those as sovereigns sticks to, same as if they'd every one on 'em a bit o' stickin'-plaister to fasten 'em on wi'. If I live ten year, I s'll be covered over wi' gold fourteen inch thick."
"Is there any positive necessity for you to leave us now? Why not remain a little longer?"
"Do you think I've any chance at your house?"
Mr. Anison laughed at the eagerness of Ogden's manner. Then he said, "I see no reason for you to be discouraged. You cannot expect a young lady to accept you before you have asked her."
Ogden hesitated a moment, and then determined to go on to Shayton and write his letter.
And this is the letter Jacob Ogden wrote:—
"Miss Margaret Anison."Miss,—When I was at your house this afternoon, I meant to say something to you, but could not find a chance, because other people came in just at the time. I wished to ask you to be so kind as to marry me. I believe I shall be a good husband—at any rate, I promise to do all I can to be one. My wife shall have every thing that a lady wants, and I will either build a new house or purchase one, as she may like best. There's a good one on sale near Shayton, but I don't mind building, if you prefer it. I am well able to keep my wife as a lady. I may say that I have always been very steady, and not in the habit of drinking. I never go into an ale-house, and I never spend any foolish money. I shall feel very anxious until I receive your answer, as you will easily understand; for my regard for you is such that I most sincerely wish your answer may be favorable."Yours truly,Jacob Ogden."
"Miss Margaret Anison.
"Miss,—When I was at your house this afternoon, I meant to say something to you, but could not find a chance, because other people came in just at the time. I wished to ask you to be so kind as to marry me. I believe I shall be a good husband—at any rate, I promise to do all I can to be one. My wife shall have every thing that a lady wants, and I will either build a new house or purchase one, as she may like best. There's a good one on sale near Shayton, but I don't mind building, if you prefer it. I am well able to keep my wife as a lady. I may say that I have always been very steady, and not in the habit of drinking. I never go into an ale-house, and I never spend any foolish money. I shall feel very anxious until I receive your answer, as you will easily understand; for my regard for you is such that I most sincerely wish your answer may be favorable.
"Yours truly,Jacob Ogden."
Though rather a queer letter, and singularly devoid of the graces of composition and the tenderness of love, its purport, at least, was intelligible. The reply showed that the lover had made himself clearly understood.
"My dear Sir,—The proposal contained in your letter has rather surprised me, as we have seen so little of each other, but after consulting my parents I may say that I do not refuse, and they desire me to add that there will be a room for you here whenever your business engagements permit you to visit us. Sincerely yours,"Margaret Anison."
"My dear Sir,—The proposal contained in your letter has rather surprised me, as we have seen so little of each other, but after consulting my parents I may say that I do not refuse, and they desire me to add that there will be a room for you here whenever your business engagements permit you to visit us. Sincerely yours,
"Margaret Anison."
It is to be supposed that Mr. Ogden felt sensations of profound happiness on reading this little perfumed note; but when a man is an old bachelor by nature, he does not become uxorious in a week or two; and we may confess that, after the unpleasantness of the first shock, a positive refusal would have left the lover's mind in a state of far more perfect happiness and calm. His pride was gratified, his passion was fortunate in dreaming of its now certain fruition, and he knew that such a woman as Margaret Anison would add greatly to his position in the world. He knew that she would improve it in one way, but then he felt anxiously apprehensive that she might deteriorate it in another. He would become more of a gentleman in society with a lady by his side, but a wife and family would be a hindrance to his pecuniary ambition. From the hour of his acceptance he saw this a good deal more clearly than he had done since this passion implanted itself in his being. He had seen it clearly enough before he knew Margaret Anison, but the strength of a new passion acting upon a nature by no means subtly self-conscious, had for a time obscured the normal keenness of his sight. After re-reading Margaret's note for the tenth time, Mr. Jacob Ogden said to himself: "She's a fine girl—there isn't a finer lass in all Manchester; but I'm a damned fool—that's what I am. What have I to do goin' courtin'? Howsomever, it's no good skrikin' over spilt milk—we mun manage as well as we can. We've plenty to live on, and she can have four or five servants, if she'llnobbut look well afther 'em." Then he went into the little sitting-room, where his mother sat mending his stockings.
"Mother," he said, abruptly, "there's news for you. Somebody's boun' to be wed."
The stocking was deposited in Mrs. Ogden's lap, and she looked at her son with fixed eyes.
