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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/13461-0.txt b/13461-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f31201b --- /dev/null +++ b/13461-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12563 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13461 *** + +This ebook was formatted and edited by Robin Eugene Escovado + + + + +MISTRESS AND MAID. A Household Story. + +BY + +MISS MULOCH, AUTHOR OF +"JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN," "OLIVE," "THE OGILVIES," +"THE HEAD OF THE FAMILY," "NOTHING NEW," "AGATHA'S HUSBAND," &c,, &c. + +RICHMOND: +WEST & JOHNSTON, PUBLISHERS. +1864. Printed at the Lynchburg "Virginian" Book and Job Office. + + +MISTRESS AND MAID. + + + +CHAPTER I. + +She was a rather tall, awkward, and strongly-built girl of about +fifteen. This was the first impression the "maid" gave to her +"mistresses," the Misses Leaf, when she entered their kitchen, +accompanied by her mother, a widow and washer-woman, by name Mrs. +Hand. I must confess, when they saw the damsel, the ladies felt a +certain twinge of doubt as to whether they had not been rash in +offering to take her; whether it would not have been wiser to have +gone on in their old way--now, alas! grown into a very old way, so as +almost to make them forget they had ever had any other--and done +without a servant still. + +Many consultations had the three sisters held before such a +revolutionary extravagance was determined on. But Miss Leaf was +beginning both to look and to feel "not so young as she had been;" +Miss Selina ditto; though, being still under forty, she would not +have acknowledged it for the world. And Miss Hilary young, bright, +and active as she was, could by no possibility do every thing that +was to be done in the little establishment: be, for instance, in +three places at once--in the school-room, teaching little boys and +girls, in the kitchen cooking dinner, and in the rooms up stairs busy +at house-maid's work. Besides, much of her time was spent in waiting +upon "poor Selina," who frequently was, or fancied her self, too ill +to take any part in either the school or house duties. + +Though, the thing being inevitable, she said little about it, Miss +Leaf's heart was often sore to see Hilary's pretty hands smeared with +blacking of grates, and roughened with scouring of floors. To herself +this sort of thing had become natural--but Hilary! + +All the time of Hilary's childhood, the youngest of the family had of +course, been spared all house-work; and afterward her studies had +left no time for it. For she was a clever girl, with a genuine love +of knowledge Latin, Greek, and even the higher branches of arithmetic +and mathematics, were not beyond her range; and this she found much +more interesting than washing dishes or sweeping floors. True, she +always did whatever domestic duty she was told to do; but her bent +was not in the household line. She had only lately learned to "see +dust," to make a pudding, to iron a shirt; and, moreover, to reflect, +as she woke up to the knowledge of how these things should be done, +and how necessary they were, what must have been her eldest sister's +lot during all these twenty years! What pains, what weariness, what +eternal toil must Johanna have silently endured in order to do all +those things which till now had seemed to do themselves! + +Therefore, after much cogitation as to the best and most prudent way +to amend matters, and perceiving with her clear common sense that, +willing as she might be to work in the kitchen, her own time would be +much more valuably spent in teaching their growing school. It was +Hilary who these Christmas holidays, first started the bold idea, "We +must have a servant;" and therefore, it being necessary to begin with +a very small servant on very low wages, (£3 per annum was, I fear the +maximum), did they take this Elizabeth Hand. So, hanging behind her +parent, an anxious-eyed, and rather sad-voiced woman, did Elizabeth +enter the kitchen of the Misses Leaf. + +The ladies were all there. Johanna arranging the table for their +early tea: Selina lying on the sofa trying to cut bread and butter: +Hilary on her knees before the fire, making the bit of toast, her +eldest sister's one luxury. This was the picture that her three +mistresses presented to Elizabeth's eyes: which, though they seemed +to notice nothing, must, in reality, have noticed every thing. + +"I've brought my daughter, ma'am, as you sent word you'd take on +trial," said Mrs. Hand, addressing herself to Selina, who, as the +tallest, the best dressed, and the most imposing, was usually +regarded by strangers as the head of the family. + +"Oh. Joanna, my dear." + +Miss Leaf came forward, rather uncertainly, for she was of a shy +nature, and had been so long accustomed to do the servant's work of +the household, that she felt quite awkward in the character of +mistress. Instinctively she hid her poor hands, that would at once +have betrayed her to the sharp eyes of the working-woman, and then, +ashamed of her momentary false pride, laid them outside her apron and +sat down. + +"Will you take a chair, Mrs. Hand? My sister told you. I believe all +our requirements We only want a good, intelligent girl. We are +willing to teach her every thing." + +"Thank you, kindly; and I be willing and glad for her to learn, +ma'am," replied the mother, her sharp and rather free tone subdued in +spite of herself by the gentle voice of Miss Leaf. Of course, living +in the same country town, she knew all about the three +school-mistresses, and how till now they had kept no servant. "It's +her first place, and her'll be awk'ard at first, most like. Hold up +your head, Lizabeth." + +"Is her name Elizabeth?" + +"Far too long and too fine," observed Selina from the sofa. "Call her +Betty." + +"Any thing you please, Miss; but I call her Lizabeth. It wor my young +missis' name in my first place, and I never had a second." + +"We will call her Elizabeth," said Miss Leaf, with the gentle +decision she could use on occasion. + +There was a little more discussion between the mother and the future +mistress as to holidays, Sundays, and so on, during which time the +new servant stood silent and impassive in the door-way between the +back kitchen and the kitchen, or, as it is called in those regions, +the house-place. + +As before said, Elizabeth was by no means, a personable girl, and her +clothes did not set her off to advantage. Her cotton frock hung in +straight lines down to her ankles, displaying her clumsily shod feet +and woolen stockings; above it was a pinafore--a regular child's +pinafore, of the cheap, strong, blue-speckled print which in those +days was generally worn. A little shabby shawl, pinned at the throat, +and pinned very carelessly and crookedly, with an old black bonnet, +much too small for her large head and her quantities of ill kept +hair, completed the costume. It did not impress favorably a lady who, +being, or rather having been very handsome herself, was as much alive +to appearances as the second Miss Leaf. + +She made several rather depreciatory observations, and insisted +strongly that the new servant should only be taken "on trial," with +no obligation to keep her a day longer than they wished. Her feeling +on the matter communicated itself to Johanna, who closed the +negotiation with Mrs. Hand, by saying. + +"Well, let us hope your daughter will suit us. We will give her a +fair chance at all events." + +"Which is all I can ax for, Miss Leaf. Her bean't much to look at, +but her's willin' sharp, and her's never told me a lie in her life. +Courtesy to thy missis, and say thee'lt do thy best, Lizabeth." + +Pulled forward Elizabeth did courtesy, but she never offered to +speak. And Miss Leaf, feeling that for all parties the interview had +better be shortened, rose from her chair. + +Mrs. Hand took the hint and departed, saying only, "Good-by, +Lizabeth," with a nod, half-encouraging, half-admonitory, which +Elizabeth silently returned. That was all the parting between mother +and daughter; they neither kissed nor shook hands, which +undemonstrative farewell somewhat surprised Hilary. + +Now, Miss Hilary Leaf had all this while gone on toasting. Luckily +for her bread the fire was low and black; meantime, from behind her +long drooping curls (which Johanna would not let her "turn up," +though she was twenty), she was making her observations on the new +servant. It might be that, possessing more head than the one and more +heart than the other, Hilary was gifted with deeper perception of +character than either of her sisters, but certainly her expression, +as she watched Elizabeth, was rather amused and kindly that +dissatisfied. + +"Now, girl, take off your bonnet," said Selina, to whom Johanna had +silently appealed in her perplexity as to the next proceeding with +regard to the new member of the household. + +Elizabeth obeyed, and then stood, irresolute, awkward, and wretched +to the last degree, at the furthest end of the house-place. + +"Shall I show you where to hang up your things?" said Hilary, +speaking for the first time; and at the new voice, so quick, +cheerful, and pleasant, Elizabeth visibly started. + +Miss Hilary rose from her knees, crossed the kitchen, took from the +girl's unresisting hands the old black bonnet and shawl, and hung +them up carefully on a nail behind the great eight-day clock. It was +a simple action, done quite without intention, and accepted without +acknowledgment, except one quick glance of that keen, yet soft grey +eye; but years and years after Elizabeth reminded Hilary of it. + +And now Elizabeth stood forth in her own proper likeness, unconcealed +by bonnet or shawl, or maternal protection. The pinafore scarcely +covered her gaunt neck and long arms; that tremendous head of rough, +dusky hair was evidently for the first time gathered into a comb. +Thence elf locks escaped in all directions, and were forever being +pushed behind her ears, or rubbed (not smoothed; there was nothing +smooth about her) back from her forehead, which, Hilary noticed, was +low, broad, and full. The rest of her face, except the +before-mentioned eyes was absolutely and undeniably plain. Her +figure, so far as the pinafore exhibited it, was undeveloped and +ungainly, the chest being contracted and the shoulders rounded, as if +with carrying children or other weights while still a growing girl. +In fact, nature and circumstances had apparently united in dealing +unkindly with Elizabeth Hand. + +Still here she was; and what was to be done with her? + +Having sent her with the small burden, which was apparently all her +luggage, to the little room--formerly a box-closet--where she was to +sleep, the Misses Leaf--or as facetious neighbors called them, the +Miss Leaves--took serious counsel together over their tea. + +Tea itself suggested the first difficulty. They were always in the +habit of taking that meal, and indeed every other, in the kitchen. It +saved time, trouble, and fire, besides leaving the parlor always tidy +for callers, chiefly pupils' parents, and preventing these latter +from discovering that the three orphan daughters of Henry Leaf, Esq., +solicitor, and sisters of Henry Leaf, Junior, Esq., also solicitor, +but whose sole mission in life seemed to have been to spend every +thing, make every body miserably, marry, and die, that these three +ladies did always wait upon themselves at meal-time, and did +sometimes breakfast without butter, and dine without meat. Now this +system would not do any longer. + +"Besides, there is no need for it," said Hilary, cheerfully. "I am +sure we can well afford both to keep and to feed a servant, and to +have a fire in the parlor every day. Why not take our meals there, +and sit there regularly of evenings?" + +"We must," added Selina, decidedly. "For my part, I couldn't eat, or +sew, or do any thing with that great hulking girl sitting starting +opposite, or standing; for how could we ask her to sit with us? +Already, what must she have thought of us--people who take tea in the +kitchen?" + +"I do not think that matters," said the eldest sister, gently, after +a moment's silence. "Every body in the town knows who and what we +are, or might, if they chose to inquire. We cannot conceal our +poverty if we tried; and I don't think any body looks down upon us +for it. Not even since we began to keep school, which you thought was +such a terrible thing, Selina." + +"And it was. I have never reconciled myself to teaching the baker's +two boys and the grocer's little girl. You were wrong, Johanna, you +ought to have drawn the line somewhere, and it ought to have excluded +trades-people." + +"Beggars can not be choosers," began Hilary. + +"Beggars!" echoed Selina. + +"No, my dear, we were never that," said Miss Leaf, interposing +against one of the sudden storms that were often breaking out between +these two. "You know well we have never begged or borrowed from any +body, and hardly ever been indebted to any body, except for the extra +lessons that Mr. Lyon would insist upon giving to Ascott at home." + +Here Johanna suddenly stopped, and Hilary, with a slight color rising +in her face, said-- + +"I think, sisters, we are forgetting that the staircase is quite +open, and though I am sure she has an honest look and not that of a +listener, still Elizabeth might hear. Shall I call her down stairs, +and tell her to light a fire in the parlor?" + +While she is doing it, and in spite of Selina's forebodings to the +contrary, the small maiden did it quickly and well, especially after +a hint or two from Hilary--let me take the opportunity of making a +little picture of this same Hilary. + +Little it should be, for she was a decidedly little woman: small +altogether, hands, feet, and figure being in satisfactory proportion. +Her movements, like those of most little women, were light and quick +rather than elegant; yet every thing she did was done with a neatness +and delicacy which gave an involuntary sense of grace and harmony. +She was, in brief, one of those people who are best described by the +word "harmonious;" people who never set your teeth on edge, or rub +you up the wrong way, as very excellent people occasionally do. Yet +she was not over-meek or unpleasantly amiable; there was a liveliness +and even briskness about her, as if the every day wine of her life +had a spice of Champagniness, not frothiness but natural +effervescence of spirit, meant to "cheer but not inebriate" a +household. + +And in her own household this gift was most displayed. No centre of a +brilliant, admiring circle could be more charming, more witty, more +irresistibly amusing than was Hilary sitting by the kitchen fire, +with the cat on her knee, between her two sisters, and the school-boy +Ascott Leaf, their nephew--which four individuals, the cat being not +the least important of them, constituted the family. + +In the family, Hilary shone supreme. All recognized her as the light +of the house, and so she had been, ever since she was born, ever +since her + + "Dying mother mild, + Said, with accents undefiled, + 'Child, be mother to this child.'" + +It was said to Johanna Leaf--who was not Mrs. Leaf's own child. But +the good step-mother, who had once taken the little motherless girl +to her bosom, and never since made the slightest difference between +her and her own children, knew well whom she was trusting. + +From that solemn hour, in the middle of the night, when she lifted +the hour-old baby out of its dead mother's bed into her own, it +became Johanna's one object in life. Through a sickly infancy, for it +was a child born amidst trouble, her sole hands washed, dressed, fed +it; night and day it "lay in her bosom, and was unto her as a +daughter." + +She was then just thirty: not too old to look forward to woman's +natural destiny, a husband and children of her own. But years slipped +by, and she was Miss Leaf still. What matter! Hilary was her +daughter. + +Johanna's pride in her knew no bounds. Not that she showed it much; +indeed she deemed it a sacred duty not to show it; but to make +believe her "child" was just like other children. But she was not. +Nobody ever thought she was--even in externals.--Fate gave her all +those gifts which are sometimes sent to make up for the lack of +worldly prosperity. Her brown eyes were as soft a doves' eyes, yet +could dance with fun and mischief if they chose; her hair, brown +also, with a dark-red shade in it, crisped itself in two wavy lines +over her forehead, and then turn bled down in two glorious masses, +which Johanna, ignorant, alas! of art, called very "untidy," and +labored in vain to quell under combs, or to arrange in proper, +regular curls Her features--well, they too, were good; better than +those unartistic people had any idea of--better even than Selina's, +who in her youth had been the belle of the town. But whether +artistically correct or not, Johanna, though she would on no account +have acknowledged it, believed solemnly that there was not such a +face in the whole world as little Hillary's. + +Possibly a similar idea dawned upon the apparently dull mind of +Elizabeth Hand, for she watched her youngest mistress intently, from +kitchen to parlor, and from parlor back to kitchen; and once when +Miss Hilary stood giving information as to the proper abode of broom, +bellows, etc., the little maid gazed at her with such admiring +observation that the scuttle she carried was titled, and the coals +were strewn all over the kitchen floor. At which catastrophe Miss +Leaf looked miserable. Miss Selina spoke crossly, and Ascott, who +just then came in to his tea, late as usual, burst into a shut of +laughter. + +It was as much as Hilary could do to help laughing herself, she being +too near her nephew's own age always to maintain a dignified +aunt-like attitude, but nevertheless, when, having disposed of her +sisters in the parlor, she coaxed Ascott into the school-room, and +insisted upon his Latin being done--she helping him, Aunt Hilary +scolded him well, and bound him over to keep the peace toward the new +servant. + +"But she is such a queer one. Exactly like a South Sea Islander. When +she stood with her grim, stolid countenance, contemplating the coals +oh, Aunt Hilary, how killing she was!" + +And the regular, rollicking, irresistible boy-laugh broke out again. + +"She will be great fun. Is she really to stay?" + +"I hope so," said Hilary, trying to be grave. "I hope never again to +see Aunt Johanna cleaning the stairs, and getting up to light the +kitchen fire of winter mornings, as she will do if we have not a +servant to do it for her. Don't you see, Ascott?" + +"Oh, I see," answered the boy, carelessly, "But don't bother me, +please. Domestic affairs are for women, not men." + +Ascott was eighteen, and just about to pass out of his caterpillar +state as a doctor's apprentice-lad into the chrysalis condition of a +medical student in London. "But," with sudden reflection, "I hope she +won't be in my way. Don't let her meddle with any of my books and +things." + +"No; you need not be afraid. I have put them all into your room. I +myself cleared your rubbish out of the box closet." + +"The box-closet! Now, really, I can't stand--" + +"She is to sleep in the box-closet; where else could she sleep?" said +Hilary, resolutely, though inly quaking a little; for somehow, the +merry, handsome, rather exacting lad bad acquired considerable +influence in this household of women. "You must put up with the loss +of your 'den.' Ascott; it would be a great shame if you did not, for +the sake of Aunt Johanna and the rest of us." + +"Um!" grumbled the boy, who, though he was not a bad fellow at heart, +had a boy's dislike to "putting up" with the slightest inconvenience. + +"Well, it won't last long. I shall be off shortly. What a jolly life +I'll have in London, Aunt Hilary! I'll see Mr. Lyon there too." + +"Yes," said Aunt Hilary, briefly, returning to Dido and Æneas; humble +and easy Latinity for a student of eighteen; but Ascott was not a +brilliant boy, and, being apprenticed early, his education had been +much neglected, till Mr. Lyon came as usher to the Stowbury +grammar-school, and happening to meet and take an interest in him, +taught him and his Aunt Hilary Latin, Greek, and mathematics +together, of evenings. + +I shall make no mysteries here. Human nature is human nature all the +world over. A tale without love in it would be unnatural, unreal--in +fact, a simple lie; for there are no histories and no lives without +love in them: if there could be, Heaven pity and pardon them, for +they would be mere abortions of humanity. + +Thank Heaven, we, most of us, do not philosophize: we only live. We +like one another, we hardly know why; we love one another, we still +less know why. If on the day she first saw--in church it was--Mr. +Lyon's grave, heavy-browed, somewhat severe face--for he was a +Scotsman, and his sharp, strong Scotch features did look "hard" +beside the soft, rosy, well conditioned youth of Stowbury--if on that +Sunday any one had told Hilary Leaf that the face of this stranger +was to be the one face of her life, stamped upon brain and heart, and +soul with a vividness that no other impressions were strong enough to +efface, and retained there with a tenacity that no vicissitudes of +time, or place, or fortunes had power to alter, Hilary would--yes, I +think she would--have quietly kept looking on. She would have +accepted her lot, such as it was, with its shine and shade, its joy +and its anguish; it came to her without her seeking, as most of the +solemn things in life do; and whatever it brought with it, it could +have come from no other source than that from which all high, and +holy, and pure loves ever must come--the will and permission of GOD. + +Mr. Lyon himself requires no long description. In his first visit he +had told Miss Leaf all about himself that there was to be known; that +he was, as they were, a poor teacher, who had altogether "made +himself," as so many Scotch students do. His father, whom he scarcely +remembered, had been a small Ayrshire farmer; his mother was dead, +and he had never had either brother or sister. + +Seeing how clever Miss Hilary was, and how much as a schoolmistress +she would need all the education she could get, he had offered to +teach her along with her nephew; and she and Johanna were only too +thankful for the advantage. But during the teaching he had also +taught her another thing, which neither had contemplated at the +time--to respect him with her whole soul, and to love him with her +whole heart. + +Over this simple fact let no more be now said. Hilary said nothing. +She recognized it herself as soon as he was gone; a plain, sad, +solemn truth, which there was no deceiving herself did not exist, +even had she wished its non-existence. Perhaps Johanna also found it +out, in her darling's extreme paleness and unusual quietness for a +while; but she too said nothing. Mr. Lyon wrote regularly to Ascott, +and once or twice to her, Miss Leaf; but though every one knew that +Hilary was his particular friend in the whole family, he did not +write to Hilary. He had departed rather suddenly, on account of some +plan which he said, affected his future very