MISS SUSANcame home on the Saturday night. She was very tired, and saw no one that evening; but Martha, her old maid, who returned into attendance upon her natural mistress at once, thought and reported to the others that “something had come over Miss Susan.” Whether it was tiredness or crossness, or bad news, or that her business had not turned out so well as she expected, no one could tell; but “something had come over her.” Next morning she did not go to church—a thing which had not happened in the Austin family for ages.
“I had an intuition that you were yielding to temptation,” Miss Augustine said, with some solemnity, as she went out to prayers at the almshouses; after which she meant to go to Morning Service in the church, as always.
“I am only tired, my dear,” said Miss Susan, with a little shiver.
The remarks in the kitchen were more stringent than Miss Augustine’s.
“Foreign parts apparently is bad for the soul,” said Martha, when it was ascertained that Jane, too, following her mistress’s example, did not mean to go to Church.
“They’re demoralizin’, that’s what they are,” said Stevens, who liked a long word.
“I’ve always said as I’d never set foot out o’ my own country, not for any money,” said Cook, with the liberal mind natural to her craft.
Poor Jane, who had been very ill on the crossing, though the sea was calm, sat silent at the chimney corner with a bad headache, and very devout intentions to the same effect.
“If you knew what it was to go a sea-voyage, like I do,” sheprotested with forlorn pride, “you’d have a deal more charity in you.” But even Jane’s little presents, brought from “abroad,” did not quite conciliate the others, to whom this chit of a girl had been preferred. Jane, on the whole, however, was better off, even amid the criticisms of the kitchen, than Miss Susan was, seated by herself in the drawing-room, to which the sun did not come round till the afternoon, with the same picture hanging before her eyes which she had used to tempt the Austins at Bruges, with a shawl about her shoulders, and a sombre consciousness in her heart that had never before been known there. It was one of those dull days which so often interpose their unwelcome presence into an English Summer. The sky and the world were gray with east wind, the sun hidden, the color all gone out. The trees stood about and shivered, striking the clouds with their hapless heads; the flowers looked pitiful and appealing, as if they would have liked to be brought indoors and kept in shelter; and the dreariness of the fire-place, done up in white paper ornaments, as is the orthodox Summer fashion of England, was unspeakable. Miss Susan, drawing her shawl round her, sat in her easy-chair near the fire by habit; and a more dismal centre of the room could not have been than that chilly whiteness. How she would have liked a fire! but in the beginning of July, what Englishwoman, with the proper fear of her housemaid before her eyes, would dare to ask for that indulgence? So Miss Susan sat and shivered, and watched the cold trees looking in at the window, and the gray sky above, and drew her shawl closer with a shiver that went through her very heart. The vibration of the Church bells was in the still, rural air, and not a sound in the house.
Miss Susan felt as if she were isolated by some stern power; set apart from the world because of “what had happened;” which was the way she described her own very active agency during the past week to herself. But this did not make her repent, or change her mind in any respect; the excitement of her evil inspiration was still strong upon her; and then there was yet no wrong done, only intended, and of course, at any moment, the wrong which was only in intention might be departed from, and all be well. She had that morning received a letter from Reine, full of joyous thanksgiving over Herbert’s improvement. Augustine, who believed in miracles, had gone off to church in great excitement, to put upHerbert’s name as giving thanks, and to tell the poor people that their prayers had been so far heard; but Miss Susan, who was more of this world, and did not believe in miracles, and to whom the fact that any human event was very desirable made it at once less likely, put very little faith in Reine’s letter. “Poor child! poor boy!” she said to herself, shaking her head and drying her eyes; then put it aside, and thought little more of it. Her own wickedness that she planned was more exciting to her. She sat and brooded over that, while all the parish said their prayers in church, where she, too, ought to have been. For she was not, after all, so very tired; her mind was as full and lively as if there had been no such a thing as fatigue in the world; and I do not think she had anything like an adequate excuse for staying at home.
On the Sunday afternoon Miss Susan received a visit which roused her a little from the self-absorption which this new era in her existence had brought about, though it was only Dr. and Mrs. Richard, who walked across the field to see her after her journey, and to take a cup of tea. They were a pleasant little couple to see, jogging across the fields arm in arm—he the prettiest fresh-colored little old gentleman, in glossy black and ivory white, a model of a neat, little elderly clergyman; she not quite so pretty, but very trim and neat too, in a nice black silk gown, and a bonnet with a rose in it. Mrs. Richard was rather hard upon the old women at the almshouses for their battered flowers, and thought a little plain uniform bonnet of the cottage shape, with a simple brown ribbon, would have been desirable; but for her own part she clung to the rose, which nodded on the summit of her head. Both of them, however, had a conscious look upon their innocent old faces. They had come to “discharge a duty,” and the solemnity of this duty, which was, as they said to each other, a very painful one, overwhelmed and slightly excited them. “What if she should be there herself?” said Mrs. Richard, clasping a little closer her husband’s arm, to give emphasis to her question. “It does not matter who is there; I must do my duty,” said the Doctor, in heroic tones; “besides,” he added, dropping his voice, “she never notices anything that is not said to her, poor soul!”
But happily Miss Augustine was not present when they were shown into the drawing-room where Miss Susan sat writing letters.A good deal was said, of course, which was altogether foreign to the object of the visit: How she enjoyed her journey, whether it was not very fatiguing, whether it had not been very delightful, and a charming change, etc. Miss Susan answered all their questions benignly enough, though she was very anxious to get back to the letter she was writing to Farrel-Austin, and rang the bell for tea and poured it out, and was very gracious, secretly asking herself, what in the name of wonder had brought them here to-day to torment her? But it was not till he had been strengthened by these potations that Dr. Richard spoke.
“My dear Miss Susan,” he said at length, “my coming to-day was not purely accidental, or merely to ask for you after your journey. I wanted to—if you will permit me—put you on your guard.”
“In what respect?” said Miss Susan, quickly, feeling her heart begin to beat. Dr. Richard was the last person in the world whom she could suppose likely to know about the object of her rapid journey, or what she had done; but guilt is very suspicious, and she felt herself immediately put upon her defence.
“I trust that you will not take it amiss that I should speak to you on such a subject,” said the old clergyman, clearing his throat; his pretty, old pink cheek growing quite red with agitation. “I take the very greatest interest in both you and your sister, Miss Susan. You are both of you considerably younger than I am, and I have been here now more than a dozen years, and one cannot help taking an interest in anything connected with the family—”
“No, indeed; one cannot help it; it would be quite unnatural if one did not take an interest,” said Mrs. Richard, backing him up.
“But nobody objects to your taking an interest,” said Miss Susan. “I think it, as you say, the most natural thing in the world.”
“Thanks, thanks, for saying so!” said Dr. Richard with enthusiasm; and then he looked at his wife, and his wife at him, and there was an awful pause.
“My dear, good, excellent people,” said Miss Susan, hurriedly, “for Heaven’s sake, if there is any bad news coming, out with it at once!”
“No, no; no bad news!” said Dr. Richard; and then he cleared his throat. “The fact is, I came to speak to you—about Miss Augustine. I am afraid her eccentricity is increasing. It is painful, very painful to me to say so, for but for her kindness my wife and I should not have been half so comfortable these dozen years past; but I think it a friend’s duty, not to say a clergyman’s. Miss Susan, you are aware that people say that she is—not quite right in her mind!”