"It's owther our Isaac or me, and it isn't our Isaac."
"Why, then, it's thee, Jacob."
"You're clever at guessin', old woman; you always was a 'cute un."
"What! are you boun' to wed somebody at Whittlecup?"
"She doesn't live a hundred mile off Whittlecup."
Mrs. Ogden rose from her seat and laid down her stocking, and made slowly for the door. She stopped, however, midway, and with a stately gesture pointed to the mended stocking. "Can she darn like that?"
"She 'appen can do, mother."
"Han you seen her do?"
"No."
"Nor nobody else nayther. But what I reckon you think you can do b'out havin' your stockin's mended when you get your fine wife into th' house, and you think servants 'll do every thing. But if you'd forty servants, you'd be badly off without somebody as knew how to look afther 'em all. And if they cannot do for theirselves, they cannot orther other folk—not right."
"Well, but, mother," said Jacob, deprecatingly. He was going to suggest consolatory considerations, founded upon the apparent order and regularity of the housekeeping at Arkwright Lodge, in the midst of which Miss Anison had been educated.
But Mrs. Ogden was not disposed to enter into a discussion which would have involved the necessity of giving her son a hearing, and she cut short his expostulation with a proverb, solemnly enunciated,—
"As they make their bed, so they must lie," and then she left the room.
"Th' old woman isn't suited," thought Jacob, "but it makes nothing who it had been, she would have been just the same. She used always to reckon she could like me to get wed, but I knew well enough that when it came to the point I could never get wed so as to suit her. Whoever I wedded, she'd always have said it should have been somebody else." The fact was, that whilst Mrs. Ogden warmly and sincerely approved of marriage as a sort of general proposition, and had even advised her son for many years past to take unto himself a wife, her jealousy only slumbered so long as the said wife remained a vague impersonal idea. Mrs. Ogden had not much imagination, and the mere notion of a possible wife for Jacob was very far from arousing in her breast the lively sensations which were sure to be aroused there by a visible, criticisable young woman, of flesh and blood, with the faults that flesh is heir to. Now she had seen Margaret Anison, and she had thought at Whittlecup, "She might happen do for our Jacob;" but when "our Jacob" announced that he had decided to espouse Margaret Anison, that was quite a different thing.
Matters had been in this condition for a month or two, when Jacob Ogden, whose visits to his beloved one had been made rare by the exigencies of business, became somewhat importunate about the fixing of his wedding-day. It was not that he looked forward thereto with feelings of very eager or earnest anticipation, but he had a business-like preference for "fixtures" and dates over the vague promises of an indefiniteavenir. Miss Anison, on the contrary, seemed to have a rooted objection to such rigid limitations of liberty; and, like a man in debt whose creditor proposes to draw upon him for an inexorable thirtieth of next month, felt that the vague intention of paying some time was for the present less hard and harassing to the mind. And as the debtorprocrastinates, so did Margaret Anison procrastinate. Her heart was not in this marriage, but her interest was; and, so far as she avowed to herself any purpose at all, her purpose was to gain time, and keep Jacob Ogden as a resource, when all chance of Philip Stanburne should be lost finally and for ever.
Miss Anison, in a matter of this kind, was a great deal cleverer than Jacob Ogden, who, though not easily taken in by a man in men's business, had little experience of womankind, and none whatever of polite young ladies and their ways. Margaret Anison had found a capital excuse for delay in the necessity for building a new house, and she set Jacob Ogden to work thereupon with an energy at least equal to that which he lavished on the new mill. He wanted very much to have the house close to the factory, but the young lady preferred the tranquillity of the country, and went to Milend expressly to select a site. She chose a little dell that opened into the Shayton valley; and though of all views in the world the pleasantest for Mr. Ogden would have been a view of his own mills, he was denied this satisfaction, and his windows looked out upon nothing but green fields. "If they'd nobbut been my own fields," Jacob thought, "I wouldn't so much have cared. Not but what a good mill is a prettier sight than the greenest field in Lancashire, but it's no plezur to me to look out upon other folks' property." And the worst of it was, that there was no chance of ever purchasing the said property, for it belonged to an ancient Lancashire family, which had a wise hereditary objection to parting with a single acre of land.