considerably; but which, +though he was in the habit of telling them his affairs, he did not +further explain. Still Johanna knew he was a good man, and though no +man could be quite good enough for her darling, she liked him, she +trusted him. + +What Hilary felt none knew. But she was very girlish in some things; +and her life was all before her, full of infinite hope. By-and-by her +color returned, and her merry voice and laugh were heard about the +house just as usual. + +This being the position of affairs, it was not surprising that after +Ascott's last speech Hilary's mind wandered from Dido and Æneas to +vague listening, as the lad began talking of his grand future--the +future of a medical student, all expenses being paid by his +godfather, Mr. Ascott, the merchant, of Russell Square, once a shop +boy of Stowbury. + +Nor was it unnatural that all Ascott's anticipations of London +resolved themselves, in his aunt's eyes, into the one fact that he +would "see Mr. Lyon." + +But in telling thus much about her mistresses, I have for the time +being lost sight of Elizabeth Hand. + +Left to herself, the girl stood for a minute or two looking around +her in a confused manner, then, rousing her faculties, began +mechanically to obey the order with which her mistress had quitted +the kitchen, and to wash up the tea-things. She did it in a fashion +that, if seen, would have made Miss Leaf thankful that the ware was +only the common set, and not the cherished china belonging to former +days: still she did it, noisily it is true, but actively, as if her +heart were in her work. Then she took a candle and peered about her +new domains. + +These were small enough; at least they would have seemed so to other +eyes than Elizabeth's; for, until the school-room and box-closet +above had been kindly added by the landlord, who would have done any +thing to show his respect for the Misses Leaf, it had been merely a +six-roomed cottage--parlor kitchen, back kitchen, and three upper +chambers. It was a very cozy house notwithstanding, and it seemed to +Elizabeth's eyes a perfect palace. + +For several minutes more she stood and contemplated her kitchen, with +the fire shining on the round oaken stand in the centre, and the +large wooden-bottomed chairs, and the loud-ticking clock, with its +tall case, the inside of which, with its pendulum and weights, had +been a perpetual mystery and delight, first to Hilary's and then to +Ascott's childhood. Then there was the sofa, large and ugly, but, oh! +so comfortable, with its faded, flowered chintz, washed and worn for +certainly twenty years. And, overall, Elizabeth's keen observation +was attracted by a queer machine apparently made of thin rope and +bits of wood, which hung up to the hooks on the ceiling--an +old-fashioned baby's swing. Finally, her eye dwelt with content on +the blue and red diamond tiled floor, so easily swept and mopped, and +(only Elizabeth did not think of that, for her hard childhood had +been all work and no play) so beautiful to whip tops upon! Hilary and +Ascott, condoling together over the new servant, congratulated +themselves that their delight in this occupation had somewhat failed, +though it was really not so many years ago since one of the former's +pupils, coming suddenly out of the school-room, had caught her in the +act of whipping a meditative top round this same kitchen floor. + +Meantime Elizabeth penetrated farther, investigating the back +kitchen, with its various conveniences; especially the pantry, every +shelf of which was so neatly arranged and beautifully clean. +Apparently this neatness impressed the girl with a sense of novelty +and curiosity; and though she could hardly be said to meditate--her +mind was not sufficiently awakened for that--still, as she stood at +the kitchen fire, a slight thoughtfulness deepened the expression of +her face, and made it less dull and heavy than it had at first +appeared. + +"I wonder which on 'em does it all. They must work pretty hard, I +reckon; and two o' them's such little uns." + +She stood a while longer; for sitting down appeared to be to +Elizabeth as new a proceeding as thinking; then she went up stairs, +still literally obeying orders, to shut windows and pull down blinds +at nightfall. The bedrooms were small, and insufficiently, nay, +shabbily furnished; but the floors were spotless--ah! poor +Johanna!--and the sheets, though patched and darned to the last +extremity, were white and whole. Nothing was dirty, nothing untidy. +There was no attempt at picturesque poverty--for whatever novelists +may say, poverty can not be picturesque; but all things were decent +and in order. The house, poor as it was, gave the impression of +belonging to "real ladies;" ladies who thought no manner of work +beneath them, and who, whatever they had to do, took the pains to do +it as well as possible. + +Mrs. Hand's roughly-brought-up daughter had never been in such a +house before, and her examination of every new corner of it seemed +quite a revelation. Her own little sleeping nook was fully as tidy +and comfortable as the rest, which fact was not lost upon Elizabeth. +That bright look of mingled softness and intelligence--the only thing +which beautified her rugged face--came into the girl's eyes as she +"turned down" the truckle-bed, and felt the warm blankets and sheets, +new and rather coarse, but neatly sewed. + +"Her's made 'em hersel', I reckon. La!" Which of her mistresses the +"her" referred to remained unspecified; but Elizabeth, spurred to +action by some new idea, went briskly back into the bedrooms, and +looked about to see if there was any thing she could find to do. At +last, with a sudden inspiration, she peered into a wash-stand, and +found there an empty ewer. Taking it in one hand and the candle in +the other, she ran down stairs. + +Fatal activity! Hilary's pet cat, startled from sleep on the kitchen +hearth, at the same instant ran wildly up stairs; there was a +start--a stumble--and then down came the candle, the ewer, Elizabeth, +and all. + +It was an awful crash. It brought every member of the family to see +what was the matter. + +"What has the girl broken?" cried Selina. + +"Where has she hurt herself?" anxiously added Johanna. + +Hilary said nothing, but ran for a light, and then picked up first +the servant, then the candle, and then the fragments of crockery. + +"Why, it's my ewer, my favorite ewer, and it's all smashed to bits, +and I never can match it again. You careless, clumsy, +good-for-nothing creature!" + +"Please, Selma," whispered her eldest sister. + +"Very well, Johanna. You are the mistress, I suppose; why don't you +speak to your servant?" + +Miss Leaf, in an humbled, alarmed way, first satisfied herself that +no bodily injury had been sustained by Elizabeth, and then asked her +how this disaster had happened? For a serious disaster she felt it +was. Not only was the present loss annoying, but a servant with a +talent for crockery breaking would be a far too expensive luxury for +them to think of retaining. And she had been listening in the +solitude of the parlor to a long lecture from her always dissatisfied +younger sister, on the great doubts Selina had about Elizabeth's +"suiting." + +"Come, now," seeing the girl hesitated, "tell me the plain truth. How +was it?" + +"It was the cat," sobbed Elizabeth. + +"What a barefaced falsehood." exclaimed Selina. "You wicked girl, how +could it possibly be the cat? Do you know that you are telling a lie, +and that lies are hateful, and that all liars go to--" + +"Nonsense, hush!" interrupted Hilary, rather sharply; for Selina's +"tongue," the terror of her childhood, now merely annoyed her. +Selina's temper was a long understood household fact--they did not +much mind it, knowing that her bark was worse than her bite--but it +was provoking that she should exhibit herself so soon before the new +servant. + +The latter first looked up at the lady with simple surprise; then, as +in spite of the other two, Miss Selina worked herself up into a +downright passion, and unlimited abuse fell upon the victim's devoted +head, Elizabeth's manner changed. After one dogged repetition of, "It +was the cat!" not another word could be got out of her. She stood, +her eyes fixed on the kitchen floor, her brows knitted, and her under +lip pushed out--the very picture of sullenness. Young as she was, +Elizabeth evidently had, like her unfortunate mistress, "a temper of +her own"--a spiritual deformity that some people are born with, as +others with hare-lip or club-foot; only, unlike these, it may be +conquered, though the battle is long and sore, sometimes ending only +with life. + +It had plainly never commenced with poor Elizabeth Hand. Her +appearance, as she stood under the flood of sharp words poured out +upon her, was absolutely repulsive. Even Miss Hilary turned away, and +began to think it would have been easier to teach all day and do +house work half the night, than have the infliction of a servant--to +say nothing of the disgrace of seeing Selina's "peculiarities" so +exposed before a stranger. + +She knew of old that to stop the torrent was impracticable. The only +chance was to let Selina expend her wrath and retire, and then to +take some quiet opportunity of explaining to Elizabeth that sharp +language was only "her way," and must be put up with. Humiliating as +this was, and fatal to domestic authority that the first thing to be +taught a new servant was to "put up" with one of her mistresses, +still there was no alternative.--Hilary had already foreboded and +made up her mind to such a possibility, but she had hoped it would +not occur the very first evening. + +It did, however, and its climax was worse even than she anticipated. +Whether, irritated by the intense sullenness of the girl. Selina's +temper was worse than usual, or whether, as is always the case with +people like her, something else had vexed her, and she vented it upon +the first cause of annoyance that occurred, certain it is that her +tongue went on unchecked till it failed from sheer exhaustion. And +then, as she flung herself on the sofa--oh, sad mischance!--she +caught sight of her nephew standing at the school-room door, grinning +with intense delight, and making faces at her behind her back. + +It was too much. The poor lady had no more words left to scold with; +but she rushed up to Ascott, and big lad as he was, she soundly boxed +his ears. + +On this terrible climax let the curtain fall. + + + +CHAPTER II. + +Common as were the small fends between Ascott and his Aunt Selina, +they seldom reached such a catastrophe as that described in my last +chapter. Hilary had to fly to the rescue, and literally drag the +furious lad back into the school-room; while Johanna, pale and +trembling, persuaded Selina to quit the field and go and lie down. +This was not difficult; for the instant she saw what she had done, +how she had disgraced herself and insulted her nephew. Selina felt +sorry. Her passion ended in a gush of "nervous" tears under the +influence of which she was led up stairs and put to bed, almost like +a child--the usual termination of these pitiful outbreaks. + +For the time nobody thought of Elizabeth. The hapless cause of all +stood "spectatress of the fray" beside her kitchen fire. What she +thought history saith not. Whether in her own rough home she was used +to see brothers and sisters quarrelling, and mothers boxing their +childrens' ears, can not be known; whether she was or was not +surprised to see the same proceedings among ladies and gentlemen, she +never betrayed, but certain it is that the little servant became +uncommonly serious; yes, serious rather than sulky, for her "black" +looks vanished gradually, as soon as Miss Selina left the kitchen. + +On the reappearance of Miss Hilary it had quite gone. But Hilary took +no notice of her; she was in search of Johanna, who, shaking and cold +with agitation, came slowly down stairs. + +"Is she gone to bed?" + +"Yes, my dear. It was the best thing for her; she is not at all well +to-day." + +Hilary's lip curled a little, but she replied not a word. She had not +the patience with Selina that Johanna had. She drew her elder sister +into the little parlor, placed her in the arm-chair, shut the door, +came and sat beside her, and took her hand. Johanna pressed it, shed +a quiet tear or two, and wiped them away. Then the two sisters +remained silent, with hearts sad and sore. + +Every family has its skeleton in the house: this was theirs. Whether +they acknowledged it or not, they knew quite well that every +discomfort they had, every slight jar which disturbed the current of +household peace, somehow or other originated with "poor Selina." They +often called her "poor" with a sort of pity--not unneeded. Heaven +knows! for if the unhappy are to be pitied, ten times more so are +those who make others miserable. + +This was Selina's case, and had been all her life. And, sometimes, +she herself knew it. Sometimes, after an especially bad outbreak, her +compunction and remorse would be almost as terrible as her passion; +forcing her sisters to make every excuse for her; she "did not mean +it," it was only "ill health," or "nerves," or her "unfortunate way +of taking things." + +But they knew in their hearts that not all their poverty and the +toils it entailed, not all the hardships and humiliation of their +changed estate, were half so bitter to bear as this something--no +moral crime, and yet in its results as fatal as crime--which they +called Selina's "way." + +Ascott was the only one who did not attempt to mince matters. When a +little boy he had openly declared he hated Aunt Salina; when he grew +up he as openly defied her, and it was a most difficult matter to +keep even decent peace between them. Hilary's wrath had never gone +further than wishing Selina was married, that appearing the easiest +way of getting rid of her. Latterly she had ceased this earnest +aspiration; it might be, because, learning to think more seriously of +marriage, she felt that a woman who is no blessing in her own +household, is never likely much to bless a husband's; and that, +looking still farther forward, it was, on the whole, a mercy of +Providence, which made Selina not the mother of children. + +Yet her not marrying had been somewhat a surprise; for she had been +attractive in her day, handsome and agreeable in society. But +perhaps, for all that, the sharp eye of the opposite sex had +discovered the cloven foot; since, though she had received various +promising attentions, poor Selina had never had an offer. Nor, +fortunately, had she ever been known to care for any body; she was +one of those women who would have married as a matter of course, but +who never would have been guilty of the weakness of falling in love. +There seemed small probability of shipping her off, to carry into a +new household the restlessness, the fretfulness, the captious +fault-finding with others, the readiness to take offence at what was +done and said to herself, which made poor Selina Leaf the +unacknowledged grief and torment of her own. + +Her two sisters sat silent. What was the use of talking? It would be +only going ever and over again the old thing; trying to ease and +shift a little the long familiar burden which they knew must be +borne. Nearly every household has, near or remote, some such burden, +which Heaven only can lift off or help to bear. And sometimes, +looking round the world outside, these two congratulated themselves, +in a half sort of way, that theirs was as light as it was; that +Selina was after all, a well-meaning well-principled woman, and, in +spite of her little tempers, really fond of her family, as she truly +was, at least as fond as a nature which has its centre in self can +manage to be. + +Only when Hilary looked, as to-night, into her eldest sister's pale +face, where year by year the lines were deepening, and saw how every +agitation such as the present shook her more and more--she who ought +to have a quiet life and a cheerful home, after so many hard +years--then Hilary, fierce in the resistance of her youth, felt as if +what she could have borne for herself she could not bear for Johanna, +and at the moment, sympathized with Ascott in actually "hating" Aunt +Selina. + +"Where is that boy? He ought to be spoken to," Johanna said, at +length, rising wearily. + +"I have spoken to him; I gave him a good scolding. He is sorry, and +promises never to be so rude again." + +"Oh no; not till the next time," replied Miss Leaf. hopelessly. "But +Hilary." with a sudden consternation, "what are we to do about +Elizabeth?" + +The younger sister had thought of that. She had turned over in her +mind all the pros and cons, the inevitable "worries" that would +result from the presence of an additional member of the family, +especially one from whom the family skeleton could not be hid, to +whom it was already only too fatally revealed. + +But Hilary was a clear headed girl, and she had the rare faculty of +seeing things as they really were, undistorted by her own likings or +dislikings--in fact, without reference to herself at all. She +perceived plainly that Johanna ought not to do the housework, that +Selina would not, and that she could not: ergo, they must keep a +servant. Better, perhaps, a small servant, over whom they could have +the same influence as over a child, than one older and more +independent, who would irritate her mistresses at home, and chatter +of them abroad. Besides, they had promised Mrs. Hand to give her +daughter a fair trial. For a month, then, Elizabeth was bound to +stay; afterward, time would show. It was best not to meet troubles +half way. + +This explained, in Hilary's cheerful voice, seemed greatly to +reassure and comfort her sister. + +"Yes, love, you are right; she must remain her month out, unless she +does something very wrong. Do you think that really was a lie she +told?" + +"About the cat? I don't quite know what to think. Let us call her, +and put the question once more. Do you put it, Johanna. I don't think +she could look at you and tell you a story." + +Other people, at sight of that sweet, grave face, its bloom faded, +and hairs silvered long before their time, yet beautiful, with an +almost childlike simplicity and childlike peace--most other people +would have been of Hilary's opinion. + +"Sit down; I'll call her. Dear me, Johanna, we shall have to set up a +bell as well as a servant, unless we had managed to combine the two." + +But Hilary's harmless little joke failed to make her sister smile; +and the entrance of the girl seemed to excite positive apprehension. +How was it possible to make excuse to a servant for her mistress's +shortcomings? how scold for ill-doing this young girl, to whom, ere +she had been a night in the house, so bad an example had been set? +Johanna half expected Elizabeth to take a leaf out of Selina's book +and begin abusing herself and Hilary. + +No: she stood very sheepish, very uncomfortable, but not in the least +bold or sulky--on the whole, looking rather penitent and humble. + +Her mistress took courage. + +"Elizabeth I want you to tell me the truth about that unfortunate +breakage. Don't be afraid. I had rather you broke every thing in the +house than have told me what was not true." + +"It was true; it was the cat." + +"How could that be possible? You were coming down stairs with the +ewer in your hand." + +"Her got under my feet, and throwed me down, and so I tumbled, and +smashed the thing agin the floor." + +The Misses Leaf glanced at each other. This version of the momentous +event was probable enough, and the girl's eager, honest manner gave +internal confirmatory evidence pretty strong. + +"I am sure she is telling the truth." said Hilary. "And remember what +her mother said about her word being always reliable." + +This reference was too much for Elizabeth. She burst out, not into +actual crying, but into a smothered choke. + +"If you donnot believe me, missus, I'd rather go home to mother." + +"I do believe you," said Miss Leaf, kindly then waited till the +pinafore, used as a pocket handkerchief, had dried up grief and +restored composure. + +"I can quite well understand the accident now; and I am sure if you +had put it as plainly at first, my sister would have understood it +too. She was very much annoyed, and no wonder. She will be equally +glad to find she was mistaken." + +Here Miss Leaf paused, somewhat puzzled how to express what she felt +it her duty to say, so as to be comprehended by the servant, and yet +not let down the dignity of the family Hilary came to her aid. + +"Miss Selina is sometimes hasty; but she means kindly always. You +must take care not to vex her, Elizabeth; and you must never answer +her back again, however sharply she speaks. It is not your business; +you are only a child, and she is your mistress." + +"Is her? I thought it was this 'un." + +The subdued clouding of Elizabeth's face, and her blunt pointing to +Miss Leaf as "this 'un." were too much for Hilary's gravity She was +obliged to retreat to the press, and begin an imaginary search for a +book. + +"Yes, I am the eldest, and I suppose you may consider me specially as +your mistress," said Johanna, simply." + +"Remember always to come to me in any difficulty; and above all, to +tell me every thing outright, as soon as it happens. I can forgive +you almost any fault, if you are truthful and honest; but there is +one thing I never could forgive, and that is deception. Now go with +Miss Hilary, and she will teach you how to make the porridge for +supper." + +Elizabeth obeyed silently; she had apparently a great gift for +silence. And she was certainly both obedient and willing; not stupid, +either, though a nervousness of temperament which Hilary was +surprised to find in so big and coarse-looking a girl, made her +rather awkward at first. However, she succeeded in pouring out and +carrying into the parlor, without accident, three platefuls of that +excellent condiment which formed the frugal supper of the family; but +which they ate, I grieve to say, in an orthodox southern fashion, +with sugar or treacle, until Mr. Lyon--greatly horrified thereby--had +instituted his national custom of "supping" porridge with milk. + +It may be a very unsentimental thing to confess, but Hilary, who even +at twenty was rather practical than poetical, never made the porridge +without thinking of Robert Lyon, and the day when he first staid to +supper, and ate it, or as he said and was very much laughed at, ate +"them" with such infinite relish Since then, whenever he came, he +always asked for his porridge, saying it carried him back to his +childish days. And Hilary, with that curious pleasure that women take +in waiting upon any one unto whom the heart is ignorantly beginning +to own the allegiance, humble yet proud, of Miranda to Ferdinand: + + "To be your fellow + You may deny me; but I'll be your servant + Whether you will or no." + +Hilary always contrived to make his supper herself. + +Those pleasant days were now over. Mr. Lyon was gone. As she stool +alone over the kitchen fire, she thought--as now and then she let +herself think for a minute or two in her busy prosaic life--of that +August night, standing at the front door, of his last "good-by," and +last hand-clasp, tight, warm, and