“I am aware that people talk a great deal of nonsense,” said Miss Susan, half-relieved, half-aggravated. “I should not wonder if they said I was mad myself.”
“If they knew!” she added mentally, with a curious thrill of self-arraignment, judging her own cause, and in the twinkling of an eye running over the past and the future, and wondering, if she should ever be found out, whether people would say she was mad too.
“No, no,” said the Doctor; “you are well known for one of the most sensible women in the county.”
“Quite one of the most influential and well-known people in the county,” said Mrs. Richard, with an echo in which there was always an individual tone.
“Well, well; let that be as it may,” said Miss Susan, not dissatisfied with this appreciation; “and what has my sister done—while I have been absent, I suppose?”
“It is a matter of great gravity, and closely concerning myself,” said Dr. Richard, with some dignity. “You are aware, Miss Susan, that my office as Warden of the Almshouses is in some respects an anomalous one, making me, in some degree, subordinate, or apparently so, in my ecclesiastical position to—in fact, to a lady. It is quite a strange, almost unprecedented, combination of circumstances.”
“Very strange indeed,” said Mrs. Richard. “My husband, in his ecclesiastical position, as it were subordinate—to a lady.”
“Pardon me,” said Miss Susan; “I never interfere with Augustine. You knew how it would be when you came.”
“But there are some things one was not prepared for,” said the Doctor, with irrestrainable pathos. “It might set me wrong with the persons I respect most, Miss Susan. Your sister not only attempted to add a petition to the prayers of the Church,which nobody is at liberty to do except the Archbishops themselves, acting under the authority of Government; but finding me inexorable in that—for I hope nothing will ever lead me astray from the laws of the Church—she directed me to request the prayers of the congregation for you, the most respectable person in the neighborhood—for you, as exposed to temptation!”
A strange change passed over Miss Susan’s face. She had been ready to laugh, impatient of the long explanation, and scarcely able to conceal her desire to get rid of her visitors. She sat poising the pen in her hand with which she had been writing, turning over her papers, with a smile on her lip; but when Dr. Richard came to those last words, her face changed all at once. She dropped the pen out of her hand, her face grew gray, the smile disappeared in a moment, and Miss Susan sat looking at them, with a curious consciousness about her, which the excellent couple could not understand.
“What day was that?” she said quickly, almost under her breath.
“It was on Thursday.”
“Thursday morning,” added Mrs. Richard. “If you remember, Henery, you got a note about it quite early; and after chapel she spoke—”
“Yes, it was quite early; probably the note,” said the chaplain, “was written on Wednesday night.”
Miss Susan was ashy gray; all the blood seemed to have gone out of her. She made them no answer at first, but sat brooding, like a woman struck into stone. Then she rose to her feet suddenly as the door opened, and Augustine, gray and silent, came in, gliding like a mediæval saint.
“My sister is always right,” said Miss Susan, almost passionately, going suddenly up to her and kissing her pale cheek with a fervor no one understood, and Augustine least of all. “I always approve what she does;” and having made this little demonstration, she returned to her seat, and took up her pen again with more show of preoccupation than before.
What could the old couple do after this but make their bow and their courtesy, and go off again bewildered? “I think Miss Susan is the maddest of the two,” said Mrs. Richard, when they had two long fields between them and Whiteladies; and I amnot surprised, I confess, that they should have thought so, on that occasion, at least.
Miss Susan was deeply struck with this curious little incident. She had always entertained a half visionary respect for her sister, something of the reverential feeling with which some nations regard those who are imperfectly developed in intelligence; and this curious revelation deepened the sentiment into something half-adoring, half-afraid. Nobody knew what she had done, but Augustine knew somehow that she had been in temptation. I cannot describe the impression this made upon her mind and her heart, which was guilty, but quite unaccustomed to guilt. It thrilled her through and through; but it did not make her give up her purpose, which was perhaps the strangest thing of all.
“My dear,” she said, assuming with some difficulty an ordinary smile, “what made you think I was going wrong when I was away?”
“What made me think it? nothing; something that came into my mind. You do not understand how I am moved and led,” said Augustine, looking at her sister seriously.
“No, dear, no—I don’t understand; that is true. God bless you, my dear!” said the woman who was guilty, turning away with a tremor which Augustine understood as little—her whole being tremulous and softened with love and reverence, and almost awe, of the spotless creature by her; but I suspect, though Miss Susan felt so deeply the wonderful fact that her sister had divined her moral danger, she was not in the least moved thereby to turn away from that moral danger, or give up her wicked plan; which is as curious a problem as I remember to have met with. Having all the habits of truth and virtue, she was touched to the heart to think that Augustine should have had a mysterious consciousness of the moment when she was brought to abandon the right path, and felt the whole situation sentimentally, as if she had read of it in a story; but it had not the slightest effect otherwise. With this tremor of feeling upon her, she went back to her writing-table, and finished her letter to Farrel-Austin, which was as follows:
“Dear Cousin: Having had some business which called me abroad last week, my interest in the facts you told me, the last time I had the pleasure of seeing you, led me to pass by Bruges, where I saw our common relations, the Austins. They seem very nice, homely people, and I enjoyed making their acquaintance, though it was curious to realize relations of ours occupying such a position. I heard from them, however, that a discovery had been made in the meantime which seriously interferes with the bargain which they made with you; indeed, is likely to invalidate it altogether. I took in hand to inform you of the facts, though they are rather delicate to be discussed between a lady and a gentleman; but it would have been absurd of a woman of my age to make any difficulty on such a matter. If you will call on me, or appoint a time at which I can see you at your own house, I will let you know exactly what are the facts of the case; though I have no doubt you will at once divine them, if you were informed at the time you saw the Bruges Austins, that their son who died had left a young widow.With compliments to Mrs. Farrel-Austin and your girls,Believe me, truly yours,Susan Austin.”
“Dear Cousin: Having had some business which called me abroad last week, my interest in the facts you told me, the last time I had the pleasure of seeing you, led me to pass by Bruges, where I saw our common relations, the Austins. They seem very nice, homely people, and I enjoyed making their acquaintance, though it was curious to realize relations of ours occupying such a position. I heard from them, however, that a discovery had been made in the meantime which seriously interferes with the bargain which they made with you; indeed, is likely to invalidate it altogether. I took in hand to inform you of the facts, though they are rather delicate to be discussed between a lady and a gentleman; but it would have been absurd of a woman of my age to make any difficulty on such a matter. If you will call on me, or appoint a time at which I can see you at your own house, I will let you know exactly what are the facts of the case; though I have no doubt you will at once divine them, if you were informed at the time you saw the Bruges Austins, that their son who died had left a young widow.
With compliments to Mrs. Farrel-Austin and your girls,
Believe me, truly yours,Susan Austin.”