Mrs. Ogden, now that the engagement was afait accompli, expressed the most perfect readiness to quit Milend and go and live in "th' Cream-pot," which, as the reader is already aware, was the expressively rich appellative of the richest of her little farms. But such was the amiable and truly filial consideration displayed by Margaret Anison towards herfuture mother-in-law, that she would on no account hear of such an arrangement. "Mrs. Ogden," she said, "had always been accustomed to Milend, and it would be quite wrong to turn her out;" indeed she "would not hear of such a thing." So the obedient Jacob hurried on the construction of a mansion worthy of the young lady who had honored him with her affections—a mansion to be replete with all modern comforts and conveniences, such as abounded at Arkwright Lodge.
Philip Stanburne's life had not been settled or happy since the date of his visit to Derbyshire. The old tranquil existence at the Peel had become impossible for him now. It was intolerable to him to be cut off from all direct communication with Miss Stedman, and one day he went boldly to Chesnut Hill. He went there, not under cover of the darkness, as cowardly lovers do, but in the broad openness of such daylight as is ever to be seen in Sootythorn. I think, however, that it would have needed still greater courage on his part to present himself there about eight o'clock in the evening; for in the day-time Mr. Stedman was usually at his factory, whereas about eight in the evening a friend might count upon the pleasure of finding him at Chesnut Hill.
The servant-maid who opened the door to Philip showed him at once into the drawing-room. "What name shall I say, sir?" she asked. Philip gave his name, and waited. He had not inquired whether Miss Stedman was at home—he felt a slight embarrassment in inquiring about Miss Stedman—and the servant on her part had simply asked him to walk in.
He had waited about five minutes, when a heavy step became audible in the passage, and the door of the room was opened. The Reverend Abel Blunting stood before him.
"Pray sit down, sir," said the reverend gentleman; "I hope you are quite well. I hope I see you well. Mr. Stedmanis not at home—he is down at the mill—but I am expecting him every minute."
Mr. Blunting's bland amiability ought no doubt to have awakened amiable feelings in Mr. Stanburne's breast, but, unfortunately, it had just the opposite effect. "I did not come here to see Mr. Stedman," he replied; "I came to see his daughter."
Now Mr. Blunting was a powerful man, both physically and mentally, and a man by no means disposed to yield when he considered firmness to be a duty. In the present instance hedidconsider it necessary to prevent an interview between Alice and her lover, and he quietly resolved to do so at all costs. "I am sorry," he said, "that you cannot see Miss Stedman."
"Why cannot I see her? Is she not at home?"
"She is under this roof, sir."
"Then I will see her," Philip answered, and rose to his feet.
"Pray sit down, sir—pray sit down," said Mr. Blunting, without stirring from the easy-chair in which he had ensconced himself. He made a gesture with his hand at the same time, which said as plainly as it could, "Calm yourself, young gentleman, and listen to me."
"Pray sit down. Miss Stedman is not very well to-day; indeed she has not been really well, I am sorry to say, for some time past. She does not rise until the afternoon, and of course you cannot go into her bedroom."
"Why not? Come with me if you like. The doctor may go there, I suppose?"
"The doctor goes there professionally, and so does Miss Stedman's spiritual adviser."
"I could do her more good than either of you. How wretchedly lonely she is!"
"My wife comes to sit with Miss Stedman every day."
"Whatisthe matter with her? Tell me the plain truth."
"Most willingly—most happy to reassure you, sir. Thereis really nothing serious in Miss Stedman's case; the medical men are agreed upon that. She merely suffers from debility, which has been neglected for some time because she did not complain. Now that the ailment is known, it will be combated in every way. Already there is a decided improvement. But in her present state of weakness, agitation of any kind might be most prejudicial—most prejudicial; and therefore I hope you will easily see that I dare not accept the responsibility of permitting an interview between you."
"I shall wait here till Mr. Stedman comes, and ask his permission."
"That is a very proper course to pursue, and I highly approve your resolution. But from what we both know of Mr. Stedman's sentiments, it seems scarcely probable that he will grant your request. You will do well, however, to wait and see him. It is always the best, when there are differences of opinion, that the contending parties should meet personally."
Here there was a pause of a minute or two, after which Mr. Blunting resumed, with great politeness of manner,—
"I fear you must need refreshment, sir, if you have come from a distance. Your own residence, as I am informed, is at a considerable distance from this place. In Mr. Stedman's absence, I may take upon myself to offer you something. Would you like a sandwich and a glass of wine? I cannot offer to drink wine with you, being myself a total abstainer, but as I know that you use it in great moderation, it is not against my conscience to ring for the decanters."