firm; and somehow she, like +Johanna, trusted in him. + +Not exactly in his love; it seemed almost impossible that he should +love her, at least till she grew much more worthy of him than now; +but in himself, that he would never be less himself, less thoroughly +good and true than now. That, some time, he would be sure to come +back again, and take up his old relations with them, brightening +their dull life with his cheerfulness; infusing in their feminine +household the new element of a clear, strong, energetic, manly will, +which sometimes made Johanna say that instead of twenty-five the +young man might be forty; and, above all, bringing into their poverty +the silent sympathy of one who had fought his own battle with the +world--a hard one, too, as his face sometimes showed--though he never +said much about it. + +Of the results of this pleasant relation--whether she being the only +truly marriageable person in the house. Robert Lyon intended to marry +her, or was expected to do so, or that society would think it a very +odd thing if he did not do so--this unsophisticated Hilary never +thought at all. If he had said to her that the present state of +things was to go on forever; she to remain always Hilary Leaf, and he +Robert Lyon, the faithful friend of the family, she would have smiled +in his face and been perfectly satisfied. + +True, she had never had any thing to drive away the smile from that +innocent face; no vague jealousies aroused; no maddening rumors +afloat in the small world that was his and theirs. Mr. Lyon was grave +and sedate in all his ways; he never paid the slightest attention to, +or expressed the slightest interest in, any woman whatsoever. + +And so this hapless girl loved, him--just himself; without the +slightest reference to his "connections," for he had none; or his +"prospects," which, if he had any, she did not know of. Alas! to +practical and prudent people I can offer no excuse for her; except, +perhaps what Shakspeare gives in the creation of the poor Miranda. + +When the small servant re-entered the kitchen, Hilary, with a half +sigh, shook off her dreams, called Ascott out of the school-room, and +returned to the work-a-day world and the family supper. + +This being ended, seasoned with a few quiet words administered to +Ascott, and which on the whole he took pretty well, it was nearly ten +o'clock. + +"Far too late to have kept up such a child as Elizabeth; we must not +do it again," said Miss Leaf, taking down the large Bible with which +she was accustomed to conclude the day--Ascott's early hours at +school and their own house-work making it difficult of mornings. Very +brief the reading was, sometimes not more than half a dozen verses, +with no comment thereon; she thought the Word of God might safely be +left to expound itself Being a very humble-minded woman, she did not +feel qualified to lead long devotional "exercises," and she disliked +formal written prayers. So she merely read the Bible to the family, +and said after it the Lord's Prayer. + +But, constitutionally shy as Miss Leaf was to do even this in +presence of a stranger cost her some effort; and it was only a sense +of duty that made her say "yes" to Hilary's suggestion, "I suppose we +ought to call in Elizabeth?" + +Elizabeth came. + +"Sit down," said her mistress: and she sat down, staring uneasily +round about her, as if wondering what was going to befall her next. +Very silent was the little parlor; so small, that it was almost +filled up by its large square piano, its six cane-bottomed chairs, +and one easy chair, in which sat Miss Leaf with the great Book in her +lap. + +"Can you read, Elizabeth?" + +"Yes, ma'am." + +"Hilary, give her a bible." + +And so Elizabeth followed, guided by her not too clean finger, the +words, read in that soft, low voice, somewhere out of the New +Testament; words simple enough for the comprehension of a child or a +heathen. The "South Sea Islander," as Ascott persisted in calling +her, then, doing as the family did, turned round to kneel down; but +in her confusion she knocked over a chair, causing Miss Leaf to wait +a minute till reverent silence was restored. Elizabeth knelt, with +her eyes fixed on the wall: it was a green paper, patterned with +bunches of nuts. How far she listened, or how much she understood, it +was impossible to say; but her manner was decent and decorous. + +"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against +us." Unconsciously Miss Leaf's gentle voice rested on these words, so +needed in the daily life of every human being, and especially of +every family. Was she the only one who thought of "poor Selina?" + +They all rose from their knees, and Hilary out the Bible away. The +little servant "hung about," apparently uncertain what was next to be +done, or what was expected of her to do. Hilary touched her sister. + +"Yes," said Miss Leaf. recollecting herself, and assuming the due +authority, "it is quite time for all the family to be in bed. Take +care of your candle, and mind and be up at six tomorrow morning." + +This was addressed to the new maiden, who dropped a courtesy, and +said, almost cheerfully, "Yes, ma'am." + +"Very well, Good night. Elizabeth." + +And following Miss Leaf's example, the other two, even Ascott, said +civilly and kindly, "Good night, Elizabeth." + + + +CHAPTER III. + +The Christmas holidays ended, and Ascott left for London. It was the +greatest household change the Misses Leaf had known for years, and +they missed him sorely. Ascott was not exactly a lovable boy, and +yet, after the fashion of womankind, his aunts were both fond and +proud of him; fond, in their childless old maidenhood, of any sort of +nephew, and proud, unconsciously, that the said nephew was a big +fellow, who could look over all their heads, besides being handsome +and pleasant mannered, and though not clever enough to set the Thames +on fire, still sufficiently bright to make them hope that in his +future the family star might again rise. + +There was something pathetic in these three women's idealization of +him--even Selina's who though quarrelling with him to his face always +praised him behind his back,--that great, good-looking, lazy lad; +who, every body else saw clearly enough, thought more of his own +noble self than of all his aunts put together. + +The only person he stood in awe of was Mr. Lyon--for whom he always +protested unbounded respect and admiration. How far Robert Lyon liked +Ascott even Hilary could never quite find out; but he was always very +kind to him. + +There was one person in the house who, strange to say, did not +succumb to the all-dominating youth. From the very first there was a +smouldering feud between him and Elizabeth. Whether she overheard, +and slowly began to comprehend his mocking gibes about the "South Sea +Islander," or whether her sullen and dogged spirit resisted the first +attempts the lad made to "put upon her"--as he did upon his aunts, in +small daily tyrannies--was never found out; but certainly Ascott, the +general favorite, found little favor with the new servant. She never +answered when he "hollo'd" for her; she resisted blacking his boots +more than once a day; and she obstinately cleared the kitchen +fire-place of his "messes," as she ignominiously termed various pots +and pans belonging to what he called his "medical studies." + +Although the war was passive rather than aggressive, and sometimes a +source of private amusement to the aunts, still, on the whole, it was +a relief when the exciting cause of it departed; his new and most +gentlemanly port manteau being carried down stairs by Elizabeth +herself, of her own accord, with an air of cheerful alacrity, foreign +to her mien for some weeks past, and which, even in the midst of the +dolorous parting, amused Hilary extremely. + +"I think that girl is a character," she said afterward to Johanna. +"Any how she has curiously strong likes and dislikes." + +"You may say that, my dear; for she brightens up whenever she looks +at you." + +"Does she? Oh, that must be because I have most to do with her. It is +wonderful how friendly one gets over sauce pans and brooms; and what +reverence one inspires in the domestic mind when one really knows how +to make a bed or a pudding." + +"How I wish you had to do neither!" sighed Johanna, looking fondly at +the bright face and light little figure that was flitting about +putting the school-room to rights before the pupils came in. + +"Nonsense--I don't wish any such thing. Doing it makes me not a whit +less charming and lovely." She often applied these adjectives to +herself, with the most perfect conviction that she was uttering a +fiction patent to every body. I must be very juvenile also, for I'm +certain the fellow-passenger at the station to-day took me for +Ascott's sweetheart. When we were saying good by an old gentleman who +sat next him was particularly sympathetic, and you should have seen +how indignantly Ascott replied, "It's only my aunt!" + +Miss Leaf laughed, and the shadow vanished from her face, as Hilary +had meant it should. She only said, caressing her, "Well, my pet, +never mind. I hope you will have a real sweetheart some day." + +"I'm in no hurry, thank you, Johanna." + +But now was heard the knock after knock of the little boys and girls, +and there began that monotonous daily round of school labor, rising +from the simplicities of c, a, t, cat, and d, o, g, dog--to the +sublime heights of Pinnock and Lennie, Telemaque and Latin Delectus. +No loftier; Stowbury being well supplied with first class schools, +and having a vague impression that the Misses Leaf, born ladies and +not brought up as governesses, were not competent educators except of +very small children. + +Which was true enough until lately. So Miss Leaf kept contentedly to +the c, a, t, cat, and d, o, g, dog, of the little butchers and +bakers, as Miss Selina, who taught only sewing, and came into the +school-room but little during the day, scornfully termed them. The +higher branches such as they were, she left gradually to Hilary, who, +of late, possibly out of sympathy with a friend of hers, had begun to +show an actual gift for teaching school. + +It is a gift--all will allow; and chiefly those who have it not, +among which was poor Johanna Leaf. The admiring envy with which she +watched Hilary, moving briskly about from class to class, with a word +of praise to one and rebuke to another, keeping every one's attention +alive, spurring on the dull, controlling the unruly, and exercising +over every member in this little world that influence, at once the +strongest and most intangible and inexplicable--personal +influence--was only equaled by the way in which, at pauses in the +day's work, when it grew dull and monotonous or when the stupidity of +the children ruffled her own quick temper beyond endurance, Hilary +watched Johanna. + +The time I am telling of now is long ago. + +The Stowbury children, who were then little boys and girls, are now +fathers and mothers--doubtless a large proportion being decent +tradesfolk in Stowbury still; though, in this locomotive quarter, +many must have drifted elsewhere--where, Heaven knows. But not a few +of them may still call to mind Miss Leaf, who first taught them their +letters--sitting in her corner between the fire and the window, while +the blind was drawn down to keep out, first the light from her own +fading eyes, and, secondly, the distracting view of green fields and +trees from the youthful eyes by her side. They may remember still her +dark plain dress and her white apron, on which the primers, torn and +dirty, looked half ashamed to lie; and above all, her sweet face and +sweeter voice, never heard in any thing sharper than that grieved +tone which signified their being "naughty children." They may recall +her unwearied patience with the very dullest and most wayward of +them; her unfailing sympathy with every infantile pleasure and pain. +And I think they will acknowledge that whether she taught them much +or little--in this advancing age it might be thought little--Miss +Leaf taught them one thing--to love her. Which, as Ben Johnson said +of the Countess of Pembroke, was in itself a "liberal education." + +Hilary, too. Often when Hilary's younger and more restless spirit +chafed against the monotony of her life; when, instead of wasting her +days in teaching small children, she would have liked to be learning, +learning--every day growing wiser and cleverer, and stretching out +into that busy, bright, active world of which Robert Lyon had told +her--then the sight of Johanna's meek face bent over those dirty +spelling books would at once rebuke and comfort her. She felt, after +all, that she would not mind working on forever, so long as Johanna +still sat there. + +Nevertheless, that winter seemed to her very long--especially after +Ascott was gone. For Johanna, partly for money, and partly for +kindness, had added to her day's work four evenings a week when a +half educated mother of one of her little pupils came to be taught to +write a decent hand, and to keep the accounts of her shop. Upon which +Selina, highly indignant, had taken to spending her evenings in the +school room, interrupting Hilary's solitary studies there by many a +lamentation over the peaceful days when they all sat in the kitchen +together and kept no servant. For Selina was one of those who never +saw the bright side of any thing till it had gone by. + +"I'm sure I don't know how we are to manage with Elizabeth. That +greedy--" + +"And growing," suggested Hilary. + +"I say that greedy girl eats as much as any two of us. And as for her +clothes--her mother does not keep her even decent." + +"She would find it difficult upon three pounds a year." + +"Hilary, how dare you contradict me! I am only stating a plain fact." + +"And I another. But, indeed, I don't want to talk Selina." + +"You never do except when you are wished to be silent; and then your +tongue goes like any race horse." + +"Does it? Well, like Gilpin's, + + 'It carries weight: it rides a race, + 'Tis for a thousand pound?' + +--and I only wish it were. Heigh ho! if I could but earn a thousand +pounds!" + +Selina was too vexed to reply and for five quiet minutes Hilary bent +over her Homer which Mr. Lyon had taken such pleasure in teaching +her, because he said, she learned it faster than any of his grammar +school boys. She had forgotten all domestic grievances in a vision of +Thetis and the water nymphs; and was repeating to herself, first in +the sonorous Greek and then in Pope's small but sweet English, that +catalogue of oceanic beauties ending with + + "Black Janira and Janassa fair, + And Amatheia with her amber hair." + +"Black, did you say? I'm sure she was as black as a chimney sweep all +to-day. And her pinafore" + +"Her what? Oh, Elizabeth, you mean--" + +"Her pinafore had three rents in it, which she never thinks of +mending though I gave her needles and thread myself a week ago. But +she does not know how to use them any more than a baby." + +"Possibly, nobody ever taught her." + +"Yes; she went for a year to the National School, she says, and +learned both marking and sewing." + +"Perhaps she has never practiced them since. She could hardly have +had time, with all the little Hands to look after, as her mother says +she did. All the better for us. It makes her wonderfully patient with +our troublesome brats. It was only to day, when that horrid little +Jacky Smith hurt himself so, that I saw Elizabeth take him into the +kitchen, wash his face and hands, and cuddle him up and comfort him, +quite motherly. Her forte is certainly children." + +"You always find something to say for her." + +"I should be ashamed if I could not find something to say for any +body who is always abused." + +Another pause--and then Selina returned to the charge. + +"Have you ever observed, my dear, the extraordinary way she has of +fastening, or rather, not fastening her gown behind? She just hooks +it together at the top and at the waist, while between there is a--" + +"Hiatus valde deflendus. Oh dear me! what shall I do? Selina, how can +I help it if a girl of fifteen years old is not a paragon of +perfection? as of course we all are, if we only could find it out." + +And Hilary, in despair, rose to carry her candle and books into the +chilly but quiet bedroom, biting her lips the while lest she should +be tempted to say something which Selina called "impertinent," which +perhaps it was, from a younger sister to an elder. I do not set +Hilary up as a perfect character. Through sorrow only do people go on +to perfection; and sorrow, in its true meaning, the cherished girl +had never known. + +But that night, talking to Johanna before they went to sleep--they +had always slept together since the time when the elder sister used +to walk the room of nights with that pulling, motherless infant in +her arms--Hilary anxiously started the question of the little +servant. + +"I am afraid I vexed Selina greatly about her to-night, and yet what +can one do? Selina is so very unjust--always expecting +impossibilities. She would like to have Elizabeth at once a first +rate cook, a finished house-maid, and an attentive lady's maid, and +all without being taught! She gives her things to do, neither waiting +to see if they are comprehended by her, nor showing her how to do +them. Of course the girl stands gaping and staring and does not do +them, or does them so badly, that she gets a thorough scolding." + +"Is she very stupid, do you think?" asked Johanna, in unconscious +appeal to her pet's stronger judgment. + +"No, I don't. Far from stupid; only very ignorant, and--you would +hardly believe it--very nervous. Selina frightens her. She gets on +extremely well with me." + +"Any one would, my dear. That is," added the conscientious elder +sister, still afraid of making the "child" vain, "any one whom you +took pain with. But do you think you can ever make any thing out of +Elizabeth? Her month ends to-morrow. Shall we let her go?" + +"And perhaps get in her place a story-teller--a tale-bearer--even a +thief. No, no; let us + + 'Rather bear the ills we have, + Than fly to others that we know not of;' + +and a thief would be worse than even a South Sea Islander." + +"Oh yes, my dear," said Johanna, with a shiver. + +"By-the-by, the first step in the civilization of the Polynesians was +giving them clothes. And I have heard say that crime and rags often +go together; that a man unconsciously feels that he owes something to +himself and society in the way of virtue when he has a clean face and +clean shirt, and a decent coat on. Suppose we try the experiment of +dressing Elizabeth. How many old gowns have we?" + +The number was few. Nothing in the Leaf family was ever cast off till +its very last extremity of decay; the talent that + + "Gars auld claes look amaist as gude's the new" + +being specially possessed by Hilary. She counted over her own +wardrobe and Johanna's but found nothing that could be spared. + +"Yes, my love, there is one thing. You certainly shall never put on +that old brown merino again; though you have laid it so carefully by, +as if you meant it to come out as fresh as ever next winter. No, +Hilary, you must have a new gown, and you must give Elizabeth your +brown merino." + +Hilary laughed, and replied not. + +Now it might be a pathetic indication of a girl who had very few +clothes, but Hilary had a superstitious weakness concerning +hers.--Every dress had its own peculiar chronicle of the scenes where +it had been, the enjoyments she had shared in it. Particular dresses +were special memorials of her loves, her pleasures, her little +passing pains; as long as a bit remained of the poor old fabric the +sight of it recalled them all. + +This brown merino--in which she had sat two whole winters over her +Greek and Latin by Robert Lyon's side, which he had once stopped to +touch and notice, saying what a pretty color it was, and how he liked +soft-feeling dresses for women--to cut up this old brown merino +seemed to hurt her so she could almost have cried. + +Yet what would Johanna think if the refused? And there was Elizabeth +absolutely in want of clothes. "I must be growing very wicked," +thought poor Hilary. + +She lay a good while silent in the dark, while Johanna planned and +replanned--calculating how, even with the addition of an old cape of +her own, which was out of the same piece, this hapless gown could be +made to fit the gaunt frame of Elizabeth Hand.