I do not know that Miss Susan had ever written to Farrel-Austin in so friendly a spirit before. She felt almost cordial toward him as she put her letter into the envelope. If this improvement in friendly feeling was the first product of an intention to do the man wrong, then wrong-doing, she felt, must be rather an amiable influence than otherwise; and she went to rest that night with a sense of satisfaction in her mind. In the late Professor Aytoun’s quaint poem of “Firmilian,” it is recorded that the hero of that drama committed many murders and other crimes in a vain attempt to study the sensation usually called remorse, but was entirely unsuccessful, even when his crimes were on the grandest scale, and attended by many aggravating circumstances. Miss Susan knew nothing about Firmilian, but I think her mind was in a very similar state. She was not at all affected in sentiment by her conspiracy. She felt the same as usual, nay, almost better than usual, more kindly toward her enemy whom she was going to injure, and more reverential and admiring to hersaintly sister, who had divined something of her evil intentions—or at least had divined her danger, though without the slightest notion what the kind of evil was to which she was tempted. Miss Susan was indeed half frightened at herself when she found how very little impression her own wickedness had made upon her. The first night she had been a little alarmed when she said her prayers, but this had all worn off, and she went to bed without a tremor, and slept the sleep of innocence—the sleep of the just. She was so entirely herself that she was able to reflect how strange it was, and how little the people who write sermons know the state of the real mind. She was astonished herself at the perfect calm with which she regarded her own contemplated crime, for crime it was.
MR. FARREL-AUSTINlived in a house which was called the Hatch, though I cannot tell what is the meaning of the name. It was a modern house, like hundreds of others, solid and ugly, and comfortable enough, with a small park round it, and—which it could scarcely help having in Berkshire—some fine trees about it. Farrel-Austin had a good deal of property; his house stood upon his own land, though his estate was not very extensive, and he had a considerable amount of money in good investments, and some house-property in London, in the City, which was very valuable. Altogether, therefore, he was very well off, and lived in a comfortable way with everything handsome about him. All his family at present consisted of the two daughters who came with him to visit Whiteladies, as we have seen; but he had married a second time, and had an ailing wife who was continually, as people say, having “expectations,” which, however, never came to anything. He had been married for about ten years, and during this long period Mrs. Farrel-Austin’s expectations had been a joke among her neighbors; but they were no joke to her husband, nor to the two young ladies, her step-daughters, who, as they could not succeed to the Austin lands themselves, were naturally very desirous to have a brother who could do so. They were not very considerate of Mrs. Austin generally, but in respect to her health they were solicitous beyond measure. They took such care of her that the poor woman’s life became a burden to her, and especially at the moment when there were expectations did this care and anxiety overflow. The poor soul had broken down, body and mind, under this surveillance. She had been a pretty girl enough when she was married, andentered with a light heart upon her functions, not afraid of what might happen to her; but Mr. Farrel-Austin’s unsatisfied longing for an heir, and the supervision of the two sharp girls who grew up so very soon to be young ladies, and evidently considered, as their father did, that the sole use and meaning of their mild young stepmother was to produce that necessary article, soon made an end of all her light-heartedness. Her courage totally failed. She had no very strong emotions any way, but a little affection and kindness were necessary to keep her going, and this she did not get, in the kind that was important, at least. Her husband, I suppose, was fond of her, as (of course) all husbands are of all wives, but she could not pet or make friends with the girls, who, short of her possible use as the mother of an heir, found her very much in their way, and had no inclination to establish affectionate relations with her. Therefore she took to her sofa, poor soul, and to tonics, and the state of an invalid—a condition which, when one has nothing in particular to do in the world, and nothing to amuse or occupy a flat existence, is not a bad expedient in its way for the feeble soul, giving it the support of an innocent, if not very agreeable routine—rules to observe and physic to take. This was how poor Mrs. Farrel-Austin endeavored to dédommager herself for the failure of her life. She preserved a pale sort of faded prettiness even on her sofa; and among the society which the girls collected round them, there was now and then one who would seek refuge with the mild invalid, when the fun of the younger party grew too fast and furious. Even, I believe, the stepmother might have set up a flirtation or two of her own had she cared for that amusement; but fortunately she had her tonics to take, which was a more innocent gratification, and suited all parties better; for a man must be a very robust flirt indeed, whose attentions can support the frequent interpositions of a maid with a medicine-bottle and a spoon.
The society of the Farrel-Austins was of a kind which might be considered very fine, or the reverse, according to the taste of the critic, though that, indeed, may be said of almost all society. They knew, of course, and visited, all the surrounding gentry, among whom there were a great many worthy people, though nothing so remarkable as to stand out from the general level; but what was more important to the young ladies, at least, they had theofficers of the regiment which was posted near, and in which there were a great many very noble young personages, ornaments to any society, who accepted Mr. Farrel-Austin’s invitations freely, and derived a great deal of amusement from his household, without perhaps paying that natural tribute of respect and civility to their entertainers behind their backs, which is becoming in the circumstances. Indeed, the Farrel-Austins were not quite on the same social level as the Marquis of Dropmore, or Lord Ffarington, who were constantly at the Hatch when their regiment was stationed near, nor even of Lord Alf Groombridge, though he was as poor as a church-mouse; and the same thing might be said of a great many other honorable and distinguished young gentlemen who kept a continual riot at the house, and made great havoc with the cellar, and on Sundays, especially, would keep this establishment, which ought to have been almost pious in its good order, in a state of hurry and flurry, and noise and laughter, as if it had been a hotel. The Austins, it is true, boasted themselves of good family, though nothing definite was known of them before Henry VIII.—and they were rich enough to entertain their distinguished visitors at very considerable cost; but they had neither that rank which introduces the possessor into all circles, nor that amount of money which makes up every deficiency. Had one of the Miss Farrel-Austins married the Marquis or the Earl, or even Lord Alf in his impecuniosity, she would have been said to have “succeeded in catching” poor Dropmore, or poor Ffarington, and would have been stormed or wept over by the gentleman’s relations as if she had been a ragged girl off the streets—King Cophetua’s beggar-maid herself; notwithstanding that these poor innocents, Ffarington and Dropmore, had taken advantage of the father’s hospitalities for months or years before. I am bound to add that the Farrel-Austins were not only fully aware of this, but would have used exactly the same phraseology themselves in respect to any other young lady of their own standing whose fascinations had been equally exercised upon the well-fortified bosoms of Dropmore and Company. Nevertheless they adapted themselves to the amusements which suited their visitors, and in Summer lived in a lively succession of outdoor parties, spending half of their time in drags, in boats, on race courses, atcricket-matches, and other energetic diversions. Sometimes their father was their chaperon, sometimes a young married lady belonging to the same society, and with the same tastes.
The very highest and the very lowest classes of society have a great affinity to each other. There was always something planned for Sunday in this lively “set”—they were as eager to put the day to use as if they had been working hard all the week and had this day only to amuse themselves in. I suppose they, or perhaps their father, began to do this because there was in it the delightful piquancy of sensation which the blasé appetite feels when it is able to shock somebody else by its gratifications; and though they have long ago ceased to shock anybody, the flavor of the sensation lasted. All the servants at the Hatch, indeed, were shocked vastly, which preserved a little of this delightful sense of naughtiness. The quieter neighbors round, especially those houses in which there were no young people, disapproved, also, in a general way, and called the Miss Austins fast; and Miss Susan disapproved most strenuously, I need not say, and expressed her contempt in terms which she took no trouble to modify. But I cannot deny that there was a general hankering among the younger members of society for a share in these bruyant amusements; and Everard Austin could not see what harm it did that the girls should enjoy themselves, and had no objection to join them, and liked Kate and Sophy so much that sometimes he was moved to think that he liked one of them more. His house, indeed, which was on the river, was a favorite centre for their expeditions, and I think even that though he was not rich, neither of his cousins would have rejected Everard off-hand without deliberation—for, to be sure, he was the heir, at present, after their father, and every year made it less likely that Mrs. Austin would produce the much-wished-for successor. Neither of them would have quite liked to risk accepting him yet, in face of all the possibilities which existed in the way of Dropmore, Ffarington, and Company; but yet they would not have refused him off-hand.