Philip Stanburne had eaten nothing since six in the morning, and willingly accepted the clergyman's proposition. Perhaps he accepted it the more willingly that he felt the need of all his courage for the approaching interview with Mr. Stedman. When the decanters and the sandwich came, the teetotal parson filled a wine-glass with formal courtesy, and young Stanburne could not help feeling a certain liking, andeven admiration, for the man. In truth, without being a gentleman, Mr. Blunting had many of the best qualities of a gentleman. He was as brave as a man well could be, more learned than most members of his own learned profession, and he had a feminine softness of manner.
Whilst Philip was engaged with his sandwiches and sherry, he heard the hall-door open, and a manly step on the stone floor. Though by no means a coward, either morally or physically, he had a sensitive constitution, and his pulse was considerably accelerated by the knowledge that Mr. Stedman had entered the house. The heavy steps passed the drawing-room door, and became gradually less and less audible as they ascended the stairs.
"Mr. Stedman is gone to see his daughter," said Mr. Blunting. "He always goes straight to her room when he returns from the mill. He is a most affectionate father."
"Where his prejudices are not concerned," added Philip Stanburne.
"Where his conscience is not involved, you ought to say. His objection to your suit is strictly a conscientious objection. Personally, he likes you, and your position would be an excellent one for Miss Alice; indeed it is beyond what she might have hoped for. But Mr. Stedman—ah! he is coming now."
Philip had somewhat hastily finished his sandwich, and resumed his first seat. Mr. Stedman opened the door slowly, and walked in. He gave no sign of astonishment on seeing Philip (who rose as he entered), but simply bowed. Then turning to Mr. Blunting, he said, quietly, "I think Alice would be glad to see you now," on which Mr. Blunting left the room.
There was an expression of deep sadness on John Stedman's face as he sat down and looked fixedly at the table. His eyes looked in the direction of the decanters, but heevidently did not see them. Suddenly recalling himself to the things about him, he saw the decanters before any thing else, and said,—
"Have you had a glass of wine? Take another. Take one with me."
Astonished at this reception, Philip Stanburne held his glass whilst John Stedman filled it. A tremulous hope rose in his breast. What if this man were relenting? what if the icy barrier were gradually thawing away?
They drank the wine in silence, and Mr. Stedman sat down again. "Sit down," he said, "sit down. You are come to talk to me about my daughter. You are under my roof, and are my guest. I will listen to you patiently, and I will answer you plainly. I can do no more than that, can I?"
Philip urged his suit with all the eloquence at his command. John Stedman listened, as he had promised, patiently; and when his guest's eloquence had exhausted itself, he spoke in this wise:—
"I explained my views to you on a former occasion, in Derbyshire. It is no use going over all that ground again. But since we met then, the position of matters has changed somewhat. My daughter is getting nearer to her majority; at the same time, you and she have made an engagement between yourselves without my sanction, and I have reason to suspect that you have corresponded. Miss Margaret Anison has been here rather too much lately, and I have politely informed Miss Margaret Anison that she had better remain at Arkwright Lodge. But another thing has altered matters still more—that is, my daughter's health. I'm very much grieved to say that I haven't a great deal of confidence in her constitution. She gets weaker every day."
"Mr. Blunting says she is getting stronger again now."
"Stronger? Well, momentarily she may, by the help of tonics and stimulants, but it will not last. She was never really strong, but if I'd not been so much absorbed inbusiness, I might have taken her more out, and given her more exercise. I am ready to give up business now. I'd give up any thing for my Alice. Poor Alice, poor Alice!"
Philip Stanburne became inoculated with Mr. Stedman's openly expressed alarm. "Are you seriously afraid, sir?" he asked, with intense anxiety.
Mr. Stedman looked at him fixedly and seemed absorbed in his own thoughts. "You love my girl, young man, but you don't love her as I do. Ever since I have got this fear into my heart and into my brain I can neither eat nor sleep. I think sometimes I shall go out of my mind. A man loves a daughter, Mr. Stanburne, differently from the way he loves a son. If I'd had a son, I shouldn't have felt so anxious, for it seems that a lad should bear illnesses and run risks; but a tender little girl, Philip Stanburne—a tender little girl, and a great rough fellow like me to take care of her!"
"Is there any change in your feelings towards me, sir?"