--Her poor kindly brain +was in the last extremity of muddle, when Hilary, with a desperate +effort, dashed in to the rescue, and soon made all clear, contriving +body, skirt, sleeves and all. + +"You have the best head in the world, my love. I don't know whatever +I should do without you." + +"Luckily you are never likely to be tried. So give me a kiss; and +good night, Johanna." + +I misdoubt many will say I am writing about small, ridiculously +small, things. Yet is not the whole of life made up of +infinitesimally small things? And in its strange and solemn mosaic, +the full pattern of which we never see clearly till looking back on +it from far away, dare we say of any thing which the hand of Eternal +Wisdom has put together, that it is too common or too small? + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +While her anxious mistresses were thus talking her over the servant +lay on her humble bed and slept. They knew she did, for they heard +her heavy breathing through the thin partition wall. Whether, as +Hilary suggested, she was too ignorant to notice the days of the +week, or month, or, as Selina thought, too stupid to care for any +thing beyond eating, drinking, and sleeping. Elizabeth manifested no +anxiety about herself or her destiny. + +She went about her work just as usual; a little quicker and readier, +now she was becoming familiarized to it; but she said nothing. She +was undoubtedly a girl of silent and undemonstrative nature. + +"Sometimes still waters run deep," said Miss Hilary. + +"Nevertheless. there are such things as canals," replied Johanna. +"When do you mean to have your little talk with her?" + +Hilary did not know. She was sitting, rather more tired than usual, +by the school-room fire, the little people having just departed for +their Saturday half-holiday. Before clearing off the debris which +they always left behind, she stood a minute at the window, refreshing +her eyes with the green field opposite, and the far-away wood, +crowned by a dim white monument, visible in fair weather, on which +those bright brown eyes had a trick of lingering, even in the middle +of school hours. For the wood and the hill beyond belonged to a +nobleman's "show" estate, five miles off--the only bit of real +landscape beauty that Hilary had ever beheld. There, during the last +holidays but one, she, her sisters, her nephew, and, by his own +special request, Mr. Lyon, had spent a whole long, merry, midsummer +day. She wondered whether such a day would ever come again! + +But spring was coming again, any how; the field looked smiling and +green, specked here and there with white dots which, she opined. +might possibly be daisies. She half wished she was not too old and +dignified to dart across the road, leap the sunk fence, and run to +see. + +"I think, Johanna--Hark, what can that be?" + +For at this instant somebody came tearing down the stairs, opened the +front door, and did--exactly what Hilary had just been wishing to do. + +"It's Elizabeth, without her bonnet or shawl, with something white +flying behind her. How she is dashing across the field! What can she +be after? Just look." + +But loud screams from Selina's room, the front, one, where she had +been lying in bed all morning, quite obliterated the little servant +from their minds. The two sisters ran hastily up stairs. + +Selina was sitting up, in undisguised terror and agitation. + +"Stop her! Hold her! I'm sure she has gone mad. Lock the door, or +she'll come back and murder us all." + +"Who? Elizabeth! Was she here? What has been the matter?" + +But it was some time before they could make out any thing. At last +they gathered that Elizabeth had been waiting upon Miss Selina, +putting vinegar cloths on her head, and doing various things about +the room. "She is very handy when one is ill." even Selina allowed. + +"And I assure you I was talking most kindly to her; about the duties +of her position, and how she ought to dress better, and be more civil +behaved, or else she never could except to keep any place. And she +stood in her usual sulky way of listening, never answering a +word--with her back to me, staring right out of window. And I had +just said, Elizabeth, my girl'--indeed, Hilary, I was talking to her +in my very kindest way--" + +"I've no doubt of it--but do get on." + +"When she suddenly turned round, snatched a clean towel from a chair +back, and another from my head--actually from my very head, +Johanna--and out she ran. I called after her, but she took no more +notice than if I had been a stone. And she left the door wide +open--blowing upon me. Oh, dear; she has given me my death of cold." +And Selina broke out into piteous complainings. + +Her elder sister soothed her as well as she could, while Hilary ran +down to the front door and looked, and enquired every where for +Elizabeth. She was not to be seen on field or road; and along that +quiet terrace not a soul had even perceived her quit the house. + +"It's a very odd thing." said Hilary, returning. "What can have come +over the girl? You are sure, Selina, that you said nothing which--" + +"Now I know what you are going to say, You are going to blame me. +Whatever happens in this house you always blame me. And perhaps +you're right. Perhaps I am a nuisance--a burden--would be far better +dead and buried. I wish I were!" + +When Selina took this tack, of course her sisters were silenced. They +quited her a little, and then went down and searched the house all +over. + +All was in order; at least in as much order as was to be expected the +hour before dinner. The bowl of half-peeled potatoes stood on the +back kitchen "sink;" the roast was down before the fire; the knives +were ready for cleaning. Evidently Elizabeth flight had not been +premeditated. + +"It's all nonsense about her going mad. She has as sound a head as I +have," said Hilary to Johanna, who began to look seriously uneasy. +"She might have run away in a fit of passion, certainly; and yet that +is improbable; her temper is more sullen than furious. And having no +lack of common sense she must know that doing a thing like this is +enough to make her lose her place at once." + +"Yes," said Johanna, mournfully, "I'm afraid after this she must go." + +"Wait and see what she has to say for herself." pleaded Hilary. "She +will surely be back in two or three minutes." + +But she was not, nor even in two or three hours. + +Her mistresses' annoyance became displeasure, and that again subsided +into serious apprehension. Even Selina ceased talking over and over +the incident which gave the sole information to be arrived at; rose, +dressed, and came down to the kitchen. There, after long and anxious +consultation, Hilary, observing that "Somebody had better do +something," began to prepare the dinner as in pre-Elizabethan days; +but the three ladies' appetites were small. + +About three in the afternoon, Hilary, giving utterance to the hidden +alarm of all, said-- + +"I think, sisters, I had better go down as quickly as I can to Mrs. +Hand's." + +This agreed, she stood consulting with Johanna as to what could +possibly be said to the mother in case that unfortunate child had not +gone home, when the kitchen door opened, and the culprit appeared. + +Not, however, with the least look of a culprit. Hot she was, and +breathless; and with her hair down about her ears, and her apron +rolled up round her waist, presented a most forlorn and untidy +aspect; but her eyes were bright, and her countenance glowing. + +She took a towel from under her arm.--"There's one on 'em--and you'll +get back--the other--when it's washed." + +Having blurted out this, she leaned against the wall, trying to +recover her breath. + +"Elizabeth! Where have you been? How dared you go? Your behavior is +disgraceful--most disgraceful, I say. Johanna, why don't you speak to +your servant?" (When, for remissness in reproving others, the elder +sister herself fell under reproof, it was always emphatically "your +sister--"your nephew"--"your servant.") + +But, for once, Miss Selina's sharp voice failed to bring the +customary sullen look to Elizabeth's face, and when Miss Leaf, in her +milder tones, asked where she had been, she answered unhesitatingly-- + +"I've been down the town." + +"Down the town!" the three ladies cried, in one chorus of +astonishment. + +"I've been as quick as I could, missis. I runned all the way there +and back; but it was a good step, and he was some'at heavy, though he +is but a little'un," + +"He! who on earth is he?" + +"Deary me! I never thought of axing; but his mother lives in Hall +street. Somebody saw me carrying him to the doctor, and went and told +her. Oh! he was welly killed, Miss Leaf--the doctor said so; but +he'll do now, and you'll get your towel clean washed tomorrow." + +While Elizabeth spoke so incoherently, and with such unwonted energy +and excitement, Johanna looked as if she thought her sister's fears +were true, and the girl had really gone mad; but Hilary's quicker +perceptions jumped at a different conclusion. + +"Quiet yourself, Elizabeth," said she, taking a firm hold of her +shoulder, and making her sit down, when the rolled-up apron dropped, +and showed itself all covered with blood spots. Selina screamed +outright. + +Then Elizabeth seemed to become half conscious that she had done +something blamable, or was at least a suspected character. Her warmth +of manner faded; the sullen cloud of dogged resistance to authority +was rising in her poor dirty face, when Hilary, beginning with, "Now, +we are not going to scold you; but we must hear the reason of this," +contrived by adroit questions, and not a few of them, to elicit the +whole story. + +It appeared that, while standing at Miss Selina's window, Elizabeth +had watched three little boys, apparently engaged in a very favorite +amusement of little boys in that field, going quickly behind a horse, +and pulling out the longest and handsomest hairs in his tail to make +fishing lines of. She saw the animal give a kick, and two of the boys +ran away; the other did not stir. For a minute or so she noticed a +black lump lying in the grass; then, with the quick instinct for +which nobody had ever given her credit, she guessed what had +happened, and did immediately the wisest and only thing possible +under the circumstances, namely, to snatch up a towel, run across the +field, bind up the child's head as well as she could, and carry it, +bleeding and insensible, to the nearest doctor, who lived nearly a +mile off. + +She did not tell--and they only found it out afterward--how she had +held the boy while under the doctor's hands, the skull being so badly +fractured that the frightened mother fainted at the sight; how she +had finally carried him home, and left him comfortably settled in +bed, his senses returned, and his life saved. + +"Ay, my arms do ache above a bit," she said, in answer to Miss Leaf's +questions. "He wasn't quite a baby--nigh upon twelve, I reckon; but +then he was very small of his age. And he looked just as if he was +dead--and he bled so." + +Here, just for a second or two, the color left the big girl's lips, +and she trembled a little. Miss Leaf went to the kitchen cupboard, +and took out their only bottle of wine--administered in rare doses, +exclusively as medicine. + +"Drink this, Elizabeth; and then go and wash your face and eat your +dinner. We will talk to you by-and-by." + +Elizabeth looked up with a long, wistfull stare of intense surprise, +and then added, "Have I done any thing wrong, missis?" + +"I did not say so. But drink this; and don't talk, child." + +She was obeyed. By-and-by Elizabeth disappeared into the back +kitchen, emerged thence with a clean face, hands, and apron; and went +about her afternoon business as if nothing had happened. + +Her mistresses' threatened "talk" with her never came about. What, +indeed, could they say? No doubt the little servant had broken the +strict letter of domestic law by running off in that highly eccentric +and inconvenient way; but, as Hilary tried to explain by a series of +most ingenious ratiocinations, she had fulfilled, in the spirit of +it, the very highest law--that of charity. She had also shown prompt +courage, decision, practical and prudent forethought, and above all, +entire self-forgetfulness. + +"And I should like to know," said Miss Hilary, warming with her +subject, "if those are not the very qualities that go to constitute a +hero." + +"But we don't want a hero; we want a maid-of-all-work." + +"I'll tell you what we want, Selina. We want a woman; that is, a girl +with the making of a good woman in her. If we can find that, all the +rest will follow. For my part, I would rather take this child, rough +as she is, but with her truthfulness, conscientiousness, kindliness +of heart, and evident capability of both self-control and +self-devotedness, than the most finished servant we could find. My +advice is--keep her." + +This settled the matter, since it was a curious fact that the +"advice" of the youngest Miss Leaf was, whether they knew it or not, +almost equivalent to a family ukase. + +When Elizabeth had brought in the tea-things, which she did with +especial care, apparently wishing to blot out the memory of the +morning's escapade by astonishingly good behavior for the rest of the +day, Miss Leaf called her, and asked if she knew that her month of +trial ended this day? + +"Yes, ma'am," with the strict normal courtesy, something between that +of the old-world family domestic--as her mother might have been to +the Miss Elizabeth Something she was named after--and the abrupt +"dip" of the modern National school girl; which constituted Elizabeth +Hand's sole experience of manners. + +"If you had not been absent I should have gone to speak with your +mother to-day. Indeed Miss Hilary was going when you came in; but it +would have been with a very different intention from what we had in +the morning. However, that is not likely to happen again." + +"Eh?" said Elizabeth, inquiringly. + +Miss Leaf hesitated, and looked uneasily at her two sisters. It was +always a trial to her shy nature to find herself the mouth-piece of +the family; and this same shyness made it still more difficult to +break through the stiff barriers which seemed to rise up between her, +a gentlewoman well on in years, and this coarse working girl. She +felt, as she often complained, that with the-kindest intentions, she +did not quite know how to talk to Elizabeth. + +"My sister means," said Hilary, "that as we are not likely to have +little boys half killed in the field every day, she trusts you will +not be running away again as you did this morning. She feels sure +that you would not do such a thing, putting us all to so great +annoyance and uneasiness, for any less cause than such as happened +to-day. You promise that?" + +"Yes, Miss Hilary." + +"Then we quite forgive you as regards ourselves. Nay"--feeling in +spite of Selina's warning nudge, that she had hardly been kind +enough--"we rather praise than blame you, Elizabeth. And if you like +to stay with us and will do your best to improve, we are willing to +keep you as our servant." + +"Thank you ma'am. Thank you, Miss Hilary. Yes, I'll stop." + +She said no more--but sighed a great sigh, as if her mind were +relieved--("So," thought Hilary, "she was not so indifferent to us as +we imagined")--and bustled back into her kitchen. + +"Now for the clothing of her," observed Miss Leaf, also looking much +relieved that the decision was over. "You know what we agreed upon; +and there is certainly no time to be lost. Hilary, my dear, suppose +you bring down your brown merino?" Hilary went without a word. + +People who inhabit the same house, eat, sit, and sleep +together--loving one another and sympathizing with one another, ever +so deeply and dearly--nevertheless inevitably have momentary seasons +when the intense solitude in which we all live, and must expect ever +to live, at the depth of our being, forces itself painfully upon the +heart. Johanna must have had many such seasons when Hilary was a +child; Hilary had one now. + +She unfolded the old frock, and took out of its pocket, a hiding +place at once little likely to be searched, and harmless if +discovered, a poor little memento of that happy midsummer day. + + "Dear Miss Hilary. To-morrow, then, I shall come. + Yours truly, Robert Lyon." + +The only scrap of note she had ever received; he always wrote to +Johanna; as regularly as ever, or more so, now Ascott was gone; but +only to Johanna. She read over the two lines, wondered where she +should keep them now that Johanna might not notice them; and then +recoiled, as if the secret were a wrong to that dear sister who loved +her so well. + +"But nothing makes me love her less; nothing ever could. She thinks +me quite happy, as I am; and yet--oh, if I did not miss him so!" + +And the aching, aching want which sometimes came over began again. +Let us not blame her. God made all our human needs. God made love. +Not merely affection but actual love--the necessity to seek and find +out some other being, not another but the complement of one's +self--the "other half," who brings rest and strength for weakness, +sympathy in aspiration, and tenderness for tenderness, as no other +person ever can. Perhaps, even in marriage, this love is seldom +found, and it is possible in all lives to do without it. Johanna had +done so. But then she had been young, and was now growing old; and +Hilary was only twenty, with a long life before her. Poor child, let +us not blame her! + +She was not in the least sentimental, her natural disposition +inclining her to be more than cheerful, actually gay. She soon +recovered herself, and when, a short time after, she stood, scissors +in hand, demonstrating how very easy it was to make something out of +nothing, her sisters never suspected how very near tears had lately +been to those bright eyes, which were always the sunshine of the +house. + +"You are giving yourself a world of trouble," said Selina. "If I were +you, I would just make over the dress to Elizabeth, and let her do +what she could with it." + +"My dear, I always find I give myself twice the trouble by expecting +people to do what they can't do. I have to do it myself afterward. +Prove how a child who can't even handle a needle and thread is +competent to make a gown for herself, and I shall be most happy to +secede in her favor." + +"Nay," put in the eldest sister, afraid of a collision of words, +"Selina is right; if you do not teach Elizabeth to make her own gowns +how can she learn?" + +"Johanna, you are the brilliantest of women! and you know you don't +like the parlor littered with rags and cuttings. You wish to get rid +of me for the evening? Well, I'll go! Hand me the work basket and the +bundle, and I'll give my first lesson in dress making to our South +Sea Islander." + +But Fate stood in the way of Miss Hilary's good intentions. + +She found Elizabeth not as was her wont, always busy, over the +perpetual toil of those who have not yet learned the mysterious art +of arrangement and order, nor, as sometimes, hanging sleepily over +the kitchen fire, waiting for bedtime; but actually sitting, sitting +down at the table. Her candle was flaring on one side of her; on the +other was the school room inkstand, a scrap of waste paper, and a pen +But she was not writing; she sat with her head on her hands, in an +attitude of disconsolate idleness, so absorbed that she seemed not to +hear Hilary's approach. + +"I did not know you could write, Elizabeth." + +"No more I can," was the answer, in the most doleful of voices. "It +bean't no good. I've forgotten all about it. T' letters wonna join." + +"Let me look at them." And Hilary tried to contemplate gravely the +scrawled and blotted page, which looked very much as if a large +spider had walked into the ink bottle, and then walked out again on a +tour of investigation. "What did you want to write?" asked she, +suddenly. + +Elizabeth blushed violently. "It was the woman, Mrs. Cliffe, t' +little lad's mother, you know; she wanted somebody to write to her +husband as is at work at Birmingham, and I said I would. I'd learned +at the National, but I've forgotten it all. I'm just as Miss Selina +says--I'm good for nowt." + +"Come, come, never fret;" for there was a sort of choke in the girl's +voice. "There's many a good person who never learned to write. But I +don't see why you should not learn. Shall I teach you?" + +Utter amazement, beaming gratitude, succeeded one another, plain as +light, in Elizabeth's eyes, but she only said, "Thank you, Miss +Hilary." + +"Very well. I have brought you an old gown of mine, and was going to +show you how to make it up for yourself, but I'll look over your +writing instead. Sit down and let me see what you can do." + +In a state of nervous trepidation, pitiful to behold, Elizabeth took +the pen. Terrible scratches resulted; blots innumerable; and one +fatal deluge of ink, which startled from their seats both mistress +and maid, and made Hilary thankful that she had taken off her better +gown for a common one, as, with sad thriftiness, the Misses Leaf +always did of evenings. + +When Elizabeth saw the mischief she had done, her contrition and +humility were unbounded. "No, Miss Hilary, you can't make nothin' of +me. I be too stupid, I'll give it up." + +"Nonsense!" And the bright active little lady looked steadily into +the heavy face of this undeveloped girl, half child, half woman, +until some of her own spirit seemed to be reflected there. Whether +the excitement of the morning had roused her, or her mistresses' +kindness had touched Elizabeth's heart, and--as in most women--the +heart was the key to the intellect; or whether the gradual daily +influence of her changed life during the last month had been taking +effect, now for the first time to appear--certain it is that Hilary +had never perceived before what an extremely intelligent face it was; +what good sense was indicated in the well shaped head and forehead; +what tenderness and feeling in the deep-set grey eyes. + +"Nonsense," repeated she. "Never give up any thing; I never would. +We'll try a different plan, and begin from the beginning, as I do +with my little scholars. Wait, while I fetch a copy book out of the +parlor press." + +She highly amused her sisters with a description of what she called +her "newly instituted Polynesian Academy;" returned, and set to work +to guide the rough, coarse hand through the mysteries of calligraphy. + +To say this was an easy task would not be true. Nature's own laws and +limits make the using of faculties which have been unused for +generations very difficult at first. To suppose that a working man, +the son of working men, who applies himself to study, does it with as +little trouble as your upper-class children, who have been +unconsciously undergoing education ever since the cradle, is a great +mistake. All honor, therefore, to those who do attempt, and to ever +so small a degree succeed in, the best and wisest culture of all, +self-culture. + +Of this honor Elizabeth deserved her share. + +"She is stupid enough," Hilary confessed, after the lesson was over; +"but there is a dogged perseverance about the girl which I actually +admire. She blots her fingers, her nose, her apron, but she never +gives in; and she sticks to the grand principle of one thing at a +time. I think she did two whole pages of a's, and really performed +them satisfactorily, before she asked to go on to b's. Yes! I believe +she will do." + +"I hope she will do her work, any how," said Selina, breaking into +the conversation rather crossly. "I'm sure I don't see the good of +wasting time over teaching Elizabeth to write, when there's so much +to be done in the house by one and all of us, from Monday morning +till Saturday night." + +"Ay, that's it," answered Hilary, meditatively. "I don't see how I +ever shall get time to teach her, and she is so tired of nights when +the work is all done; she'll be dropping asleep with the pen in her +hand--I have done it myself before now." + +Ay, in those days when, trying so hard to "improve her mind," and +make herself a little more equal and companionable to another mind +she knew, she had, after her daily house cares and her six hours of +school teaching, attempted at nine P. M. to begin close study on her +own account. And though with her strong will she succeeded tolerably, +still, as she told Johanna, she could well understand how slow was +the, "march of intellect" (a phrase which had just then come up) +among day laborers and the like; and how difficult it was for these +Mechanics Institutions, which were now talked so much of, to put any +new ideas into the poor tired heads, rendered sluggish and stupid +with hard bodily labor, "Suppose I were to hold my Polynesian Academy +on a Sunday?" and she looked inquiringly at her sisters, especially +Johanna. + +Now the Misses Leaf were old fashioned country folk, who lived before +the words Sabbatarian and un-Sabbatarian had ever got into the +English language. They simply "remembered the Sabbath day to keep it +holy;" they arranged so as to make it for all the household a day of +rest: and they went regularly to church once--sometimes Selina and +Hilary went twice. For the intervening hours, their usual custom was +to take an afternoon walk in the fields; begun chiefly for Ascott's +sake, to keep the lad out of mischief, and put into his mind better +thoughts than he was likely to get from his favorite Sunday +recreation of sitting on the wall throwing stones. After he left for +London there was Elizabeth to be thought of; and they decided that +the best Sabbath duty for the little servant was to go and see her +mother. So they gave her every Sunday afternoon free; only requiring +that she should be at home punctually after church time, at eight +o'clock. But from thence till bedtime was a blank two hours, which, +Hilary had noticed, Elizabeth not infrequently spent in dozing over +the fire. + +"And I wonder," said she, giving the end of her long meditation out +loud, "whether going to sleep is