Now I may as well tell the reader at once that Kate and Sophy Farrel-Austin were not what either I or he (she) would callnicegirls. I am fond of girls, for my own part. I don’t like to speak ill of them, or give an unfavorable impression, and as it is very probable that my prejudice in favor of the species may betray me into some relentings in respect to these particular examples, somesoftening of their after proceedings, or explanation of their devices, I think it best to say at once that they were not nice girls. They had not very sweet natures to begin with; for the fact is—and it is a very terrible one—that a great many people do come into the world with natures which are not sweet, and enter upon the race of life handicapped (if I may be permitted an irregular but useful expression) in the most frightful way. I do not pretend to explain this mystery, which, among all the mysteries of earth, is one of the most cruel, but I am forced to believe it. Kate and Sophy had never been verynice. Their father before them was notnice, but an extremely selfish and self-regarding person, often cross, and with no generosity or elevation of mind to set them a better example. They had no mother, and no restraint, except that of school, which is very seldom more than external and temporary. The young stepmother had begun by petting them, but neither could nor wished to attempt to rule the girls, who soon acquired a contempt for her; and as her invalidism grew, they took the control of the house, as well as themselves, altogether out of her hands. From sixteen they had been in that state of rampant independence and determination to have their own way, which has now, I fear, become as common among girls as it used to be among boys, when education was more neglected than it is nowadays. Boys who are at school—and even when they are young men at the university—must be in some degree of subordination; but girls who do not respect their parents are absolutely beyond this useful power, and can be described as nothing but rampant—the unloveliest as well as the unwholesomest of all mental and moral attitudes. Kate had come out at sixteen, and since that time had been constantly in this rampant state; by sheer force and power of will she had kept Sophy back until she also attained that mature age, but her power ended at that point, and Sophy had then become rampant too. They turned everything upside down in the house, planned their life according to their pleasure, over-rode the stepmother, coaxed the father, who was fond and proud of them—the best part of his character—and set out thus in the Dropmore and Ffarington kind of business. At sixteen girls do not plan to be married—they plan to enjoy themselves; and these noble young gentlemen seemed best adapted to second their intentions. But it is inconceivable how old a young woman is attwenty-one who has begun life at sixteen in this tremendous way. Kate, who had been for five long years thus about the world—at all the balls, at all the pleasure-parties, at all the races, regattas, cricket-matches, flower-shows, every kind of country entertainment—and at everything she could attain to in town in the short season which her father could afford to give them—felt herself about a hundred when she attained her majority. She had done absolutely everything that can be done in the way of amusement—at least in England—and the last Winter and Spring had been devoted to doing the same sort of thing “abroad.” There was nothing new under the sun to this unfortunate young woman—unless, perhaps, it might be getting married, which had for some time begun to appear a worthy object in her eyes. To make a good match and gain a legitimate footing in the society to which Dropmore, etc., belonged; to be able to give “a good setting down” to the unapproachable women who ignored her from its heights—and to snatch the delights of a title by sheer strength and skill from among her hurly-burly of Guardsmen, this had begun to seem to Kate the thing most worth thinking of in the world. It was “full time” she should take some such step, for she was old, blasée, beginning to fear that she must be passée too,—at one and twenty! Nineteen at the outside is the age at which the rampant girl ought to marry in order to carry out her career without a cloud—the marriage, of course, bien entendu, being of an appropriate kind.
The Sunday which I have just described, on which Miss Susan did not go to church, had been spent by the young ladies in their usual way. There had been a river party, preceded by a luncheon at Everard’s house, which, having been planned when the weather was hot, had of course to be carried out, though the day was cold with that chill of July which is more penetrating than December. The girls in their white dresses had paid for their pleasure, and the somewhat riotous late dinner which awaited the party at the Hatch had scarcely sufficed to warm their feet and restore their comfort. It was only next morning, pretty late, over the breakfast which they shared in Kate’s room, the largest of the two inhabited by the sisters, that they could talk over their previous day’s pleasure. And even then their attention was disturbed by a curious piece of news which had been brought to them alongwith their tray, and which was to the effect that Herbert Austin had suddenly and miraculously recovered his health, thanks having been given for him in the parish church at St. Austin’s on the previous morning. The gardener had gone to church there, with the intention of negotiating with the gardener at Whiteladies about certain seedlings, and he had brought back the information. His wife had told it to the housekeeper, and the housekeeper to the butler, and the butler to the young ladies’ maid, so that the report had grown in magnitude as it rolled onward. Sarah reported with a courtesy that Mr. Herbert was quite well, and was expected home directly—indeed, she was not quite sure whether he was not at home already, and in church when the clergyman read out his name as returning thanks—that would be the most natural way; and as she thought it over, Sarah concluded, and said, that this must have been what she heard.
“Herbert better! what a bore!” said Sophy, not heeding the presence of the maid. “What right has he to get better, I should like to know, and cut papa out?”
“Everybody has a right to do the best for themselves, when they can,” said Kate, whose rôle it was to be sensible; “but I don’t believe it can be true.”
“I assure you, miss,” said Sarah, who was a pert maid, such as should naturally belong to such young ladies, “as gardener heard it with his own ears, and there could be no doubt on the subject. I said, ‘My young ladies won’t never believe it;’ and Mr. Beaver, he said, ‘They’ll find as it’s too true!’ ”
“It was very impudent of Beaver to say anything of the sort,” said Kate, “and you may tell him so. Now go; you don’t require to wait any longer. I’ll ring when I’m ready to have my hair done. Hold your tongue, Soph, for two minutes, till that girl’s gone. They tell everything, and they remember everything.”
“What do I care?” said Sophy; “if twenty people were here I’d just say the same. What an awful bore, when papa had quite made up his mind to have Whiteladies! I should like to do something to that Herbert, if it’s true; and it’s sure to be true.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Kate reflectively. “One often hears of these cases rallying just for a week or two—but there’sno cure for consumption. It would be too teasing if—but you may be sure it isn’t and can’t be—”
“Everything that is unpleasant comes true,” said Sophy. This was one of the sayings with which she amused her monde, and made Dropmore and the rest declare that “By Jove! that girl was not so soft as she looked.” “I think it is an awful bore for poor papa.”
After they had exhausted this gloomy view of the subject, they began to look at its brighter side, if it had one.
“After all,” said Sophy, “having Whiteladies won’t do very much for papa. It is clear he is not going to have an heir, and he can’t leave it to us; and what good would it do him, poor old thing, for the time he has to live?”
“Papa is not so very old,” said Kate, “nor so very fond of us, either, Sophy. He wants it for himself; and so should I, if I were in his place.”
“He wants it for the coming man,” said Sophy, “who won’t come. I wonder, for my part, that poor mamma don’t steal a child; I should in her place. Where would be the harm? and then everybody would be pleased.”
“Except Everard, and whoever marries Everard.”