"No, none at all. I always liked you very well, and I like you very well still. There isn't a young fellow anywhere who would suit me better, if it weren't for your being such a Papist. I'll tell you what I'll do with you, if you like. You give me an honest promise not to marry my daughter before twelve months are out, and you shall see her every day if you like. And if you can cheer her up and make her get her strength back again, you shall have her and welcome, Papist or no Papist. I'd let her marry the Pope of Rome before I'd see her as sad as she has been during the last two or three months. Stop your dinner, will you? That sandwich is nothing; our dinner-time's one o'clock, and it's just ten minutes to. Alice 'll get up when she knows you're here, I'll warrant."
The reader will easily believe that Philip Stanburne heard this speech with a joy that made him forget his anxiety about Alice. He would bring gladness to her, and with gladness, health. How bright the long future seemed for these two,true lovers always, till the end of their lives! O golden hope, fair promise of happy years!
But the doctor, who had been at Chesnut Hill that morning, had heard a little faint sound in his polished black stethoscope, which was as terrible in its import as the noise of the loudest destroyers, as the crack of close thunder, the roar of cannon, the hiss of the hurricane, the explosion of a mine!
Let this part of our story be quickly told, for it is very sad! Let us not dwell upon this sorrow, and analyze it, and anatomize it, and lecture upon it, as if it were merely a study for the intellect, and caused the heart no pain!
It is the middle of winter. The streets of Sootythorn are sloppy with blackened snow, the sky is dreary and gray, and dirtied by the smoke from the factory-chimneys. Sootythorn is dismal, and Manchester is all in a fog. The cotton-spinners' train that goes from Sootythorn to Manchester is running into a cloud that gets ever denser and yellower, and the whistle screams incessantly. The knees of the travellers are covered with "Guardians," and "Couriers," and "Examiners," for there is not light enough to read comfortably. One manufacturer asks his neighbor a question: "Where is John Stedman of Sootythorn? He uses comin' by this train, and I haven't seen him as I cannot tell how long."
The question interests us also. Where is John Stedman?
Not at Chesnut Hill, certainly. There is nobody at Chesnut Hill but the old gardener and his wife. He tends the plants in the hothouse, and keeps them comfortable in this dreary Lancashire winter by the help of Lancashire coal. But the house is all shut up, except on the rare days when a bit of sunshine comes, and the old woman opens the shutters and draws up the blinds to let the bright rays in. Every thing seems ready for Alice, if she would only come. There is her little pretty room upstairs, and there are twentythings of hers in the drawing-room that wait for their absent mistress.
Miss Alice is far away in the south, and her father is with her—and there is a third, who never leaves them.
They had been travelling towards Italy, but when they reached Avignon, Alice became suddenly worse, and they stayed there to give her a long rest. The weather happened to be very pure and clear, and it suited her. The winter weather about Avignon is often very exhilarating and delicious, when the keen frost keeps aloof, and the dangerous winds are at rest.
As for saving Alice now, not one of the three had a vestige of delusive hope. The progress of the malady had been terribly rapid; every week had been, a visible advance towards the grave. John Stedman had hoped little from the very beginning, Philip Stanburne had hoped much longer, and Alice herself longest of all. But none of the three hoped any longer now.
When Alice found herself settled at Avignon, she felt a strong indisposition to go farther. The railway tired and agitated her, and the dust made her cough more painful. "Papa," she said one day, as she sat in her easy-chair looking up the Rhone, "I think we cannot do better than just remain where we are. I shall not keep you in this place very long. No climate can save me now, and this weather is as pleasant as any Italian weather could be. I am cowardly about travelling, and it troubles me to think of the journey before us." Mr. Stedman feebly tried to encourage Alice, and talked of the beautiful Italian coast as if they were going to see it; but it soon became tacitly understood that Alice's travels were at an end.
Mr. Stedman, who, since he had left England with his daughter, had never considered expense in any thing in which her comfort was, or seemed to be, involved, sought out a pleasanter lodging than the hotel they had chosen as a temporaryresting-place. He found a charming villa on the slopes that look towards Mount Ventoux. The view from its front windows included the great windings of the Rhone and the beautiful mountainous distance; whilst from the back there was a very near view of Avignon, strikingly picturesque in composition, crowned by the imposing mass of the Papal palace. Alice preferred the mountains, and chose a delightful littlesalonupstairs as her own sitting-room, whilst her bedroom was close at hand. There was a balcony, and she liked to sit there in the mild air during the warmest and brightest hours.