not as much Sabbath breaking as +learning to write? What do you say, Johanna?" + +Johanna, simple, God-fearing woman as she was, to whom faith and love +came as natural as the breath she drew, had never perplexed herself +with the question. She only smiled acquiescence. But Selina was +greatly shocked. Teaching to write on a Sunday! Bringing the week day +work into the day of rest! Doing one's own pleasure on the holy day! +She thought it exceedingly wrong. Such a thing had never been heard +of in their house. Whatever else might be said of them, the Leafs +were always a respectable family as to keeping Sunday. Nobody could +say that even poor Henry-- + +But here Selina's torrent of words stopped. + +When conversation revived, Hilary, who had been at first half annoyed +and half amused, resumed her point seriously. + +"I might say that writing isn't Elizabeth's week-day work, and that +teaching her is not exactly doing my own pleasure; but I won't creep +out of the argument by a quibble. The question is, What is keeping +the Sabbath day 'holy?' I say--and I stick to my opinion--that it is +by making it a day of worship, a rest day--a cheerful and happy +day--and by doing as much good in it as we can. And therefore I mean +to teach Elizabeth on a Sunday." + +"She'll never understand it. She'll consider it work." + +"And if she did, work is a more religious thing than idleness. I am +sure I often feel that, of the two, I should be less sinful in +digging potatoes in my garden, or sitting mending stockings in my +parlor, than in keeping Sunday as some people do--going to church +genteelly in my best clothes, eating a huge Sunday dinner, and then +nodding over a good book, or taking a regular Sunday nap till +bedtime." + +"Hush, child!" said Johanna, reprovingly; for Hilary's cheeks were +red, and her voice angry. She was taking the hot, youthful part which +in its hatred of forms and shams, sometimes leads--and not seldom led +poor Hilary--a little too far on the other side. "I think," Miss Leaf +added, "that our business is with ourselves, and not with our +neighbors. Let us keep the Sabbath according to our conscience. Only, +I would take care never to do any thing which jarred against my +neighbor's feelings. I would, like Paul, 'eat no meat while the world +standeth' rather than 'make my brother to offend.' " + +Hilary looked in her sister's sweet, calm face, and the anger died +out of her own. + +"Shall I give up my academy?" she said, softly. + +"No, my love. It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath day, and +teaching a poor ignorant girl to write is an absolute good. Make her +understand that, and you need not be afraid of any harm ensuing." + +"You never will make her understand," said Selina, sullenly. "She is +only a servant." + +"Nevertheless I'll try." + +Hilary could not tell how far she succeeded in simplifying to the +young servant's comprehension this great question, involving so many +points--such as the following of the spirit and the letter, the law +of duty and the compulsion of love, which, as she spoke, seemed +opening out so widely and awfully that she herself involuntarily +shrank from it, and wondered that poor finite creatures should, ever +presume to squabble about it at all. + +But one thing the girl did understand--her young mistress's kindness. +She stood watching the delicate little hand that had so patiently +guided hers, and now wrote copy after copy for her future benefit. At +last she said-- + +"You're taking a deal o' trouble wi' a poor wench, and it's very kind +in a lady like you." + +Miss Hilary was puzzled what answer to make. True enough it was +"kind," and she was "a lady;" and between her and Mrs. Hand's rough +daughter was an unmistakable difference and distinction. That +Elizabeth perceived it was proved by her growing respectfulness of +manner--the more respectful, it seemed, the more she herself +improved. Yet Hilary could not bear to make her feel more sharply +than was unavoidable the great gulf that lies and ever must lie--not +so much between mistress and servant, in their abstract +relation--(and yet that is right, for the relation and authority are +ordained of God)--but between the educated and the ignorant, the +coarse and the refined. + +"Well," she said, after a pause of consideration, "you always have it +in your power to repay my 'kindness,' as you call it. The cleverer +you become the more useful you will be to me; and the more good you +grow the better I shall like you." + +Elizabeth smiled--that wonderfully bright, sudden smile which seemed +to cover over all her plainness of feature. + +"Once upon a time," Hilary resumed by-and-by, "when England was very +different from what it is now, English ladies used to have what they +call 'bower-women,' whom they took as girls, and brought up in their +service; teaching them all sorts of things--cooking, sewing, +spinning, singing, and, probably, except that the ladies of that time +were very ill-educated themselves, to read and write also. They used +to spend part of every day among their bower-women; and as people can +only enjoy the company of those with whom they have some sympathies +in common, we must conclude that--" + +Here Hilary stopped, recollecting she must be discoursing miles above +the head of her little bower-maiden, and that, perhaps, after all, +her theory would be best kept to herself, and only demonstrated +practically. + +"So, Elizabeth, if I spend a little of my time in teaching you, you +must grow up my faithful and attached bower-maiden?" + +"I'll grow up any thing, Miss Hilary, if it's to please you," was the +answer, given with a smothered intensity that quite startled the +young mistress. + +"I do believe the girl is getting fond of me," said she, half +touched, half laughing to Johanna. "If so, we shall get on. It is +just as with our school children, you know. We have to seize hold of +their hearts first, and their heads afterward. Now, Elizabeth's head +may be uncommonly tough, but I do believe she likes me." + +Johanna smiled; but she would not for the world have said--never +encouraging the smallest vanity in her child--that she did not think +this circumstance so very remarkable. + + + +CHAPTER V. + +A household exclusively composed of women has its advantages and its +disadvantages. It is apt to become somewhat narrow in judgment, +morbid in feeling, absorbed in petty interests, and bounding its +vision of outside things to the small horizon which it sees from its +own fireside. But, on the other hand, by this fireside often abides a +settled peace and purity, a long-suffering, generous forbearance, and +an enduring affectionateness which the other sex can hardly +comprehend or credit. Men will not believe, what is nevertheless the +truth, that we can "stand alone" better than they can; that we can do +without them far easier, and with less deterioration of character, +than they can do without us; that we are better able to provide for +ourselves interests, duties, and pleasures; in short, strange as it +may appear, that we have more real self-sustaining independence than +they. + +Of course, that the true life, the highest life, is that of man and +woman united, no one will be insane enough to deny; I am speaking of +the substitute for it, which poor humanity has so often to fall back +upon and make the best of--a better best very frequently than what +appears best in the eyes of the world. In truth, many a troubled, +care ridden, wealthy family, torn with dissensions, or frozen up in +splendid formalities, might have envied that quiet, humble, maiden +household of the Misses Leaf, where their only trial was poverty, and +their only grief the one which they knew the worst of, and had met +patiently for many a year--poor Selina's "way." + +I doubt not it was good for Elizabeth Hand that her first place--the +home in which she received her first impressions--was this feminine +establishment, simple and regular, in which was neither waste nor +disorder allowed. Good, too, that while her mistresses' narrow means +restricted her in many things enjoyed by servants in richer families, +their interests, equally narrow, caused to be concentrated upon +herself a double measure of thought and care. She became absolutely +"one of the family," sharing in all its concerns. From its small and +few carnal luxuries--such as the cake, fruit, or pot of preserve, +votive offerings from pupils' parents--up to the newspaper and the +borrowed book, nothing was either literally or metaphorically +"locked" up from Elizabeth. + +This grand question of locking up had been discussed in full conclave +the day after her month of preparation ended, the sisters taking +opposite sides, as might have been expected. Selina was for the +immediate introduction of a locksmith and a key basket. + +"While she was only on trial, it did not so much signify; besides, if +it did, we had only buttons on the press doors; but now she is our +regular servant we ought to institute a regular system of authority. +How can she respect a family that never locks up any thing?" + +"How can we respect a servant from whom we lock up every thing!" + +"Respect a servant! What do you mean, Hilary?" + +"I mean that if I did not respect a servant I would be very sorry to +keep her one day in any house of mine." + +"Wait till you've a house of your own to keep, Miss," said Selina, +crossly. "I never heard such nonsense. Is that the way you mean to +behave to Elizabeth? leave every thing open to her--clothes, books, +money; trust her with all your secrets; treat her as your most +particular friend?" + +"A girl of fifteen would be rather an inconvenient particular friend! +And I have happily few secrets to trust her with. But if I could not +trust her with our coffee, tea, sugar, and so on, and bring her up +from the very first in the habit of being trusted, I would recommend +her being sent away to-morrow." + +"Very fine talking; and what do you say, Johanna?--if that is not an +unnecessary question after Hilary has given her opinion." + +"I think," replied the elder sister, taking no notice of the long +familiar innuendo, "that in this case Hilary is right. How people +ought to manage in great houses I can not say; but in our small house +it will be easier and better not to alter our simple ways. Trusting +the girl--if she is a good girl--will only make her more trustworthy; +if she is bad, we shall the sooner find it out and let her go." + +But Elizabeth did not go. A year passed; two years; her wages were +raised, and with them her domestic position. From a "girl" she was +converted into a regular servant; her pinafores gave place to +grown-up gowns and aprons; and her rough head, at Miss Selina's +incessant instance, was concealed by a cap--caps being considered by +that lady as the proper and indispensable badge of servant-hood. + +To say that during her transition state, or even now that she had +reached the cap era, Elizabeth gave her mistresses no trouble, would +be stating a self-evident improbability. What young lass under +seventeen, of any rank, does not cause plenty of trouble to her +natural guardians? Who can "put an old head on young shoulders?" or +expect from girls at the most unformed and unsatisfactory period of +life that complete moral and mental discipline, that unfailing +self-control, that perfection of temper, and every thing else which, +of course, all mistresses always have? + +I am obliged to confess that Elizabeth had a few--nay, not a +few--most obstinate faults; that no child tries its parents, no pupil +its school teachers, more than she tried her three mistresses at +intervals. She was often thoughtless and careless, brusque in her +manner, slovenly, in her dress; sometimes she was down-right "bad," +filled full--as some of her elders and betters are, at all ages--with +absolute naughtiness; when she would sulk for hours and days +together, and make the whole family uncomfortable, as many a servant +can make many a family small as that of the Misses Leaf. + +But still they never lost what Hilary termed their "respect" for +Elizabeth; they never found her out in a lie, a meanness, or an act +of deception or dishonesty. They took her faults as we must take the +surface faults of all connected with us--patiently rather than +resentfully, seeking to correct rather than to punish. And though +there were difficult elements in the household, such as their being +three mistresses to be obeyed the youngest mistress a thought too lax +and the second one undoubtedly too severe, still no girl could live +with these high-principled, much-enduring women without being +impressed with two things which the serving class are slowest to +understand--the dignity of poverty, and the beauty of that which is +the only effectual law to bring out good and restrain evil--the law +of loving-kindness. + +Two fracas, however, must be chronicled, for after both, the girl's +dismissal hung on a thread. The first was when Mrs. Cliffe, mother of +Tommy Cliffe, who was nearly killed in the field, being discovered to +be an ill sort of woman, and in the habit of borrowing from Elizabeth +stray shillings, which were never returned, was forbidden the house, +Elizabeth resented it so fiercely that she sulked for a whole week +afterward. + +The other and still more dangerous crisis in Elizabeth's destiny was +when a volume of Scott's novels, having been missing for some days, +was found hidden in her bed, and she lying awake reading it was thus +ignominiously discovered at eleven P. M. by Miss Selina, in +consequence of the gleam of candle light from under her door. + +It was true neither of these errors were actual moral crimes. Hilary +even roused a volley of sharp words upon herself by declaring they +had their source in actual virtues; that a girl who would stint +herself of shillings, and hold resolutely to any liking she had, even +if unworthy, had a creditable amount of both self-denial and fidelity +in her disposition. Also that a tired out maid-of all-work, who was +kept awake of nights by her ardent appreciation of the "Heart of +Mid-Lothian," must possess a degree of both intellectual and moral +capacity which deserved cultivation rather than blame. And though +this surreptitious pursuit of literature under difficulties could not +of course be allowed, I grieve to say that Miss Hilary took every +opportunity of not only giving the young servant books to read, but +of talking to her about them. And also that a large proportion of +these books were--to Miss Selina's unmitigated horror--absolutely +fiction! stories, novels, even poetry--books that Hilary liked +herself--books that had built up in her own passionate dream of life; +wherein all the women were faithful, tender, heroic, self-devoted; +and all the men were--something not unlike Robert Lyon. + +Did she do harm? Was it; as Selina and even Johanna said sometimes, +"dangerous" thus to put before Elizabeth a standard of ideal +perfection, a Quixotic notion of life--life in its full purpose +power, and beauty--such as otherwise never could have crossed the +mind of this working girl, born of parents who, though respectable +and worthy, were in no respect higher than the common working class? +I will not argue the point: I am not making Elizabeth a text for a +sermon; I am simply writing her story. + +One thing was certain, that by degrees the young woman's faults +lessened; even that worst of them, the unmistakable bad temper, not +aggressive, but obstinately sullen, which made her and Miss Selina +sometimes not on speaking terms for a week together. But she simply +"sulked;" she never grumbled or was pert; and she did her work just +as usual--with a kind of dogged struggle not only against the +superior powers but against something within herself much harder to +fight with. + +"She makes me feel more sorry for her than angry with her," Miss Leaf +would sometimes say, coming out of the kitchen with that grieved +face, which was the chief sign of displeasure her sweet nature ever +betrayed. "She will have up-hill work through life, like us all, and +more than many of us, poor child!" + +But gradually Elizabeth, too, copying involuntarily the rest of the +family, learned to put up with Miss Selina; who, on her part, kept a +sort of armed neutrality. And once, when a short but sharp illness of +Johanna's shook the house from its even tenor, startled every body +out of their little tempers, and made them cling together and work +together in a sort of fear-stricken union against one common grief, +Selina allowed that they might have gone farther and fared worse on +the day they engaged Elizabeth. + +After this illness of his Aunt. Ascott came home. It was his first +visit since he had gone to London: Mr. Ascott, he said, objected to +holidays. But now, from some unexplained feeling, Johanna in her +convalescence longed after the boy--no longer a boy, however, but +nearly twenty, and looking fully his age. How proud his aunts were to +march him up the town, and hear every body's congratulations on his +good looks and polished manners! It was the old story--old as the +hills! I do not pretend to invent any thing new. Women, especially +maiden aunts, will repeat the tale till the end of time, so long as +they have youths belonging to them on whom to expend their natural +tendency to clinging fondness, and ignorant, innocent hero worship. +The Misses Leaf--ay, even Selina, whose irritation against the +provoking boy was quite mollified by the elegant young man--were no +wiser than their neighbors. + +But there was one person in the household who still obstinately +refused to bow the knee to Ascott. Whether it was, as psychologists +might explain, some instinctive polarity in their natures; or +whether, having once conceived a prejudice, Elizabeth held on to it +like grim death; still there was the same unspoken antagonism between +them. The young fellow took little notice of her except to observe +"that she hadn't grown any handsomer;' but Elizabeth watched him with +a keen severity that overlooked nothing, and resisted, with a passive +pertinacity that was quite irresistible, all his encroachments on the +family habits, all the little self-pleasing ways which Ascott had +been so used to of old, that neither he nor his aunts apparently +recognized them as selfish. + +"I canna bear to see him" ("can not," suggested her mistress, who not +seeing any reason why Elizabeth should not speak the Queen's English +as well as herself, had instituted h's, and stopped a few more +glaring provincialisms.) "I cannot bear to see him, Miss Hilary, +lolling on the arm-chair, when Missis looks so tired and pale, and +sitting up o' nights, burning double fires, and going up stairs at +last with his boots on, and waking every body. I dunnot like it, I +say." + +"You forget; Mr. Ascott has his studies. He must work for the next +examination." + +"Why doesn't he get up of a morning then instead of lying in bed, and +keeping the break-fast about till ten? Why can't he do his learning +by daylight? Daylight's cheaper than mould candles, and a deal better +for the eyes." + +Hilary was puzzled. A truth was a truth, and to try and make it out +otherwise, even for the dignity of the family, was something from +which her honest nature revolted. Besides, the sharp-sighted servant +would be the first to detect the inconsistency of one law of right +for the parlor and another for the kitchen. So she took-refuge in +silence and in the apple-pudding she was making. + +But she resolved to seize the first opportunity of giving Ascott, by +way of novelty, the severest lecture that tongue of aunt could +bestow. And this chance occurred the same afternoon, when the other +two aunts had gone out to tea, to a house which Ascott voted "slow," +and declined going to. She remained to make tea for him, and in the +mean time took him for a constitutional up and down the public walks +hard by. + +Ascott listened at first very good humoredly; once or twice calling +her "a dear little prig," in his patronizing way--he was rather fond +of patronizing his Aunt Hilary. But when she seriously spoke of his +duties, as no longer a boy but a man, who ought now to assume the +true, manly right of thinking for and taking care of other people, +especially his aunts, Ascott began to flush up angrily. + +"Now stop that, Aunt Hilary: I'll not have you coming Mr. Lyon over +me." + +"What do you mean?" + +For of late Ascott had said very little about Mr. Lyon--not half so +much as Mr. Lyon, in his steadily persistent letters to Miss Leaf, +told her about her nephew Ascott. + +"I mean that I'll not be preached to like that by a woman. It's bad +enough to stand it from a man; but then Lyon's a real sharp fellow, +who knows the world, which women don't, Aunt Hilary. Besides, he +coaches me in my Latin and Greek; so I let him pitch into me now and +then. But I won't let you; so just stop it; will you." + +Something new in Ascott's tone--speaking more of the resentful +fierceness of the man than the pettishness of the boy--frightened his +little aunt, and silenced her. By-and-by she took comfort from the +reflection that, as the lad had in his anger betrayed, he had beside +him in London a monitor whose preaching would be so much wiser and +more effectual than her own that she determined to say no more. + +The rare hearing of Mr. Lyon's name--for, time and absence having +produced their natural effect, except when his letter came, he was +seldom talked about now--set Hilary thinking. + +"Do you go to see him often?" she said, at last. + +"Who? Mr. Lyon?" And Ascott, delighted' to escape into a fresh +subject, became quite cheerful and communicative. "Oh, bless you! He +wouldn't care for my going to him. He lives in a two-pair back, only +one room, 'which serves him for kitchen and parlor and all:' dines at +a cook shop for nine-pence a day, and makes his own porridge night +and morning. He told me so once, for he isn't a bit ashamed of it. +But he must be precious hard up sometimes. However, as he contrives +to keep a decent coat on his back, and pay his classes at the +University, and carry off the very first honors going there, nobody +asks any questions. That's the good of London life, Aunt Hilary," +said the young fellow, drawing himself up with great wisdom. "Only +look like a gentleman, behave yourself as such, and nobody asks any +questions." + +"Yes," acquiesced vaguely Aunt Hilary. And then her mind wandered +yearningly to the solitary student in the two-pair back. He might +labor and suffer; he might be ill; he might die, equally solitary, +and "nobody would ask any questions." This phase of London life let a +new light in upon her mind. The letters to Johanna had been chiefly +filled with whatever he thought would interest them. With his +characteristic Scotch reserve, he had said very little about himself, +except in the last, wherein he mentioned that he had "done pretty +well" at the college this term, and meant to "go in for more work" +immediately. + +What this work entailed--how much more toil, how much more +poverty--Hilary knew not. Perhaps even his successes, which Ascott +went on to talk of, had less place in her thoughts than the picture +of the face she knew, sharpened with illness, wasted with hard work +and solitary care. + +"And I can not