“So long as that is neither you nor me,” said Sophy, laughing, “I don’t mind; I should rather like to spite Everard’s wife, if she’s somebody else. Why should men ever marry? I am sure they are a great deal better as they are.”
“Speaking of marrying,” said Kate seriously, “far the best thing for you to do, if it is true about Herbert, is to marryhim, Sophy. You are the one that is the most suitable in age. He is just a simple innocent, and knows nothing of the world, so you could easily have him, if you liked to take the trouble; and then Whiteladies would be secured, one way or another, and papa pleased.”
“But me having it would not be like him having it,” said Sophy. “Would he be pleased? You said not just now.”
“It would be the best that could be done,” said Kate; and then she began to recount to her sister certain things that Dropmore had said, and to ask whether Sophy thought they meant anything? which Sophy, wise in her sister’s concerns, however foolish in her own, did not think they did, though she herself hadcertain words laid up from “Alf,” in which she had more faith, but which Kate scouted. “They are only amusing themselves,” said the elder sister. “If Herbert does get better, marry him, Sophy, with my blessing, and be content.”
“And you could have Everard, and we should neither of us change our names, but make one charming family party—”
“Oh, bosh! I hate your family parties; besides, Everard would have nothing in that case,” said Kate, ringing the bell for the maid, before whom they did not exactly continue their discussion, but launched forth about Dropmore and Alf.
“There’s been some one over here from the barracks this morning,” said Sarah, “with a note for master. I think it was the Markis’s own man, miss.”
“Whatever could it be?” cried both the sisters together, for they were very slipshod in their language, as the reader will perceive.
“And Miss Kate did go all of a tremble, and her cheeks like strawberries,” Sarah reported in the servants’ hall, where, indeed, the Markis’s man had already learned that nothing but a wedding could excuse such goings on.
“We ain’t such fools as we look,” that functionary had answered with a wink, witty as his master himself.
I do not think that Kate, who knew the world, had any idea, after the first momentary thrill of curiosity, that Dropmore’s note to her father could contain anything of supreme importance, but it might be, and probably was, a proposal for some new expedition, at any one of which matters might come to a crisis; and she sallied forth from her room accordingly, in her fresh morning dress, looking a great deal fresher than she felt, and with a little subdued excitement in her mind. She went to the library, where her father generally spent his mornings, and gave him her cheek to kiss, and asked affectionately after his health.
“I do hope you have no rheumatism, papa, after last night. Oh, how cold it was! I don’t think I shall ever let myself be persuaded to go on the water in an east wind again.”
“Not till the next time Dropmore asks,” said her father, in his surliest voice.
“Dropmore, oh!” Kate shrugged her shoulders. “A great deal I care for what he asks. By-the-bye, I believe this is hiscipher. Have you been hearing from Dropmore this morning, papa? and what does his most noble lordship please to want?”
“Bah! what does it matter what he wants?” said Mr. Farrel-Austin, savagely. “Do you suppose I have nothing to do but act as secretary for your amusements? Not when I have news of my own like what I have this morning,” and his eye reverted to a large letter which lay before him with “Whiteladies” in a flowery heading above the date.
“Is it true, then, that Herbert is better?” said Kate.
“Herbert better! rubbish! Herbert will never be better; but that old witch has undermined me!” cried the disappointed heir, with flashing eyes.
“Papa has just heard that Herbert Austin, who has Whiteladies, you know—our place that is to be—is much better; and he is low about it,” said Sophy. “Of course, if Herbert were to get better it would be a great disappointment for us.”
This speech elicited a shout of laughter from Dropmore and the rest, with running exclamations of “Frank, by Jove,” and “I like people who speak their minds.”
“Well,” said Sophy, “if I were to say we were all delighted, who would believe me? It is the most enchanting old house in the world, and a good property, and we have always been led to believe that he was in a consumption. I declare I don’t know what is bad enough for him, if he is going to swindle us out of it, and live.”
“Sophy, you should not talk so wildly,” said mild Mrs. Austin from her sofa. “People will think you mean what you say.”
“And I do,” said the girl. “I hate a cheat. Papa is quite low about it, and so is cousin Everard. They are down upon their luck.”
“Am I?” said Everard, who was a little out of temper, it must be allowed, but chiefly because in the presence of the Guardsmen he was very much thrown into the shade. “I don’t know about being down on my luck; but it’s not a sweet expression for a young lady to use.”
“Oh, I don’t mind about expressions that young ladies ought to use!” said Sophy. A tinge of color came on her face at the reproof, but she tossed her pretty head, and went on all the more: “Why shouldn’t girls use the same words as other people do? You men want to keep the best of everything to yourselves—nice strong expressions and all the rest.”
“By Jove!” said Lord Alf; “mind you, I don’t like a girl toswear—it ain’t the thing somehow; but for a phrase like ‘down on his luck,’ or ‘awful fun,’ or anything like that—”
“And pray why shouldn’t you like a girl to swear?” said Kate. “ ‘By Jove,’ for instance? I like it. It gives a great deal of point to your conversation, Lord Alf.”
“Oh, bless you, that ain’t swearing. But it don’t do. I am not very great at reasons; but, by Jove, you must draw the line somewhere. I don’t think now that a girl ought to swear.”
“Except ‘her pretty oath of yea and nay,’ ” said Everard, who had a little, a very little, literature.
The company in general stared at him, not having an idea what he meant; and as it is more humbling somehow to fail in a shot of this description, which goes over the head of your audience, than it is to show actual inferiority, Everard felt himself grow very red and hot, and feel very angry.
The scene was the drawing-room at the Hatch, where a party of callers were spending the afternoon, eating bread-and-butter and drinking tea, and planning new delights. After this breakdown, for so he felt it, Everard withdrew hastily to Mrs. Austin’s sofa, and began to talk to her, though he did not quite know what it was about. Mild Mrs. Austin, though she did not understand the attempts which one or two of the visitors of the house had made to flirt with her, was pleased to be talked to, and approved of Everard, who was never noisy, though often “led away,” like all the others, by the foolishness of the girls.
“I am glad you said that about this slang they talk,” said Mrs. Austin. “Perhaps coming from you it may have some weight with them. They do not mind what I say. And have you heard any more about poor Herbert? You must not think Mr. Austin is low about it, as they said. They only say such things to make people laugh.”
This charitable interpretation arose from the poor lady’s desire to do the best for her step children, whom it was one of the regrets of her faded life, now and then breathed into the ear of a confidential friend, that she did not love as she ought.
“I have only heard he is better,” said Everard; “and it is no particular virtue on my part to be heartily glad of it. I am not poor Herbert’s heir.”
He spoke louder than he had any need to speak; for Mrs. Austin,though an invalid, was not at all deaf. But I fear that he had a hankering to be heard and replied to, and called back into the chattering circle which had formed round the girls. Neither Kate nor Sophy, however, had any time at the moment to attend to Everard, whom they felt sure they could wheedle back at any time. He gave a glance toward them with the corner of his eye, and saw Kate seriously inclining her pretty pink ear to some barrack joke which the most noble Marquis of Dropmore was recounting with many interruptions of laughter; while Sophy carried on with Lord Alf and an applauding auditory that discussion where the line should be drawn, and what girls might and might not do. “I hunt whenever I can,” Sophy was saying; “and wish there was a ladies’ club at Hurlingham or somewhere; I should go in for all the prizes. And I’m sure I could drive your team every bit as well as you do. Oh, what I would give just to have the ribbons in my hand! You should see then how a drag could go.”