Mr. Stedman's powerful and active nature suffered from their monotonous life at the villa, and he needed exercise both for the body and the mind. Alice perceived this, and, well knowing that it was impossible for her father to do any thing except in her service, plotted a little scheme by which she hoped to make him take the exercise and the interest in outward things which in these sad days were more than ever necessary to him.
"Papa," she said one day, "I think if I'd a little regular work to do, it would do me good. I wish you would go geologizing for me, and bring me specimens. You might botanize a little, too, notwithstanding the time of the year; it would be amusing to puzzle out some of the rarer plants. It's a very curious country, isn't it, papa? I'm sure, if I were well, we should find a great deal of work to do together here." Then she began to question him about the geology and botany of the district, and made him buy some books which have been written upon these subjects by scientific inhabitants of Avignon. Her little trick succeeded. Mr. Stedman, under the illusion that he was working to please his poor Alice, trudged miles and miles in the country, and extended his explorations to the very slopes of Mount Ventoux itself. In this way he improved the tone of his physical constitution, and Alice saw with satisfaction that it would be better able to endure the impending sorrow.
He had long ceased to treat Philip Stanburne with coldness or distrust. His manner with his young friend was now quite gentle, and even affectionate, tenderly and sadly genial. The one point on which they disagreed was no longer a sore point for either of them. One day, when they were together, they met a religious procession, with splendid sacerdotal costumes and banners, and Philip kneeled as the host was carried by. Their conversation, thus briefly interrupted, was resumed without embarrassment, and Mr. Stedman asked some questions about the especial purpose of the procession, without the slightest perceptible expression of contempt for it. He began to take an interest in the charities of the place, and having visited the hospital, said he thought he should like to give something, and actually left a bank-note for five hundred francs, though the managers of the institution, and the nurses, and the patients, were Romanists without exception. Meanwhile, he read his Bible very diligently every day, and the prayers of the little household, in which Philip willingly joined.
During one of Mr. Stedman's frequent absences on the little scientific missions ordered by his daughter Alice, she and Philip had a conversation which he ever afterwards remembered.
"Philip," she said, "do you ever think much about whatmight have been, if just one circumstance had been otherwise? I have been thinking a great deal lately, almost constantly, about what might have been, for us two, if my health had been strong and good. People say that love such as ours is only an illusion—only a short dream—but I cannot believe that. It might have changed, as our features change, with time, but it would have remained with us all our lives. Do you ever fancy us a quiet respectable old couple, living at the Tower, and coming sometimes to Sootythorn together? I do. I fancy that, and all sorts of things that might have been—and some of them would have been, too—if I hadlived. There's one thing vexes me, and that is, that I never saw the Tower. I wish I had just seen it once, so that I might fancy our life there more truly. How glad dear papa would have been to come and stay with us, and botanize and geologize amongst your rocks there! You would have let him come, wouldn't you, dear?—I am sure you would have been very kind to him. Youwillbe kind to him, won't you, my love, when he has no longer his poor little Lissy to take care of him? Don't leave him altogether by himself. I am afraid his old age will be very sad and lonely. It grieves me to think of that, for he will be old in a few years now, and his poor little daughter will not be near him to keep him cheerful. Fancy him coming home every evening from the mill, and nobody but servants in the house! Go and stay with him sometimes, dear, at Chesnut Hill, and get him to go to the Tower, and you will sometimes talk together about Alice, and it will do you both good."
Philip had kept up manfully as long as he was able, but the vivid picture that these words suggested of a world without Alice was too much for him to bear, and he burst into passionate tears. As for Alice, she remained perfectly calm, but when she spoke again it was with an ineffable tenderness. She took his hand in hers, and drew him towards her, and kissed him. Again and again she kissed him, smoothing his hair caressingly with her fingers—gentle touches that thrilled through his whole being. "You don't know, my darling," she said, "how much I love you, and how miserable it made me when I thought we must be separated in this world. It isn't so hard to be separated by death; but to live both of us in the same world, seeing the same sun, and moon, and stars, even the same hills, and not to be together, but always living out of sight and hearing of each other, and yet so near—it would have been a trial beyond my strength! And isn't it something, my love, to be together as we are now for the last few weeks and days? You don't know how happyit makes me to see you and papa getting on so nicely as you do. Isn't he nice, now? I don't believe he thinks a bit the worse of you for being a Catholic. We shall all meet again, darling—shall we not?—in the same heaven, and then we shall have the same perfect knowledge, and our errors and differences will be at an end for ever."