help him--I can not help him!" was her bitter cry; +until, passing from the dream-land of fancy, the womanly nature +asserted itself. She thought if it had been, or if it were to be, her +blessed lot to be chosen by Robert Lyon, how she would take care of +him! what an utter slave she would be to him! How no penury would +frighten her, no household care oppress or humble her, if done for +him and for his comfort. To her brave heart no battle of life seemed +too long or too sore, if only it were fought for him and at his side. +And as the early falling leaves were blown in gusts across her path, +and the misty autumn night began to close in, nature herself seemed +to plead in unison with the craving of her heart, which sighed that +youth and summer last not always; and that, "be it ever so humble," +as the song says, there is no place so bright and beautiful as the +fireside of a loveful home. + +While the aunt and nephew were strolling thus, thinking of very +different things, their own fire newly lit--Ascott liked a fire--was +blazing away in solitary glory, for the benefit of all passers-by. At +length one--a gentleman--stopped at the gate, and looked in, then +took a turn to the end of the terrace, and stood gazing in once more. +The solitude of the room apparently troubled him; twice his hand was +on the latch before he opened it and knocked at the front door. + +Elizabeth appeared, which seemed to surprise him. + +"Is Miss Leaf at home?" + +"No, Sir." + +"Is she well? Are all the family well?" and he stepped right into the +passage, with the freedom of a familiar foot. + +("I should ha' slammed the door in his face," was Elizabeth's comment +afterward; "only, you see, Miss Hilary, he looked a real gentleman.") + +The stranger and she mutually examined one another. + +"I think I have heard of you," said he, smiling. "You are Miss Leaf's +servant--Elizabeth Hand." + +"Yes, Sir," still grimly, and with a determined grasp of the door +handle. + +"If your mistresses are likely to be home soon, will you allow me to +wait for them? I am an old friend of theirs. My name is Lyon." + +Now Elizabeth was far too much one of the family not to have heard of +such a person. And his knowing her was a tolerable proof of his +identity; besides, unconsciously, the girl was influenced by that +look and mien of true gentlemanhood, as courteous to the poor +maid-of-all-work as he would have been to any duchess born; and by +that bright, sudden smile, which came like sunshine over his face, +and like sunshine warmed and opened the heart of every one that met +it. + +It opened that of Elizabeth. She relaxed her Cerberus keeping of the +door, and even went so far as to inform him that Miss Leaf and Miss +Selina were out to tea, but Miss Hilary and Mr. Ascott would be at +home shortly. He was welcome to wait in the parlor if he liked. + +Afterward, seized with mingled curiosity and misgiving, she made +various errands to go in and look at him; but she had not courage to +address him, and he never spoke to her. He sat by the window, gazing +out into the gloaming. Except just turning his head at her entrance; +she did not think he had once stirred the whole time. + +Elizabeth went back to her kitchen, and stood listening for her young +mistress's familiar knock. Mr. Lyon seemed to have listened too, for +before she could reach it the door was already opened. + +There was a warm greeting--to her great relief: for she knew she had +broken the domestic laws in admitting a stranger unawares--and then +Elizabeth heard them all three go into the parlor, where they +remained talking, without ringing for either tea or candles, a full +quarter of an hour. + +Miss Hilary at last came out, but much to Elizabeth's surprise, went +straight up into her bedroom without entering the kitchen at all. + +It was some minutes more before she descended; and then, after giving +her orders for tea, and seeing that all was arranged with special +neatness, she stood absently by the kitchen fire. Elizabeth noticed +how wonderfully bright her eyes were, and what a soft, happy smile +she had. She noticed it, because she had never seen Miss Hilary look +exactly like that before; and she never did again. + +"Don't you be troubling yourself with waiting about here," she said; +and her mistress seemed to start at being spoken to. "I'll get the +tea all right, Miss Hilary. Please go back into the parlor." + +Hilary went in. + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +Elizabeth got tea ready with unwonted diligence and considerable +excitement. Any visitor was a rare occurrence in this very quiet +family; but a gentleman visitor--a young gentleman too--was a +remarkable fact, arousing both interest and curiosity. For in the +latter quality this girl of seventeen could scarcely be expected to +be deficient; and as to the former, she had so completely identified +herself with the family she served, that all their concerns were her +concerns also. Her acute comments on their few guests, and on their +little scholars, sometimes amused Hilary as much as her criticisms on +the books she read. But as neither were ever put forward intrusively +or impertinently, she let them pass, and only laughed over them with +Johanna in private. + +In speaking of these said books, and the questions they led to, it +was not likely but that mistress and maid--one aged twenty-two, and +the other seventeen--should occasionally light upon a subject rather +interesting to women of their ages, though not commonly discussed +between mistresses and maids. Nevertheless, when it did come in the +way, Miss Hilary never shirked it, but talked it out, frankly and +freely, as she would to any other person. + +"The girl has feelings and notions on the matter, like all other +girls, I suppose," reasoned she to herself; "so it is important that +her notions should be kept clear, and her feelings right. It may do +her some good, and save her from much harm." + +And so it befell that Elizabeth Hand, whose blunt ways, unlovely +person, and temperament so oddly nervous and reserved, kept her from +attracting any "sweetheart" of her own class, had unconsciously +imbibed her mistress's theory of love. Love, pure and simple, the +very deepest and highest, sweetest and most solemn thing in life: to +be believed in devoutly until it came, and when it did come, to be +held to, firmly, faithfully, with a single-minded, settled constancy, +till death. A creed, quite impossible, many will say, in this +ordinary world, and most dangerous to be put into the head of a poor +servant. Yet a woman is but a woman, be she maid-servant or queen; +and if, from queens to maid-servants, girls were taught thus to think +of love, there might be a few more "broken" hearts perhaps, but there +would certainly be fewer wicked hearts; far fewer corrupted lives of +men, and degraded lives of women; far fewer unholy marriages, and +desolated, dreary, homeless homes. + +Elizabeth, having cleared away her tea-things, stood listening to the +voices in the parlor, and pondering. She had sometimes wondered in +her own mind that no knight ever came to carry off her charming +princess--her admired and beloved Miss Hilary. Miss Hilary, on her +part, seemed totally indifferent to the youths at Stowbury; who +indeed were, Elizabeth allowed, quite unworthy her regard. The only +suitable lover for her young mistress must be somebody exceedingly +grand and noble--a compound of the best heroes of Shakespeare, Scott, +Fenimore Cooper, Maria Edgeworth, and Harriet Martineau. When this +strange gentleman appeared--in ordinary coat and hat, or rather +Glengary bonnet, neither particularly handsome nor particularly tall, +yet whose coming had evidently given Miss Hilary so much pleasure, +and who, once or twice while waiting at tea, Elizabeth fancied she +had seen looking at Miss Hilary as nobody ever looked before--when +Mr. Robert Lyon appeared on the horizon, the faithful "bower maiden" +was a good deal disappointed. + +She had expected something better; at all events, something +different. Her first brilliant castle in the air fell, poor lass! but +she quickly built it up again, and, with the vivid imagination of her +age, she mapped out the whole future, ending by a vision of Miss +Hilary, all in white, sweeping down the Terrace in a carriage and +pair--to fortune and happiness; leaving herself, though with a sore +want at her heart, and a great longing to follow, to devote the +remainder of her natural life to Miss Johanna. + +"Her couldna do without somebody to see to her--and Miss Selina do +worrit her so." muttered Elizabeth, in the excitement of this +Almaschar vision, relapsing into her old provincialisms. "So, even if +Miss Hilary axes me to come, I'll stop, I reckon. Ay, I'll stop wi' +Miss Leaf." + +This valorous determination taken, the poor maid servant's dream was +broken by the opening of the parlor door, and an outcry of Ascott's +for his coat and gloves, he having to fetch his aunts home at nine +o'clock, Mr. Lyon accompanying him. And as they all stood together at +the front door, Elizabeth overheard Mr. Lyon say something about what +a beautiful night it was. + +"It would do you no harm, Miss Hilary; will you walk with us?" + +"If you like." + +Hilary went up stairs for her bonnet and shawl; but when, a minute or +two after, Elizabeth followed her with a candle, she found her +standing in the centre of the room, all in the dark, her face white +and her hands trembling. + +"Thank you, thank you!" she said mechanically, as Elizabeth folded +and fastened her shawl for her--and descended immediately. Elizabeth +watched her take, not Ascott's arm, but Mr. Lyon's, and walk down the +terrace in the starlight. + +"Some'at's wrong. I'd like to know who's been a-vexin' of her," +thought fiercely the young servant. + +No, nobody had been "a-vexing" her mistress. There was nobody to +blame; only there had happened to Hilary one of those things which +strike like a sword through a young and happy heart, taking all the +life and youth out of it. + +Robert Lyon had, half an hour ago, told her--and she had had to hear +it as a piece of simple news, to which she had only to say, +"Indeed!"--that to day and to-morrow were his two last days at +Stowbury--almost his last in England. Within a week he was to sail +for India. + +There had befallen him what most people would have considered a piece +of rare good fortune. At the London University, a fellow student, +whom he had been gratuitously "coaching" in Hindostanee, fell ill, +and was "thrown upon his hands." as he briefly defined services which +must have been great, since they had resulted in this end. The young +man's father--a Liverpool and Bombay merchant--made him an offer to +go out there, to their house, at a rising salary of 300 rupees a +month for three years; after the third year to become a junior +partner; remaining at Bombay in that capacity for two years more. + +This he told to Hilary and Ascott in almost as few words as I have +here put it--for brevity seemed a refuge to him. It was also to one +of them. But Ascott asked so many questions that his aunt needed to +ask none. She only listened, and tried to take all in, and understand +it, that is, in a consecutive, intelligent, business shape, without +feeling it. She dared not let herself feel it, not for a second, till +they were out, arm-in-arm, under the quiet winter stars. Then she +heard his voice asking her, "So you think I was right?" + +"Right?" she echoed mechanically. + +"I mean in accepting that sudden chance, and changing my whole plan +of life. I did not do it--believe me--without a motive." + +"What motive?" she would once unhesitatingly have asked; now she could +not. + +Robert Lyon continued speaking, distinctly and yet in an undertone, +that though Ascott was walking a few yards off, Hilary felt was meant +for her alone to hear. + +"The change is, you perceive, from the life of a student to that of a +man of business. I do not deny that I preferred the first. Once upon +a time to be a fellow in a college, or a professor, or the like, was +my utmost aim and I would have half killed myself to attain it. Now, +I think differently." + +He paused, but did not seem to require an answer, and it did not +come. + +"I want, not to be rich but to get a decent competence, and to get it +as soon as I can. I want not to ruin my health with incessant study. +I have already injured it a good deal." + +"Have you been ill? You never said so." + +"Oh no, it was hardly worth while. And I knew an active life would +soon set me right again. No fear! there's life in the old dog yet. He +does not wish to die. But," Mr. Lyon pursued, "I have had a 'sair +fecht' the last year or two. I would not go through it again, nor see +any one dear to me go through it. It is over, but it has left its +scars. Strange! I have been poor all my life, yet I never till now +felt an actual terror of poverty." + +Hilary shrank within herself; less even at the words than at +something in their tone--something hard, nay fierce; something at +once despairing and aggressive. + +"It is strange," she said; "such a terror is not like you. I feel +none; I can not even understand it." + +"No, I knew you could not," he muttered; and was silent. + +So was Hilary. A vague trouble came over her. Could it be that he, +Robert Lyon, had been seized with the _auri sacra fames_, which he had +so often inveighed against and despised? that his long battle with +poverty had caused in him such an overweening desire for riches that, +to obtain them, he would sacrifice every thing else, exile himself to +a far country for years, selling his very life and soul for gold? + +Such a thought of him was so terrible--that is, would have been were +it tenable--that Hilary for an instant felt herself shiver all over. +The next she spoke out--in justice to him she forced herself to speak +out--all her honest soul. + +"I do believe that this going abroad to make a fortune, which young +men so delight in, is often a most fatal mistake. They give up far +more than they gain--country, home, health. I think a man has no +right to sell his life any more than his soul for so many thousands a +year." + +Robert Lyon smiled--"No, and I am not selling mine. With my temperate +habits I have as good a chance of health at Bombay as in +London--perhaps better. And the years I must be absent I would have +been absent almost as much from you--I mean they would have been +spent in work as engrossing and as hard. They will soon pass, and +then I shall come home rich--rich. Do you think I am growing +mercenary?" + +"No." + +"Tell me what you do think about me?" + +"I--can not quite understand." + +"And I cannot make you understand. Perhaps I will, some day when I +come back again. Till then, you must trust me, Hilary." + +It happens occasionally, in moments of all but tolerable pain, that +some small thing, a word, a look, a touch of a hand, lets in such a +gleam of peace that nothing ever extinguishes the light of it: it +burns on for years and years, sometimes clear, sometimes obscured, +but as ineffaceable from life and memory as a star from its place in +the heavens. Such, both then, and through the lonely years to come, +were those five words, "You must trust me. Hilary." + +She did; and in the perfection of that trust her own separate +identity, with all its consciousness of pain, seemed annihilated; she +did not think of herself at all, only of him, and with him, and for +him. So, for the time being, she lost all sense of personal +suffering, and their walk that night was as cheerful and happy as if +they were to walk together for weeks and months and years, in +undivided confidence and content, instead of its being the last--the +very last. + +Some one has said that all lovers have, soon or late, to learn to be +only friends: happiest and safest are those in whom the friendship is +the foundation--always firm and ready to fall back upon, long after +the fascination of passion dies. It may take a little from the +romance of these two if I own that Robert Lyon talked to Hilary not a +word about love, and a good deal about pure business, telling her all +his affairs and arrangements, and giving her as clear an idea of his +future life as it was possible to do within the limits of one brief +half hour. + +Then casting a glance round, and seeing that Ascott was quite out of +ear-shot, he said, with that tender fall of the voice that felt, as +some poet hath it, + + "Like a still embrace," + +"Now tell me as much as you can about yourself." + +At first there seemed nothing to tell; but gradually he drew from +Hilary a good deal. Johanna's feeble health, which caused her +continuing to teach to be very unadvisable; and the gradual +diminishing of the school--from what cause they could not +account--which made it very doubtful whether some change would not +soon or late be necessary. + +What this change should be she and Mr. Lyon discussed a little--as +far as in the utterly indefinite position of affairs was possible. +Also, from some other questions of his, she spoke to him about +another dread which had lurked in her mind, and yet to which she +could give no tangible shape, about Ascott. He could not remove it, +he did not attempt; but he soothed it a little, advising with her as +to the best way of managing the willful lad. His strong, clear sense, +just judgment, and, above all, a certain unspoken sense of union, as +if all that concerned her and hers he took naturally upon himself as +his own, gave Hilary such comfort that, even on this night, with a +full consciousness of all that was to follow, she was happy--nay, she +had not been so happy for years. Perhaps (let the truth be told), the +glorious truth of true love, that its recognition, spoken or silent, +constitutes the only perfect joy of life that of two made perhaps she +had never been so really happy since she was born. + +The last thing he did was to make her give him an assurance that in +any and all difficulty she would apply to him. + +"To me, and to no one else, remember. No one but myself must help +you. And I will, so, long as I am alive. Do you believe this?" + +She looked up at him by the lamp light, and said, "I do." + +"And you promise?" + +"Yes." + +Then they loosed arms, and Hilary knew that they should never walk +together again till--when and how? + +Returning, of course, he walked with Miss Leaf; and throughout the +next day, a terribly wet Sunday, spent by them entirely in the little +parlor, they had not a minute of special or private talk together. He +did not seem to wish it; indeed, almost avoided it. + +Thus slipped away the strange, still day--a Sunday never to be +forgotten. At night, after prayers were, over, Mr. Lyon rose +suddenly, saying he must leave them now; he was obliged to start from +Stowbury at daybreak. + +"Shall we not see you again?" asked Johanna. + +"No. This will be my last Sunday in England. Good-by!" + +He turned excessively pale, shook hands silently with them +all--Hilary last--and almost before they recognized the fact, he was +gone. + +With him departed, not all Hilary's peace or faith or courage of +heart, for to all who love truly, while the best beloved lives, and +lives worthily, no parting is hopeless and no grief overwhelming; but +all the brightness of her youth, all the sense of joy that young +people have in loving, and in being beloved again, in fond meetings +and fonder partings, in endless walks and talks, in sweet kisses and +clinging arms. Such happiness was not for her: when she saw it the +lot of others, she said to herself sometimes with a natural sharp +sting of pain, but oftener with a solemn acquiescence, "It is the +will of God; it is the will of God." + +Johanna, too, who would have given her life almost to bring some +color back to the white face of her darling, of whom she asked no +questions, and who never complained nor confessed any thing, many and +many a night when Hilary either lay awake by her side, or tossed and +moaned in her sleep, till the elder sister took her in her arms like +a baby--Johanna, too, said to herself, "This is the will of God." + +I have told thus much in detail the brief sad story of Hilary's +youth, to show how impossible it was that Elizabeth Hand could live +in the house with these two women without being strongly influenced +by them, as every person--especially every woman--influences for good +or for evil every other person connected with her, or dependent upon +her. Elizabeth was a girl of close observation and keen perception. +Besides, to most people, whether or not their sympathy be universal, +so far as the individual is concerned, any deep affection generally +lends eyes, tact, and delicacy. + +Thus when on the Monday morning at breakfast Miss Selina observed, +"What a fine day Mr. Lyon was having for his journey; what a lucky +fellow he was; how he would be sure to make a fortune, and if so, she +wondered whether they should ever see or hear any thing of him +again"--Elizabeth, from the glimpse she caught of Miss Hilary's face, +and from the quiet way in which Miss Leaf merely answered, "Time will +show;" and began talking to Selina about some other +subject--Elizabeth resolved never in any way to make the smallest +allusion to Mr. Robert Lyon. Something had happened, she did not know +what; and it was not her business to find out; the family affairs, so +far as she was trusted with them, were warmly her own, but into the +family secrets she had no right to pry. + +Yet, long after Miss Selina had ceased to "wonder" about him, or even +to name him--his presence or absence did not touch her personally, +and she was always the centre of her own small world of interest--the +little maidservant kept in her mind, and pondered over at odd times +every possible solution of the mystery of this gentleman's sudden +visit; of the long wet Sunday when he sat all day talking with her +mistresses in the parlor; of the evening prayer, when Miss Leaf had +twice to stop, her voice faltered so; and of the night when, long +after all the others had gone to bed, Elizabeth, coming suddenly into +the parlor, had found Miss Hilary sitting alone over the embers of +the fire, with the saddest, saddest look! so that the girl had softly +shut the door again without ever speaking to "Missis." + +Elizabeth did more; which, strange as it may appear, a servant who is +supposed to know nothing of any thing that has happened can often do +better than a member of the family who knows every thing, and this +knowledge is sometimes the most irritating consciousness a sufferer +has. She followed her young mistress with a steady watchfulness, so +quiet and silent that Hilary never found it out; saved her every +little household care, gave her every little household treat. Not +much to do, and less to be chronicled; but the way in which she did +it was all. + +During the long dull winter days, to come in and find the parlor fire +always bright, the hearth clean swept, and the room tidy; never to +enter the kitchen without the servant's face clearing up into a +smile; when her restless irritability made her forget things and grow +quite vexed in the search after them, to see that somehow her shoes +were never misplaced, and her gloves always came to hand in some +mysterious manner--these trifles; in