Everard listened, deeply disgusted. He had not been in the least disgusted when the same sort of thing had been said to himself, but had laughed and applauded with the rest, feeling something quite irresistible in the notion of pretty Sophy’s manly longings. Her little delicate hands, her slim person, no weightier than a bird, the toss of her charming head, with its wavy, fair locks, like a flower, all soft color and movement, had put ineffable humor into the suggestion of those exploits in which she longed to emulate the heroes of the household brigade. But now, when Everard was outside the circle, he felt a totally different sentiment move him. Clouds and darkness came over his face, and I do not know what further severity might have come from his lips had not Mr. Farrel-Austin, looking still blacker than himself, come into the room, in a way which added very little to the harmony, though something to the amusement, of the party. He nodded to the visitors, snarled at the girls, and said something disagreeable to his wife, all in two minutes by the clock.
“How can you expect to be well, if you go on drinking tea for ever and ever?” he said to the only harmless member of the party. “Afternoon tea must have been invented by the devil himself to destroy women’s nerves and their constitutions.” He said this as loudly and with the same intention as had moved Everard;and he had more success, for Dropmore, Alf, and the rest turned round with their teacups in their hands, and showed their excellent teeth under their moustachios in a roar of laughter. “I had not the least idea I was so amusing,” said Mr. Farrel, sourer than ever. “Here, Everard, let me have a word with you.”
“By Jove! heisdown on his luck,” said Lord Alf to Sophy in an audible aside.
“Didn’t I tell you so?” said the elegant young lady; “and when he’s low he’s always as cross as two sticks.”
“Everard,” said Mr. Farrel-Austin, “I am going over to Whiteladies on business. That old witch, Susan Austin, has outwitted us both. As it is your interest as well as mine, you had better drive over with me—unless you prefer the idiocy here to all the interests of life, as some of these fools seem to do.”
“Not I,” said Everard with much stateliness, “as you may perceive, for I am taking no part in it. I am quite at your service. But if it’s about poor Herbert, I don’t see what Miss Susan can have to do with it,” he added, casting a longing look behind.
“Bah! Herbert is neither here nor there,” said the heir-presumptive. “You don’t suppose I put any faith in that. She has spread the rumor, perhaps, to confuse us and put us off the scent. These old women,” said Mr. Farrel with deliberate virulence, “are the very devil when they put their minds to it. And you are as much interested as I am, Everard, as I have no son—and what with the absurdity and perverseness of women,” he added, setting his teeth with deliberate virulence, “don’t seem likely to have.”
I don’t know whether the company in the drawing-room heard this speech. Indeed, I do not think they could have heard it, being fully occupied by their own witty and graceful conversation. But there came in at this moment a burst of laughter which drove the two gentlemen furious in quite different ways, as they strode with all the dignity of ill-temper down stairs. Farrel-Austin did not care for the Guardsmen’s laughter in itself, nor was he critical of the manners of his daughters, but he was in a state of irritation which any trifle would have made to boil over. And Everard was in that condition of black disapproval which every word and tone increases, and to which the gayety of a laugh is the direst of offences. He would have laughed as gayly as anyof them had he been seated where Lord Alf was; but being “out of it,” to use their own elegant language, he could see nothing but what was objectionable, insolent, nay, disgusting, in the sound.
What influenced Farrel-Austin to take the young man with him, however, I am unable to say. Probably it was the mere suggestion of the moment, the congenial sight of a countenance as cloudy as his own, and perhaps a feeling that as (owing to the perverseness of women) their interests were the same, Everard might help him to unravel Miss Susan’s meaning, and to ascertain what foundation in reality there was for her letter which had disturbed him so greatly; and then Everard was the friend and pet of the ladies, and Farrel felt that to convey him over as his own second and backer up, would inflict a pang upon his antagonist; which, failing victory for yourself, is always a good thing to do. As for Everard, he went in pure despite, a most comprehensible reason, hoping to punish by his dignified withdrawal the little company whose offence was that it did not appreciate his presence. Foolish yet natural motive—which will continue to influence boys and girls, and even men and women, as long as there are two sets of us in the world; and that will be as long as the world lasts, I suppose.
The two gentlemen got into the dog-cart which stood at the door, and dashed away across the Summer country in the lazy, drowsy afternoon, to Whiteladies. The wind had changed and was breathing softly from the west, and Summer had reconquered its power. Nothing was moving that could help it through all the warm and leafy country. The kine lay drowsy in the pastures, not caring even to graze, or stood about, the white ones dazzling in the sunshine, contemplating the world around in a meditative calm. The heat had stilled every sound, except that of the insects whose existence it is; and the warm grass basked, and the big white daisies on the roadside trembled with a still pleasure, drinking in the golden light into their golden hearts.
But the roads were dusty, which was the chief thing the two men thought of except their business. Everard heard for the first time of the bargain Farrel had made with the Austins of Bruges, and did not quite know what to think of it, or which side to take in the matter. A sensation of annoyance that his companion had succeeded in finding people for whom he had himselfmade so many vain searches, was the first feeling that moved him. But whether he liked or did not like Farrel’s bargain, he could not tell. He did not like it, because he had no desire to see Farrel-Austin reigning at Whiteladies; and he did not dislike it because, on the whole, Farrel would probably make a better Squire than an old shopkeeper from the Netherlands; and thus his mind was so divided that he could not tell what he thought. But he was very curious about Miss Susan’s prompt action in the matter, and looked forward with some amusement and interest to hear what she had done, and how she had outwitted the expectant heir.
This idea even beguiled his mind out of the dispositions of general misanthropy with which he had started. He grew eager to know all about it, and anticipated with positive enjoyment the encounter between the old lady who was the actual Squire, and his companion who was the prospective one. As they neared Whiteladies, too, another change took place in Everard. He had almost been Farrel’s partisan when they started, feeling in the mutual gloom, which his companion shared so completely, a bond of union which was very close for the moment. But Everard’s gloom dispersed in the excitement of this new object; in short, I believe the rapid movement and change of the air would of themselves have been enough to dispel it—whereas the gloom of the other deepened. And as they flew along the familiar roads, Everard felt the force of all the old ties which attached him to the old house and its inmates, and began to feel reluctant to appear before Miss Susan by the side of her enemy. “If you will go in first I’ll see to putting up the horse,” he said when they reached the house.
“There is no occasion for putting up the horse,” said Farrel, and though Everard invented various other excuses for lingering behind, they were all ineffectual. Farrel, I suppose, had the stronger will of the two, and he would not relinquish the pleasure of giving a sting to Miss Susan by exhibiting her favorite as his backer. So the young man was forced to follow him whether he would or not; but it was with a total revolution of sentiment. “I only hope she will outwit the fellow; and make an end of him clean,” Everard said to himself.
They were shown into the hall, where Miss Susan chose, forsome reason of her own, to give them audience. She appeared in a minute or two in her gray gown, and with a certain air of importance, and shook hands with them.
“What, you here, Everard?” she said with a smile and a cordial greeting. “I did not look for this pleasure. But of course the business is yours as well as Mr. Farrel’s.” It was very seldom that Miss Susan condescended to add Austin to that less distinguished name.