She was a good deal exhausted with saying this, and leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes for a while. Philip gradually recovered his usual melancholy tranquillity, and they sat thus without speaking, he holding both her hands in his, and gently chafing and caressing them. He had not courage to speak to Alice—indeed, in all their saddest and most serious conversations, the courage was mainly on her side.
Whilst they were sitting thus, the sky became suddenly overcast, and there came a few pattering drops of rain. Alice started suddenly, and seemed to be agitated by an unknown terror. She grasped Philip's hand in a nervous way, and complained of a strange suffering and foreboding. "I felt so calm and peaceful all the morning," she said; "I wish I could feel so now."
The agitation increased, and it was evident to Philip that a great change had taken place. Alice threw her arms round him, and clasped him to her. "O Philip!" she cried, wildly, "don't leave me now—don't leave me even for a minute! Stay, darling, stay; it is coming, coming!"
The pattering of the rain had ceased. It had been nothing but a few drops—scarcely even a shower—and it had ceased.
But the air was not clearer after the rain. On the contrary, it had been clearer before it than it was now. The snowy summit of Mount Ventoux was hidden in an opaque, thick atmosphere; mist it was not, as we northerns understand mist, but a substantial thickening of the air.
Soon there was the same thickening, the same opacity in the atmosphere of the remote plain that stretched to themountain's foot. It was invisible now, the Mount Ventoux, the Mountain of the Winds.
And as the plain grew dark the Rhone as suddenly whitened. It whitened and whitened, nearer and nearer Avignon; then a dull distant roar became audible, steadily increasing. A violent brief squall shook the villa. What! so frightened already? Poor children, it is nothing yet!
Over the terrified plain, over the foaming river, comes theMistral, careering in his strength! Well for you, walls of Avignon, that you were built for the shocks of battle! well for thee, most especially, O palace of the transplanted Papacy, that thy fortress-heights were erected less for pleasure than for resistance!
Louder and louder, nearer and nearer! How the trees bend like fishing-rods! Crash, crash—they break before the tempest. What a clatter against the windows! It is a volley of pebbles that the Mistral carries with it as a torrent does. Bang, bang—the shutters are torn off their iron hinges and pitched nobody knows where—into the court, on the roof-top, it may be, or into the neighbor's garden!
The intensity of the noise made all human voices inaudible. The Mistral likes to make an uproar—it is his amusement, when he comes to Avignon from his mountain. And he whistles at once in a thousand chimneys, as a boy whistles in two steel keys; and he makes such a clatter with destroying things, that the most insured house-property leaves no peace to its possessor. But straight in the midst of his path rise the towers of the fortress-palace, and Peter Obreri, its architect, knows in the world of spirits that they resist the Mistral yet.
But alas for our poor little Alice! This wind does not suit her at all; this unceasing, this wearisome wind—this agitating, terrible wind! She did not fear death before, in the calm serene weather, when it seemed that her soul mightrise in the blue ether, and be borne by floating angels. But to go out into the bleak, stern tempest—to leavehisencircling arms, and be dashed no one knows whither along the desolate, unfamiliar Provence, with twigs, and dead leaves, and pebbles, and that choking cloud of sand!
"Forgive me these foolish fancies," she prayed, from the depths of this horror. "My soul knows her way to the haven of thy rest, O Lord, my Guide and my Redeemer!"
Early in the month of February there came a black-edged letter to Arkwright Lodge, with a French stamp upon it. The letter was from Philip Stanburne, and it announced Alice Stedman's death.
Two days after the arrival of that letter another letter arrived at Milend for Jacob Ogden. It bore the Whittlecup post-mark, and had an exact outward resemblance to several other letters which had come from the same place, but its contents were of a new character.
Miss Anison expressed her regret that in consequence of Mr. Jacob Ogden's neglect, of his readiness to postpone his visits on the slightest pretexts, of the rarity and coldness of his letters, she felt compelled, from a due regard to her own happiness, to put an end to the engagement which had existed between them.