her first heavy days of +darkness, soothed Hilary more than words could tell. + +And the sight of Miss Hilary going about the house and school room as +usual, with that poor white face of hers; nay, gradually bringing to +the family fireside, as usual, her harmless little joke, and her +merry laugh at it and herself--who shall say what lessons may not +have been taught by this to the humble servant, dropping deep sown +into her heart, to germinate and fructify, as her future life's needs +required? + +It might have been so--God knows! He alone can know, who, through +what (to us) seem the infinite littleness of our mortal existence, is +educating us into the infinite greatness of His and our immortality. + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +Autumn soon lapsed into winter: Christmas came and went, bringing, +not Ascott, as they hoped and he had promised, but a very serious +evil in the shape of sundry bills of his, which, he confessed in a +most piteous letter to his Aunt Hilary, were absolutely unpayable out +of his godfather's allowance. They were not large--or would not have +seemed so to rich people--and they were for no more blamable luxuries +than horse hire, and a dinner or two to friends out in the country; +but they looked serious to a household which rarely was more than +five pounds beforehand with the world. + +He had begged Aunt Hilary to keep his secret, but that was evidently +impossible; so on the day the school accounts were being written out +and sent in, and their amount anxiously reckoned, she laid before her +sisters the lad's letter, full of penitence and promises: "I will be +careful--I will indeed--if you will help me out this once, dear Aunt +Hilary; and don't think too ill of me. I have done nothing wicked. +And you don't know London; you don't know, with a lot of young +fellows about one, how very hard it is to say no." + +At that unlucky postscript the Misses Leaf sorrowfully exchanged +looks. Little the lad thought about it; but these few words were the +very sharpest pang Ascott had ever given to his aunts. + +"What's bred in the bone will come out in the flesh." "Like father +like son." "The sins of the parents shall be visited on the +children." So runs many a proverb: so confirms the unerring decree of +a just God, who would not be a just God did He allow Himself to break +His own righteous laws for the government of the universe; did He +falsify the requirements of His own holy and pure being, by +permitting any other wages for sin than death. And though, through +His mercy, sin forsaken escapes sin's penalty, and every human being +has it in his own power to modify, if not to conquer, any hereditary +moral as well as physical disease, thereby avoiding the doom and +alleviating the curse, still the original law remains in force, and +ought to remain, an example and a warning. As true as that every +individual sin that a man commits breeds multitudes more, is it that +every individual sin may transmit his own peculiar type of weakness +or wickedness to a whole race, disappearing in one generation, +re-appearing in another, exactly the same as physical peculiarities +do, requiring the utmost caution of education to counteract the +terrible tendencies of nature--the "something in the blood" which is +so difficult to eradicate: which may even make the third and fourth +generation execrate the memory of him or her who was its origin. + +The long life-curse of Henry Leaf the elder, and Henry Leaf the +younger, had been--the women of the family well knew--that they were +men who "couldn't say No." So keenly were the three sisters alive to +this fault--it could hardly be called a crime, and yet in its +consequences it was so--so sickening the terror of it which their own +wretched experience had implanted in their minds, that during +Ascott's childhood and youth his very fractiousness and roughness, +his little selfishness, and his persistence in his own will against +theirs, had been hailed by his aunts as a good omen that he would +grow up "so unlike his poor father." + +If the two unhappy Henry Leafs--father and son--could have come out +of their graves that night and beheld these three women, daughters +and sisters, sitting with Ascott's letter on the table, planning how +the household's small expenses could be contracted, its still smaller +luxuries relinquished, in order that the boy might honorably pay for +pleasures he might so easily have done without! If they could have +seen the weight of apprehension which then sank like a stone on these +long-tried hearts, never to be afterward removed: lightened +sometimes, but always--however Ascott might promise and amend--always +there! On such a discovery, surely, these two "poor ghosts" would +have fled away moaning, wishing they had died childless, or that +during their mortal lives any amount of self restraint and self +compulsion had purged from their natures the accursed thing; the sin +which had worked itself out in sorrow upon every one belonging to +them, years after their own heads were laid in the quiet dust. + +"We must do it," was the conclusion the Misses Leaf unanimously came +to; even Selina; who with all her faults, had a fair share of good +feeling and of that close clinging to kindred which is found in +fallen households, or households whom the sacred bond of common +poverty, has drawn together in a way that large, well-to-do home +circles can never quite understand. + +"We must not let the boy remain in debt; it would be such a disgrace +to the family." + +"It is not the remaining in debt, but the incurring of it, which is +the real disgrace to Ascott and the family." + +"Hush Hilary," said Johanna, pointing to the opening door; but it was +too late. + +Elizabeth, coming suddenly in--or else the ladies had been so +engrossed with their conversation that they had not noticed her--had +evidently heard every word of the last sentence. Her conscious face +showed it; more especially the bright scarlet which covered both her +cheeks when Miss Leaf said "Hush!" She stood, apparently irresolute +as to whether she should run away again; and then her native honesty +got the upper hand, and she advanced into the room. + +"If you please, missis, I didn't mean to--but I've heard--" + +"What have you heard; that is, how much?" + +"Just what Miss Hilary said. Don't be afeared. I shan't tell. I never +chatter about the family. Mother told me not." + +"You owe a great deal, Elizabeth, to your good mother. Now go away." + +"And another time." said Miss Selina, "knock at the door." + +This was Elizabeth's first initiation into what many a servant has to +share--the secret burden of the family. After that day, though they +did not actually confide in her, her mistresses used no effort to +conceal that they had cares; that the domestic economies must, this +winter, be especially studied; there must be no extra fires, no +candles left burning to waste; and once a week or so, a few +butterless breakfasts or meatless dinners must be partaken of +cheerfully, in both parlor and kitchen. The Misses Leaf never stinted +their servant in any thing in which they did not stint themselves. + +Strange to say, in spite of Miss Selina's prophecies, the girl's +respectful conduct did not abate: on the contrary, it seemed to +increase. The nearer she was lifted to her mistress's level, the more +her mind grew, so that she could better understand her mistresses +cares, and the deeper her consciousness of the only thing which gives +one human being any real authority over another--personal character. + +Therefore, though the family means were narrowed, and the family +luxuries few, Elizabeth cheerfully put up with all; she even felt a +sort of pride in wasting nothing and in making the best of every +thing, as the others did. Perhaps, it may be said she was an +exceptional servant; and yet I would not do her class the wrong to +believe so-I would rather believe that there are many such among it; +many good, honest, faithful girls, who only need good mistresses unto +whom to be honest and faithful, and they would be no less so than +Elizabeth Hand. + +The months went by--heavy and anxious months; for the school +gradually dwindled away, and Ascott's letter--now almost the only +connection his aunts had with the outer world, for poverty +necessarily diminished even their small Stowbury society--became more +and more unsatisfactory; and the want of information in them was not +supplied by those other letters which had once kept Johanna's heart +easy concerning the boy. + +Mr. Lyon had written once before sailing, nay, after sailing, for he +had sent it home by the pilot from the English Channel; then there +was, of course, silence. October, November, December, January, +February, March--how often did Hilary count the months, and wonder +how soon a letter would come, whether a letter ever would come again. +And sometimes--the sharp present stinging her with its small daily +pains, the future looking dark before her and them all--she felt so +forlorn, so forsaken, that but for a certain tiny well-spring of +hope, which rarely dries up till long after three-and twenty, she +could have sat down and sighed, "My good days are done." + +Rich people break their hearts much sooner than poor people; that is, +they more easily get into that morbid state which is glorified by the +term, "a broken heart." Poor people can not afford it. Their constant +labor "physics pain." Their few and narrow pleasures seldom pall. +Holy poverty! black as its dark side is, it has its bright side too, +that is, when it is honest, fearless, free from selfishness. +wastefulness, and bickerings; above all, free from the terror of +debt. + +"We'll starve, we'll go into the work house rather than we'll go into +debt!" cried Hilary once, in a passion of tears, when she was in sore +want of a shawl, and Selina urged her to get it, and wait till she +could pay for it. "Yes; the work house! It would be less shame to be +honorably indebted to the laws of the land than to be meanly +indebted, under false pretences, to any individual in it". + +And when, in payment for some accidental lessons, she got next month +enough money to buy a shawl, and a bonnet, too--nay, by great +ingenuity, another bonnet for Johanna--Hilary could have danced and +sang--sang, in the gladness and relief of her heart, the glorious +euthanasia of poverty. + +But these things happened only occasionally; the daily life was hard +still; ay, very hard, even though at last came the letter from +"foreign parts;" and following it, at regular intervals, other +letters. They were full of facts rather than feelings--simple, +straightforward; worth little as literary compositions; school-master +and learned man as he was, there was nothing literary or poetical +about Mr. Lyon; but what he wrote was like what he spoke, the +accurate reflection of his own clear, original mind and honest, +tender heart. + +His letters gave none the less comfort because, nominally, they were +addressed to Johanna. This might have been from some crotchet of +over-reserve, delicacy, or honor--the same which made him part from +her for years with no other word than 'You must trust me, Hilary;' +but whatever it was she respected it, and she did trust him. And +whether Johanna answered his letters or not, month by month they +unfailingly came, keeping her completely informed of all his +proceedings, and letting out, as epistles written from over the seas +often do, much more of himself and his character than he was probably +aware that he betrayed. + +And Hilary, whose sole experience of mankind had been the scarcely +remembered father, the too well remembered brother, and the anxiously +watched nephew, thanked God that there seemed to be one man in the +world whom a woman could lean her heart upon, and not feel the +support break like a reed beneath her--one man whom she could +entirely believe in, and safely and sacredly trust. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +Time slipped by. Robert Lyon had been away more than three years. But +in the monotonous life of the three sisters at Stowbury, nothing was +changed. Except, perhaps, Elizabeth, who had grown quite a woman; +might have passed almost for thirty; so solidly old fashioned were +her figure and her manners. + +Ascott Leaf had finished his walking the hospitals and his +examinations, and was now fitted to commence practice for himself. +His godfather had still continued his allowance, though once or +twice, when he came down to Stowbury, he had asked his aunts to help +him in small debts the last time in one a little more serious; when, +after some sad and sore consultation, it had been resolved to tell +him he must contrive to live within his own allowance. For they were +poorer than they used to be; many more schools had arisen in the +town, and theirs had dwindled away. It was becoming a source of +serious anxiety whether they could possibly make ends meet; and when, +the next Christmas, Ascott sent them a five pound note--an actual +five pound note, together with a fond, grateful letter that was worth +it all--the aunts were deeply thankful, and very happy. + +But still the school declined. One night they were speculating upon +the causes of this, and Hilary was declaring, in a half jocular, half +earnest way, that it must be because a prophet is never a prophet in +his own country. + +"The Stowbury people will never believe how clever I am. Only, it is +a useless sort of cleverness, I fear. Greek, Latin, and mathematics +are no good to infants under seven, such as Stowbury persists in +sending to us." + +"They think I am only fit to teach little children--and perhaps it is +true," said Miss Leaf. + +"I wish you had not to teach at all. I wish I was a daily +governess--I might be, and earn enough to keep the whole family; +only, not here." + +"I wonder," said Johanna, thoughtfully, "if we shall have to make a +change." + +"A change!" It almost pained the elder sister to see how the younger +brightened up at the word. "Where to--London? Oh, I have so longed to +go and live in London! But I thought you would not like it, Johanna." + +That was true. Miss Leaf, whom feeble health had made prematurely +old, would willingly have ended her days in the familiar town; but +Hilary was young and strong. Johanna called to mind the days when she +too had felt that rest was only another name for dullness; and when +the most difficult thing possible to her was what seemed now so +easy--to sit down and endure. + +Besides, unlike herself, Hilary had her life all before her. It might +be a happy life, safe in a good man's tender keeping; those unfailing +letters from India seemed to prophecy that it would. But no one could +say. Miss Leaf's own experience had not led her to place much faith +in either men or happiness. + +Still, whatever Hilary's future might be, it would likely be a very +different one from that quiet, colorless life of hers. And as she +looked at her younger sister, with the twilight glow on her +face--they were taking an evening stroll up and down the +terrace--Johanna hoped and prayed it might be so. Her own lot seemed +easy enough for herself; but for Hilary--she would like to see Hilary +something better than a poor schoolmistress at Stowbury. + +No more was said at that time, but Johanna had the deep, still, +Mary-like nature, which "kept" things, and "pondered them in her +heart." So that when the subject came up again she was able to meet +it with that sweet calmness which was her especial +characteristic--the unruffled peace of a soul which no worldly storms +could disturb overmuch, for it had long since cast anchor in the +world unseen. + +The chance which revived the question of the Great Metropolitan +Hegira, as Hilary called it, was a letter from Mr. Ascott, as +follows: + +"MISS LEAF. MADAM,--I shall be obliged by your informing me if it is +your wish, as it seems to be your nephew's, that instead of returning +to Stowbury, he should settle in London as a surgeon and general +practitioner? His education complete, I consider that I have done my +duty by him; but I may assist him occasionally still, unless he turns +out--as his father did before him--a young man who prefers being +helped to helping himself, in which case I shall have nothing more to +do with him. I remain, Madam, your obedient servant, + PETER ASCOTT." + +The sisters read this letter, passing it round the table, none of +them apparently liking to be the first to comment upon it. At length +Hilary said: "I think that reference to poor Henry is perfectly +brutal." + +"And yet he was very kind to Henry. And if it had not been for his +common sense in sending poor little Ascott and the nurse down to +Stowbury the baby might have died. But you don't remember any thing +of that time, my dear," said Johanna, sighing. + +"He has been kind enough, though he has done it in such a patronizing +way," observed Selina. "I suppose that's the real reason of his doing +it. He thinks it fine to patronize us, and show kindness to our +family; he, the stout, bullet-headed grocer's boy, who used to sit +and stare at us all church time." + +"At you--you mean. Wasn't he called your beau?" said Hilary +mischievously, upon which Selina drew herself up in great +indignation. + +And then they fell to talking of that anxious question--Ascott's +future. A little they reproached themselves that they had left the +lad so long in London--so long out of the influence that might have +counteracted the evil, sharply hinted in his godfather's letter. But +once away--to lure him back to their poor home was impossible. + +"Suppose we were to go to him," suggested Hilary. + +The poor and friendless possess one great advantage--they have nobody +to ask advice of; nobody to whom it matters much what they do or +where they go. The family mind has but to make itself up, and act +accordingly. Thus within an hour or two of the receipt of Mr. +Ascott's letter Hilary went into the kitchen, and told Elizabeth that +as soon as her work was done Miss Leaf wished to have a little talk +with her. + +"Eh! what's wrong? Has Miss Selina been a-grumbling at me?" + +Elizabeth was in one of her bad humors, which, though of course they +never ought to have, servants do have as well as their superiors. +Hilary perceived this by the way she threw the coals on and tossed +the chairs about. But to-day her heart was full of far more serious +cares than Elizabeth's ill temper. She replied, composedly-- + +"I have not heard that either of my sisters is displeased with you. +What they want to talk to you about is for your own good. We are +thinking of making a great change. We intend to leave Stowbury and +going to live in London." + +"Going to live in London!" + +Now, quick as her tact and observation were--her heart taught her +these things--Elizabeth's head was a thorough Saxon one, slow to +receive impressions. It was a family saying, that nothing was so hard +as to put a new idea into Elizabeth except to get it out again. + +For this reason Hilary preferred paving the way quietly, before +startling her with the sudden intelligence of their contemplated +change. + +"Well, what do you say to the plan?" asked she, good-humoredly. + +"I dunnot like it at all," was the brief gruff answer of Elizabeth +Hand. + +Now it was one of Miss Hilary's doctrines that no human being is good +for much unless he or she has what is called "a will of one's own." +Perhaps this, like many another creed, was with her the result of +circumstances. But she held it firmly, and with that exaggerated +one-sidedness of feeling which any bitter family or personal +experience is sure to leave behind--a strong will was her first +attraction to every body. It had been so in the case of Robert Lyon, +and not less in Elizabeth's. + +But this quality has its inconveniences. When the maid began sweeping +up her hearth with a noisy, angry gesture, the mistress did the +wisest and most dignified thing a mistress could do under the +circumstances and which she knew was the sharpest rebuke she could +administer to the sensitive Elizabeth--she immediately quitted the +kitchen. + +For an hour after the parlor bell did not ring; and though it was +washing day, no Miss Hilary appeared to help in folding up the +clothes. Elizabeth, subdued and wretched, waited till she could wait +no longer; then knocked at the door, and asked humbly if she should +bring in supper? + +The extreme kindness of the answer, to the effect that she must come +in, as they wanted to speak to her, crushed the lingering fragments +of ill humor out of the girl. + +"Miss Hilary has told you our future plans, Elizabeth; now we wish to +have a little talk with you about yours." + +"Eh?" + +"We conclude you will not wish to go with us to London; and it would +be hardly advisable you should. You can get higher wages now than any +we can afford to give you; indeed, we have more than once thought of +telling you so, and offering you your choice of trying for a better +place." + +"You're very kind," was the answer, stolid rather than grateful. + +"No; I think we are merely honest. We should never think of keeping a +girl upon lower wages than she was worth. Hitherto, however, the +arrangement has been quite fair you know, Elizabeth, you have given +us a deal of trouble in the teaching of you." And Miss Leaf smiled, +half sadly, as if this, the first of the coming changes, hurt her +more than she liked to express. "Come, my girl," she added, "you +needn't look so serious. We are not in the least vexed with you; we +shall be very sorry to lose you, and we will give you the best of +characters when you leave." + +"I dunnot--mean--to leave." + +Elizabeth threw out the words like pellets, in a choked fashion, and +disappeared suddenly from the parlor. + +"Who would have thought it!" exclaimed Selina; "I declare the girl +was crying." + +No mistake about that; though when, a few minutes after, Miss Hilary +entered the kitchen, Elizabeth tried in a hurried, shamefaced way to +hide her tears by being very busy over something. Her mistress took +no notice, but began, as usual on washing days, to assist in various +domestic matters, in the midst of which she said, quietly, "And so, +Elizabeth, you would really like to go to London?" + +"No! I shouldn't like it at all; never said I should. But if you go, +I shall go too; though Missis is so ready to get shut o' me." + +"It was for your own good, you know." + +"You always said it was for a girl's good to stop in one place; and +if you think I'm going to another. I aren't that's all." + +Rude as the form of the speech was--almost the first rude speech that +Elizabeth had ever made to Miss Hilary, and which, under other +circumstances she would have felt bound severely to reprove--the +mistress passed it over. That which lay beneath it, the sharpness of +wounded love, touched her heart. She felt that, for all the girl's +rough manner, it would have been hard to go into her London kitchen +and meet a strange London face, instead of that fond homely one of +Elizabeth Hand's. + +Still, she thought it right to explain to her that London life might +have many difficulties, that; for the present at least, her wages +could not be raised, and the family might at first be in even more +straitened circumstances than they were at