“I happened—to be—at the Hatch,” said Everard, faltering.
“Yes, he was with my daughters; and as he was there I made him come with me, because of course he may have the greatest interest,” said Mr. Farrel, “as much interest almost as myself—”
“Just the same,” said Miss Susan briskly; “more indeed, because he is young and you are old, cousin Farrel. Sit down there, Everard, and listen; though having a second gentleman to hear what I have to say is alarming, and will make it all the harder upon me.”
Saying this, she indicated a seat to Farrel and one to Everard (he did not know if it was with intention that she placed him opposite to the gallery with which he had so many tender associations) and seated herself in the most imposing chair in the room, as in a seat of judgment. There was a considerable tremor about her as she thus, for the first time, personally announced what she had done; but this did not appear to the men who watched her, one with affectionate interest and a mixture of eagerness and amusement, the other with resolute opposition, dislike, and fear. They thought her as stately and strong as a rock, informing her adversary thus, almost with a proud indifference, of the way in which her will had vanquished his, and were not the least aware of the flutter of consciousness which sometimes seemed almost to take away her breath.
“I was much surprised, I need not say, by your letter,” said Farrel, “surprised to hear you had been at Bruges, as I know you are not given to travelling; and I do not know how to understand the intimation you send me that my arrangement with our old relative is not to stand. Pardon me, cousin Susan, but I cannot imagine why you should have interfered in the matter, or why you should prefer him to me.”
“What has my interference to do with it?” she said, speakingslowly to preserve her composure; though this very expedient of her agitation made her appear more composed. “I had business abroad,” she went on with elaborate calm, “and I have always taken a great interest in these Austins. They are excellent people—in their way; but it can scarcely be supposed that I should prefer people in their way to any other. They are not the kind of persons to step into my father’s house.”
“Ah, you feel that!” said Farrel, with an expression of relief.
“Of course I must feel that,” said Miss Susan, with that fervor of truth which is the most able and successful means of giving credence to a lie; “but what has my preference to do with it? I don’t know if they told you, poor old people, that the son they were mourning had left a young widow?—a very important fact.”
“Yes, I know it. But what of that?”
“What of that? You ask me so, you a married man with children of your own! It is very unpleasant for a lady to speak of such matters, especially before a young man like Everard; but of course I cannot shrink from performing my promise. This young widow, who is quite overwhelmed by her loss, is—in short, there is a baby expected. There now, you know the whole.”
It was honestly unpleasant to Miss Susan, though she was a very mature, and indeed, old woman, to speak to the men of this, so much had the bloom of maidenhood, that indefinable fragrance of youthfulness which some unwedded people carry to the utmost extremity of old age, lingered in her. Her cheek colored, her eyes fell; nature came in again to lend an appearance of perfect verity to all she said, and, so complicated are our human emotions, that, at the moment, it was in reality this shy hesitation, so natural yet so absurd at her years, and not any consciousness of her guilt, which was uppermost in her mind. She cast down her eyes for the moment, and a sudden color came to her face; then she looked up again, facing Farrel, who in the trouble of his mind, repeating the words after her, had risen from his seat.
“Yes,” she said, “of course you will perceive that in these circumstances they cannot compromise themselves, but must wait the event. It may be a girl, of course,” Miss Susan added, steadily, “as likely as not; and in that case I suppose your bargain stands. We must all”—and here her feelings got the better of her,and she drew along shivering breath of excitement—“await the event.”
With this she turned to Everard, making a hasty movement of her hands and head as if glad to throw off an unpleasing subject. “It is some time since I have seen you,” she said. “I am surprised that you should have taken so much interest in this news as to come expressly to hear it: when you had no other motive—”
How glad she was to get rid of a little of her pent-up feelings by this assault.
“I had another motive,” said the young man, taken by surprise, and somewhat aggrieved as well; “I heard Herbert was better—getting well. I heartily hope it is true.”
“You heartily hope it is true? Yes, yes, I believe you do, Everard, I believe you do!” said Miss Susan, melting all of a sudden. She put up her handkerchief to her eyes to dry the tears which belonged to her excitement as much as the irritation. “As for getting well, there are no miracles nowadays, and I don’t hope it, though Augustine does, and my poor little Reine does, God help her. No, no, I cannot hope for that; but better he certainly is—for the moment. They have been able to get him out again, and the doctor says—Stop, I have Reine’s letter in my pocket; I will read you what the doctor says.”
All this time Farrel-Austin, now bolt upright on the chair which he had resumed after receiving the thunderbolt, sat glooming with his eyes fixed on air, and his mind transfixed with this tremendous arrow. He gnawed his under lip, out of which the blood had gone, and clenched his hands furtively, with a secret wish to attack some one, but a consciousness that he could do nothing, which was terrible to him. He never for a moment doubted the truth of the intimation he had just received, but took it as gospel, doubting Miss Susan no more than he doubted the law, or any other absolutely certain thing. A righteous person has thus an immense advantage over all false and frivolous people in doing wrong as well as in other things. The man never doubted her. He did not care much for a lie himself, and would perhaps have shrunk from few deceits to secure Whiteladies for himself; but he no more suspected her than he suspected Heaven itself. He sat like one stunned, and gnawed his lip and devoured his heart in sharp disappointment, mortification, and pain. He did not know whatto say or do in this sudden downfall from the security in which he had boasted himself, but sat hearing dully what the other two said, without caring to make out what it was. As for Miss Susan, she watched him narrowly, holding her breath, though she did nothing to betray her scrutiny. She had expected doubt, questioning, cross-examination; and he said nothing. In her guilty consciousness she could not realize that this man whom she despised and disliked could have faith in her, and watched him stealthily, wondering when he would break out into accusations and blasphemies. She was almost as wretched as he was, sitting there so calmly opposite to him, making conversation for Everard, and wondering, Was it possible he could believe her? Would he go off at once to find out? Would her accomplices stand fast? Her heart beat wildly in her sober bosom, when, feeling herself for the first time in the power of another, she sat and asked herself what was going to happen, and what Farrel-Austin could mean?
Afteraffairs had come to the point described in our last chapter, when Miss Susan had committed herself openly to her scheme for the discomfiture of Farrel-Austin, and that personage had accepted, with a bitterness I cannot describe, the curiouscontretemps(as he thought) which thus thrust him aside from the heirship, of which he had been so certain, and made everything more indefinite than ever—there occurred a lull in the family story. All that could be done was to await the event which should determine whether a new boy was to spring of the old Austin stock, or the conspiracy to come to nothing in the person of a girl. All depended upon Providence, as Miss Susan said, with the strange mixture of truth and falsehood which distinguished this extraordinary episode in her life. She said this without a change of countenance, and it was absolutely true. If Providence chose to defeat her fraud, and bring all her wicked plans to nothing, it was still within the power of Heaven to do so in the most natural and simple way. In short, it thus depended upon Providence—she said to herself, in the extraordinary train of casuistical reasoning which went through her mind on this point—whether she really should be guilty of this wrong or not. It was a kind of Sortes into which she had thrown herself—much as a man might do who put it upon the hazard of a “toss-up” whether he should kill another man or not. The problematical murderer might thus hold that some power outside of himself had to do with his decision between crime and innocence; and so did Miss Susan. It was, she said to herself, within the arbitration of Providence—Providence alone could decide; and the guilty flutter with which her heart sometimes woke in her, in the uncertainty of the chances before her, was thus calmed down by an almost pioussense (as she felt it) of dependence upon “a higher hand.” I do not attempt to explain this curious mixture of the habits of an innocent and honorable and even religious mind, with the one novel and extraordinary impulse to a great wrong which had seized upon Miss Susan once in her life, without, so to speak, impairing her character, or indeed having any immediate effect upon its general strain. She would catch herself even saying a little prayer for the success of her crime sometimes, and would stop short with a hard-drawn breath, and such a quickening of all her pulses as nothing in her life had ever brought before; but generally her mind was calmed by the thought that as yet nothing was certain, but all in the hands of Providence; and that her final guilt, if she was doomed to be guilty, would be in some way sanctioned and justified by the deliberate decision of Heaven.