The accusations in this letter were perfectly well founded, though it is quite certain that they would never have been made if Philip Stanburne's communication had been edged with silver instead of black. Margaret Anison had remarked with secret satisfaction that Jacob Ogden's behavior as a lover gave her good reasons for retreating from her engagement, whenever she might determine on that decisive step; but in the mean while she had never reproached him with it, had never appeared aware of it when hedidcome, but always received him in the same uniformly gracious way, as if he hadbeen the most assiduous of adorers. She had kept this accusation of negligence to be used against him whenever it might be convenient to throw the blame of a rupture uponhim; but if she had finally decided to marry him, this and all other faults would have been affectionately overlooked. It had been highly convenient to let him sink deeper and deeper in that sin of negligence, till at last, from mere carelessness and an aversion to all letter-writing that was not upon business, he had actually reached that depth in crime that he no longer observed the common forms of society, and did not even write a line of apology or excuse. Margaret never expected him to be attentive to her as a husband: she intended to spend his money, and, so long as that was forthcoming, cared little about Jacob Ogden's manners. But it was charming to be able to back out of her engagement, now that Alice was dead, and do it in a dignified and honorable manner. For of all sins that a lover can commit, the chief is the sin of neglect; and in this case any competent and just jury would have pronounced the verdict "guilty."
To this letter Jacob Ogden made no reply. His feelings on receiving it were, first, the most unfeigned astonishment (for he thought he had been very attentive, and that "courtin'" had absorbed far too much of his time); next, a paroxysm of indignation, with a sense of injury; and then, when this subsided, a sense of relief so exquisite, so delicious, and so complete, that nobody can have any idea of it unless at some period of his existence a wearing and persistent anxiety has been suddenly removed for ever. The love of Margaret Anison had been one of those masterful passions which sometimes force the most prudent men to folly. He had made his offer in the height of his temporary insanity, but after the engagement had been entered upon, his old self had gradually returned; and though he was fully determined to "go through with it," as a business which had to be done, he by no means looked forward to the conjugal state as an improvement uponhis accustomed life. It was like embarking on an unknown and perilous sea, in utter ignorance of the art of navigation, and that sea might be a sea of troubles. The complex details of married life, its endless little duties, were perplexing to a man whose time and thoughts were already taken up by the government of a heavy business, and the care of an increasing estate. And now to escape from these new and unfamiliar troubles—to remain in the old quiet life at Milend—to have full control over his own expenditure, with no female criticism or interference—to see his fortune growing and growing without sons to establish or daughters to dower, or an expensive houseful of servants to eat the bank-notes in his pocket-book like so many nattering mice,—ah! it was sweet to him to think of this in his innermost and sincerest self! He had loved his bachelor life well enough before, but he had never felt the full luxury of its independence as he did now!
Jacob Ogden enjoyed a privilege highly favorable to happiness, but not so favorable to moral or intellectual growth. He lived at peace with himself, and looking back on his life, he approved of its whole course, with the single exception of that hour of folly at Whittlecup. He felt and believed that no man could be wiser or more perfect than he was. When he humbly called his faculties "common-sense," he by no means understood the word as meaning a sense which he had in common with others, but rather a special faculty, to himself vouchsafed by the bounteous gift of nature. He lived in absolute independence of the good opinion of others, because his mind was at peace with itself—because he always manfully did to-day what he was sure to approve to-morrow, or ten years after to-morrow. Am I painting the portrait of a man of pre-eminent virtues? Not exactly, but of a man who would have been pre-eminently virtuous, or pre-eminently learned, if virtue or knowledge had been his ideal. For he had a manly resolution, a steady unflinchingdetermination, to live up to the standard which he fixed for himself. And the inward peace which he enjoyed was due to his obedience to the laws of his own nature, which thus ever remained in harmony with itself in serene strength and efficiency.
This peace had for a while been lost to him, and he had felt a strange change and diminution in the inward satisfactions. His communings with himself had lost their old sweetness, and he no longer masticated the cud of contentment in the fair pastures of reflection and imagination. To go back to those happy pastures once more—to chew that sweet cud again, after months of privation—what a deep, strengthening, cheering, encouraging, replenishing delight it was!
Yet there was one drawback to the plenitude of Ogden's happiness, even though he had escaped the misery of the wedding-day. That new mansion had been begun, he had spent £400 upon it already, and spoilt a pretty meadow, and he had spent some money on presents for Margaret—not very much, for his ideas on the subject of gift-making were not very large ideas, yet still enough to plague and torment him, for the loss of a sovereign would do that. To be jilted did not trouble him much, but to have been cheated into wasting his money! that thought would not let him rest. It followed and harassed him wherever he went, and it was the cause of the following letter, which was received by Mr. Joseph Anison:—