This uncertainty it was, no doubt, which kept up an excitement in her, not painful except by moments, a strange quickening of life, which made the period of her temptation feel like a new era in her existence. She was not unhappy, neither did she feel guilty, but only excited, possessed by a secret spring of eagerness and intentness which made all life more energetic and vital. This, as I have said, was almost more pleasurable than painful, but in one way she paid the penalty. The new thing became her master-thought; she could not get rid of it for a moment. Whatever she was doing, whatever thinking of, this came constantly uppermost. It looked her in the face, so to speak, the first thing in the morning, and never left her but reluctantly when she went to sleep at the close of the day, mingling broken visions of itself even with her dreams, and often waking her up with a start in the dead of night. It haunted her like a ghost; and though it was not accompanied by any sense of remorse, her constant consciousness of its presence gradually had an effect upon her life. Her face grew anxious; she moved less steadily than of old; she almost gave up her knitting and such meditative occupations, and took to reading desperately when she was not immersed in business—all to escape from the thing by her side, though it was not in itself painful. Thus gradually, insidiously, subtly, the evil took possession of her life.
As for Farrel-Austin, his temper and general sensibility were impaired by Miss Susan’s intimation to an incalculable degree. There was no living with him, all his family said. He too awaitedthe decision of Providence, yet in anything but a pious way; and poor Mrs. Farrel-Austin had much to bear which no one heard of.
“Feel poorly. What is the good of your feeling poorly,” he would say to her with whimsical brutality. “Any other woman but you would have seen what was required of her. Why, even that creature at Bruges—that widow! It is what women were made for; and there isn’t a laborer’s wife in the parish but is up to as much as that.”
“Oh, Farrel, how can you be so unkind?” the poor woman would say. “But if I had a little girl you would be quite as angry, and that could not be my fault.”
“Have a girl if you dare!” said the furious heir-presumptive. And thus he awaited the decision of Providence—more innocently, but in a much less becoming way, than Miss Susan did. It was not a thing that was publicly spoken of, neither was the world in general aware what was the new question which had arisen between the two houses, but its effects were infinitely less felt in Whiteladies than in the internal comfort of the Hatch.
In the midst of thissourdand suppressed excitement, however, the new possibility about Herbert, which poor Augustine had given solemn thanks for, but which all the experienced people had treated as folly, began to grow and acquire something like reality. A dying life may rally and flicker in the socket for a day or two, but when the improvement lasts for a whole month, and goes on increasing, even the greatest sceptic must pause and consider. It was not till Reine’s letter arrived, telling the doctor’s last opinion that there had always been something peculiar in the case, and that he could no longer say that recovery was impossible, that Miss Susan’s mind first really opened to the idea. She was by herself when this letter came, and read it, shaking her head and saying, “Poor child!” as usual; but when she had got to the end, Miss Susan made a pause and drew a long breath, and began at the beginning again, with a curiously awakened look in her face. In the middle of this second reading, she suddenly sprang up from her seat, said out loud (being all alone), “There will be no need for it then!” and burst into a sudden flood of tears. It was as if some fountain had opened in her breast; she could not stop crying, or saying things to herself, in the strange rapture that came upon her. “No need, no need; itwill not matter!” she said again and again, not knowing that she was speaking.
“What will not matter?” said Augustine, who had come in softly and stood by, looking on with grave surprise.
Augustine knew nothing about Bruges—not even of the existence of the Austins there, and less (I need not say) of the decision of Providence for which her sister waited. Miss Susan started to her feet and ran to her, and put the letter into her hand.
“I do begin to believe the boy will get well,” she cried, her eyes once more overflowing.
Her sister could not understand her excitement; she herself had made up her simple mind to Herbert’s certain recovery long before, when the first letter came.
“Yes, he will recover,” she said; “I do not go by the doctor, but by my feelings. For some time I have been quite sure that an answer was coming, and Mary Matthews has said the same thing to me. We did not know, of course, when it would come. Yes, he will get better. Though it was so very discouraging, we have never ceased, never for a day—”
“Oh, my dear!” said Miss Susan, her heart penetrated and melting, “you have a right to put confidence in your prayers, for you are as good as a child. Pray for us all, that our sins may be forgiven us. You don’t know, you could not think, what evil things come into some people’s minds.”
“I knew you were in temptation,” said Augustine gently; and she went away, asking no questions, for it was the time for her almshouses’ service, which nothing ever was permitted to disturb.
And the whole parish, which had shaken its head and doubted, yet was very ready to believe news that had a half-miraculous air, now accepted Herbert’s recovery as certain. “See what it is to be rich,” some of the people said; “if it had been one o’ our poor lads, he’d been dead years ago.” The people at the almshouses regarded it in a different way. Even the profane ones among them, like old John, who was conscious of doing very little to swell the prayers of the community, felt a certain pride in the news, as if they had something to do with the event. “We’ve prayed him back to life,” said old Mrs. Matthews, who was very anxious that some one should send an account of it to theMethodist Magazine, and had the courage to propose this step to Dr.Richard, who nearly fainted at the proposition. Almost all the old people felt a curious thrill of innocent vanity at having thus been instrumental in so important an event; but the village generally resented this view, and said it was like their impudence to believe that God Almighty would take so much notice of folks in an alms-house. Dr. Richard himself did not quite know what to say on the subject. He was not sure that it was “in good taste” to speak of it so, and he did not think the Church approved of any such practical identification of the benefit of her prayers. In a more general way, yes; but to say that Herbert’s recovery and the prayers of the almshouses were cause and effect was rather startling to him. He said to his wife that it was “Dissenterish”—a decision in which she fully agreed. “Very dissenterish, my dear, and not at all in good taste,” Mrs. Richard said.
But while the public in general, and the older persons involved, were thus affected by the news, it had its effect too, in conjunction with other circumstances, upon the young people, who were less immediately under its influence. Everard Austin, who was not the heir-presumptive, and indeed now knew himself to be another degree off from that desirable position, felt nothing but joy at his cousin’s amendment; and the girls at the Hatch were little affected by the failure of their father’s immediate hopes. But other things came in to give it a certain power over their future lives. Kate took it so seriously upon herself to advise Sophy as to her future conduct in respect to the recovered invalid, that Sophy was inspired to double efforts for the enjoyment of the present moment, which might, if she accepted her sister’s suggestion, be all that was left to her of the pleasure she enjoyed most.