Stowbury. + +"Only at first, though, for I hope to find plenty of pupils, and +by-and-by our nephew will get into practice." + +"Is it on account of him you're going, Miss Hilary?" + +"Chiefly." + +Elizabeth gave a grunt which said as plainly as words could say, "I +thought so;" and relapsed into what she, no doubt, believed to be +virtuous indignation, but which, as it was testified against the +wrong parties, was open to the less favorable interpretation of ill +humor--a small injustice not uncommon with us all. + +I do not pretend to paint this young woman as a perfect character. +She had her fierce dislikes as well as her strong fidelities; her +faults within and without, which had to be struggled with, as all of +us have to struggle to the very end of our days. Oftentimes not till +the battle is high over--sometimes not till it is quite over--does +God give us the victory. + +Without more discussion on either side, it was agreed that Elizabeth +should accompany her mistresses. Even Mrs. Hand seemed to be pleased +thereat, her only doubt being lest her daughter should meet and be +led astray by that bad woman, Mrs. Cliffe, Tommy Cliffe's mother, who +was reported to have gone to London. But Miss Hilary explained that +this meeting was about as probable as the rencontre of two needles in +a hay-rick; and besides, Elizabeth was not the sort of girl to be +easily "led astray" by any body. + +"No, no; her's a good wench, though I says it," replied the mother, +who was too hard worked to have much sentiment to spare. "I wish the +little 'uns may take pattern by our Elizabeth. You'll send her home, +may be, in two or three years' time, to let us have a look at her?" + +Miss Hilary promised, and then took her way back through the familiar +old town--so soon to be familiar no more--thinking anxiously, in +spite of herself, upon those two or three years, and what they might +bring. + +It happened to be a notable day--that sunshiny 28th of June--when the +little, round-cheeked damsel, who is a grandmother now, had the crown +of three kingdoms first set upon her youthful head; and Stowbury, +like every other town in the land, was a perfect bower of green +arches, garlands, banners; white covered tables were spread in the +open air down almost every street, where poor men dined, or poor +women drank tea; and every body was out and abroad, looking at or +sharing in the holiday' making, wild with merriment, and brimming +over with passionate loyalty to the Maiden Queen. + +That day is now twenty-four years ago; but all those who remember it +must own there never has been a day like it, when, all over the +country, every man's heart throbbed with chivalrous devotion, every +woman's with womanly tenderness, toward this one royal girl, who, God +bless her! has lived to retain and deserve it all. + +Hilary called for, and protected through the crowd, the little, +timid, widow lady who had taken off the Misses Leaf's hands their +house and furniture, and whom they had made very happy--as the poor +often can make those still poorer than themselves--by refusing to +accept any thing for the "good will" of the school. Then she was +fetched by Elizabeth, who had been given a whole afternoon's holiday; +and mistress and maid went together home, watching the last of the +festivities, the chattering groups that still lingered in the +twilight streets, and listening to the merry notes of the "Triumph" +which came down through the lighted windows of the Town Hall, where +the open-air tea drinkers had adjourned to dance country dances, by +civic permission, and in perfectly respectable jollity. + +"I wonder," said Hilary--while, despite some natural regret, her +spirit stretched itself out eagerly from the narrowness of the place +where she was born into the great wide world; the world where so many +grand things were thought and written and done; the world Robert Lyon +had so long fought with, and was fighting bravely still--"I wonder, +Elizabeth, what sort of place London is, and what our life will be in +it?" + +Elizabeth said nothing. For the moment her face seemed to catch the +reflected glow of her mistress's, and then it settled down into that +look of mingled resistance and resolution which was habitual to her. +For the life that was to be, which neither knew--oh, if they had +known!--she also was prepared. + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +The day of the Grand Hegira came. + +"I remember," said Miss Leaf, as they rumbled for the last time +through the empty morning streets of poor old Stowbury: "I remember +my grandmother telling me that when my grandfather was courting her, +and she out of coquetry refused him, he set off on horseback to +London, and she was so wretched to think of all the dangers he ran on +the journey, and in London itself, that she never rested till she got +him back, and then immediately married him." + +"No such catastrophe is likely to happen to any of us, except, +perhaps, to Elizabeth," said Miss Hilary, trying to get up, a little +feeble mirth, any thing to pass away the time and lessen the pain of +parting, which was almost too much for Johanna. "What do you say? Do +you mean to get married in London, Elizabeth?" + +But Elizabeth could make no answer, even to kind Miss Hilary. They +had not imagined she felt the leaving her native place so much. She +had watched intently the last glimpse of Stowbury church tower, and +now sat with reddened eyes, staring blankly out of the carriage +window, + +"Silent as a stone." + +Once or twice a large slow tear gathered on each of her eyes, but it +was shaken off angrily from the high check bones, and never settled +into absolute crying. They thought it best to take no notice of her. +Only, when reaching the new small station, where the "resonant steam +eagles" were, for the first time, beheld by the innocent Stowbury +ladies, there arose a discussion as to the manner of traveling. Miss +Leaf said, decidedly "Second class; and then we can keep Elizabeth +with us." Upon which Elizabeth's mouth melted into something between +a quiver and a smile. + +Soon it was all over, and the little house-hold was compressed into +the humble second class carriage, cheerless and cushionless, whirling +through indefinite England in a way that confounded all their +geography and topography. Gradually as the day darkened into heavy, +chilly July rain, the scarcely kept up spirits of the four passengers +began to sink. Johanna grew very white and worn, Selina became, to +use Ascott's phrase, "as cross as two sticks," and even Hilary, +turning her eyes from the gray sodden looking landscape without, +could find no spot of comfort to rest on within the carriage, except +that round rosy face of Elizabeth Hand's. + +Whether it was from the spirit of contradiction existing in most such +natures, which, especially in youth, are more strong than sweet, or +from a better feeling, the fact was noticeable, that when every one +else's spirits went down Elizabeth's went up. Nothing could bring her +out of a "grumpy" fit so satisfactorily as her mistresses falling +into one. When Miss Selina now began to fidget hither and thither, +each tone of her fretful voice seeming to go through her eldest +sister's every nerve, till even Hilary said, impatiently, "Oh, +Selina, can't you be quiet?" then Elizabeth rose from the depth of +her gloomy discontent up to the surface immediately. + +She was only a servant; but Nature bestows that strange vague thing +that we term "force of character" independently of position. Hilary +often remembered afterward, how much more comfortable the end of the +journey was than she had expected--how Johanna lay at ease, with her +feet in Elizabeth's lap, wrapped in Elizabeth's best woolen shawl; +and how, when Selina's whole attention was turned to an ingenious +contrivance with a towel and fork and Elizabeth's basket, for +stopping the rain out of the carriage roof--she became far less +disagreeable, and even a little proud of her own cleverness. And so +there was a temporary lull in Hilary's cares, and she could sit +quiet, with her eyes fixed on the rainy landscape, which she did not +see, and her thoughts wandering toward that unknown place and unknown +life into which they were sweeping, as we all sweep, ignorantly, +unresistingly, almost unconsciously, into new destinies. Hilary, for +the first time, began to doubt of theirs. Anxious as she had been to +go to London, and wise as the proceeding appeared, now that the die +was cast and the cable cut, the old simple, peaceful life at Stowbury +grew strangely dear. + +"I wonder if we shall ever go back again, or what is to happen to us +before we do go back," she thought, and turned, with a half defined +fear, toward her eldest sister, who looked so old and fragile beside +that sturdy, healthful servant girl. "Elizabeth!" Elizabeth, rubbing +Miss Leaf's feet, started at the unwonted sharpness of Miss Hilary's +tone. + +"There; I'll do that for my sister. Go and look out of the window at +London." + +For the great smoky cloud which began to rise in the rainy horizon +was indeed London. Soon through the thickening nebula of houses they +converged to what was then the nucleus of all railway traveling, the +Euston Terminus, and were hustled on to the platform, and jostled +helplessly to and fro these poor country ladies! Anxiously they +scanned the crowd of strange faces for the one only face they knew in +the great metropolis--which did not appear. + +"It is very strange; very wrong of Ascott. Hilary, you surely told +him the hour correctly. For once, at least, he might have been in +time" + +So chafed Miss Selina, while Elizabeth, who by some miraculous effort +of intuitive genius, had succeeded in collecting the luggage, was now +engaged in defending it from all comers, especially porters, and +making of it a comfort able seat for Miss Leaf. + +"Nay, have patience, Selina. We will give him just five minutes more, +Hilary." + +And Johanna sat down, with her sweet, calm, long suffering face +turned upward to that younger one, which was, as youth is apt to be, +hot, and worried, and angry. And so they waited till the terminus was +almost deserted, and the last cab had driven off, when, suddenly, +dashing up the station yard out of another, came Ascott. + +He was so sorry, so very sorry, downright grieved, at having kept his +aunts waiting. But his watch was wrong--some fellows at dinner +detained him--the train was before its time surely. In fact, his +aunts never quite made out what the excuse was; but they looked into +his bright handsome face, and their wrath melted like clouds before +the sun. He was so gentlemanly, so well dressed--much better dressed +than even at Stowbury--and he seemed so unfeignedly glad to see them. +He handed them all into the cab--even Elizabeth. though whispering +meanwhile to his Aunt Hilary, "What on earth did you bring her for?" +and their was just going to leap on to the box himself, when he +stopped to ask "Where he should tell cabby to drive to?" + +"Where to?" repeated his aunts in undisguised astonishment. They had +never thought of any thing but of being taken home at once by their +boy. + +"You see," Ascott said, in a little confusion, "you wouldn't be +comfortable with me. A young fellow's lodgings are not like a house +of one's own, and, besides--" + +"Besides, when a young fellow is ashamed of his old aunts, he can +easily find reasons." + +"Hush, Selina!" interposed Miss Leaf. "My dear boy, your old aunts +would never let you inconvenience yourself for them. Take us to an +inn for the night, and to morrow we will find lodgings for +ourselves." + +Ascott looked greatly relieved. + +"And you are not vexed with me, Aunt Johanna?" said he, with +something of his old childish tone of compunction, as he saw--he +could not help seeing--the utter weariness which Johanna tried so +hard to hide. + +"No, my dear, not vexed. Only I wish we had known this a little +sooner that we might have made arrangements. Now, where shall we go?" + +Ascott mentioned a dozen hotels, but they found he only knew them by +name. At last Miss Leaf remembered one, which her father used to go +to, on his frequent journeys to London, and whence, indeed, he had +been brought home to die. And though all the recollections about it +were sad enough, still it felt less strange than the rest, in this +dreariness of London. So she proposed going to the "Old Bell," +Holborn. + +"A capital place!" exclaimed Ascott, eagerly. "And I'll take and +settle you there: and we'll order supper, and make a jolly night of +it. All right. Drive on, cabby." + +He jumped on the box, and then looked in mischievously, flourishing +his lit cigar and shaking his long hair--his Aunt Selina's two great +abominations--right in her indignant face: but withal looking so +merry and good tempered that she shortly softened into a smile. + +"How handsome the boy is growing!" + +"Yes," said Johanna, with a slight sigh; "and did you notice? how +exceedingly like his--" + +The sentence was left unfinished. Alas! if every young man, who +believes his faults and follies injure himself alone, could feel what +it must be, years afterward, to have his nearest kindred shrink from +saying as the saddest, most ominous thing they could say of his son, +that the lad is growing "so like his father!" + +It might have been--they assured each other that it was--only the +incessant roll, roll of the street sounds below their windows, which +kept the Misses Leaf awake half the night of this their first night +in London. And when they sat down to breakfast--having waited an hour +vainly for their nephew--it might have been only the gloom of the +little parlor which cast a slight shadow over them all. Still the +shadow was there. + +It deepened despite the sunshiny morning into which the last night's +rain had brightened till Holborn Bars looked cheerful, and Holborn +pavement actually clean, so that, as Elizabeth said, "you might eat +your dinner off it;" which was the one only thing she condescended to +approve in London. She had sat all evening mute in her corner, for +Miss Leaf would not send her away into the terra incognita of a +London hotel. Ascott, at first considerably annoyed at the presence +of what he called a "skeleton at the feast," had afterward got over +it; and run on with a mixture of childish glee and mannish pomposity +about his plans and intentions--how he meant to take a house, he +thought, in one of the squares, or a street leading out of them: how +he would put up the biggest of brass plates, with "Mr. Leaf, +surgeon." and soon get an extensive practice, and have all his aunts +to live with him. And his aunts had smiled and listened, forgetting +all about the silent figure in the corner, who perhaps had gone to +sleep, or had also listened. + +"Elizabeth, come and look out at London." + +So she and Miss Hilary whiled away another heavy three quarters of an +hour in watching and commenting on the incessantly shifting crowd +which swept past Holborn Bars. Miss Selina sometimes looked out too, +but more often sat fidgeting and wondering why Ascott did not come; +while Miss Leaf, who never fidgeted, became gradually more and more +silent. Her eyes were fixed on the door, with an expression which, if +Hilary could have remembered so far back, would have been to her +something not painfully new, but still more painfully old--a look +branded into her face by many an anxious hour's listening for the +footstep that never came, or only came to bring distress. It was the +ineffaceable token of that long, long struggle between affection and +conscience, pity and scarcely repressible contempt, which, for more +than one generation, had been the appointed burden of this family--at +least the women of it--till sometimes it seemed to hang over them +almost like a fate. + +About noon Miss Leaf proposed calling for the hotel bill. Its length +so alarmed the country ladies that Hilary suggested not staying to +dine, but going immediately in search of lodgings. + +"What, without a gentleman! Impossible! I always understood ladies +could go nowhere in London without a gentleman!" + +"We shall come very ill off then, Selina. But any how I mean to try. +You know the region where, we have heard, lodgings are cheapest and +best--that is, best for us. It can not be far from here. Suppose I +start at once?" + +"What, alone?" cried Johanna, anxiously. + +"No, dear, I'll take the map with me, and Elizabeth. She is not +afraid." + +Elizabeth smiled, and rose, with that air of dogged devotedness with +which she would have prepared to follow Miss Hilary to the North +Pole, if necessary. So, after a few minutes of arguing with Selina, +who did not press her point overmuch, since she herself had not to +commit the impropriety of the expedition. After a few minutes more of +hopeless lingering about--till even Miss Leaf said they had better +wait no longer--mistress and maid took a farewell nearly as pathetic +as if they had been really Arctic voyagers, and plunged right into +the dusty glare and hurrying crowd of the "sunny side" of Holborn in +July. + +A strange sensation, and yet there was something exhilarating in it. +The intense solitude that there is in a London crowd these country +girls--for Miss Hilary herself was no more than a girl--could not as +yet realize. They only felt the life of it; stirring, active, +incessantly moving life; even though it was of a kind that they knew +as little of it as the crowd did of them. Nothing struck Hilary more +than the self-absorbed look of passers-by: each so busy on his own +affairs, that, in spite of Selina's alarm, for all notice taken of +them, they might as well be walking among the cows and horses in +Stowbury field. + +Poor old Stowbury! They felt how far away they were from it when a +ragged, dirty, vicious looking girl offered them a moss rose bud for +"one penny, only one penny;" which Elizabeth, lagging behind, bought, +and found it only a broken off bud stuck on to a bit of wire. + +"That's London ways, I suppose," said she, severely, and became so +misanthropic that she would hardly vouchsafe a glance to the hand +some square they turned into, and merely observed of the tall houses, +taller than any Hilary had ever seen, that she "wouldn't fancy +running up and down them stairs." + +But Hilary was cheerful in spite of all. She was glad to be in this +region, which, theoretically, she knew by heart--glad to find herself +in the body, where in the spirit she had come so many a time. The +mere consciousness of this seemed to refresh her. She thought she +would be much happier in London; that in the long years to come that +must be borne, it would be good for her to have something to do as +well as to hope for; something to fight with as well as to endure. +Now more than ever came pulsing in and out of her memory a line once +repeated in her hearing, with an observation of how "true" it was. +And though originally it was applied by a man to a woman, and she +smiled sometimes to think how "unfeminine" some people--Selina for +instance--would consider her turning it the other way, still she did +so. She believed that, for woman as for man, that is the purest and +noblest love which is the most self-existent, most independent of +love returned; and which can say, each to the other equally on both +sides, that the whole solemn purpose of life is, under God's service, + +"If not to win, to feel more worthy thee." + +Such thoughts made her step firmer and her heart lighter; so that she +hardly noticed the distance they must have walked till the close +London air began to oppress her, and the smooth glaring London +pavements made her Stowbury feet ache sorely. + +"Are you tired, Elizabeth? Well, we'll rest soon. There must be +lodgings near here. Only I can't quite make out--" + +As Miss Hilary looked up to the name of the street the maid noticed +what a glow came into her mistress's face, pale and tired as it was. +Just then a church clock struck the quarter hour. + +"That must be St. Pancras. And this--yes, this is Burton Street, +Burton Crescent." + +"I'm sure Missis wouldn't like to live there;" observed Elizabeth, +eyeing uneasily the gloomy rez de-chaussee, familiar to many a +generation of struggling respectability, where, in the decadence of +the season, every second house bore the announcement "apartments +furnished." + +"No," Miss Hilary replied, absently. Yet she continued to walk up and +down the whole length of the street; then passed out into the dreary, +deserted looking Crescent, where the trees were already beginning to +fade; not, however, into the bright autumn tint of country woods, but +into a premature withering, ugly and sad to behold. + +"I am glad he is not here--glad, glad!" thought Hilary, as she +realized the unutterable dreariness of those years when Robert Lyon +lived and studied in his garret from month's end to month's +end--these few dusty trees being the sole memento of the green +country life in which he had been brought up, and which she knew he +so passionately loved. Now she could understand, that "calenture" +which he had sometimes jestingly alluded to, as coming upon him at +times, when he felt literally sick for the sight of a green field or +a hedge full of birds. She wondered whether the same feeling would +ever come upon her in this strange desert of London, the vastness of +which grew upon her every hour. + +She was glad he was away; yes, heart glad! And yet, if this minute +she could only have seen him coming round the Crescent, have met his +smile, and the firm, warm clasp of his hand-- + +For an instant there rose up in her one of those wild, rebellious +outcries against fate, when to have to waste years of this brief life +of ours, in the sort of semi-existence that living is, apart from the +treasure of the heart and delight of the eyes, seems so cruelly, +cruelly hard! + +"Miss Hilary." + +She started, and "put herself under lock and key" immediately. "Miss +Hilary; you do look so tired!" + +"Do I? Then we will go and sit down in this baker's shop, and get +rested and fed. We cannot afford to wear ourselves out, you know. We +have a great deal to do to-day." + +More indeed, than she calculated, for they walked up one street and +down another, investigating at least twenty lodgings before any +appeared which seemed fit for them. Yet some place must be found +where Johanna's poor, tired head could rest that night. At last, +completely exhausted, with that oppressive exhaustion which seems to +crush mind as well as body after a day's wandering in London. +Hilary's courage began to ebb. Oh for an arm to lean on, a voice to +listen for, a brave heart to come to her side, saying, "Do not be +afraid, there are two of us!" And she yearned, with an absolutely +sick yearning such as only a woman who now and then feels the utter +helplessness of her womanhood can know, for the only arm she cared to +lean on, the only voice dear enough to bring her comfort, the only +heart that she felt she could trust. + +Poor Hilary! And yet why pity her? To her three alternatives could +but happen: were Robert Lyon true to her she would be his entirely +and devotedly, to the end of her days; did he forsake her, she would +forgive him should he die, she would be faithful to him eternally. +Love of this kind may know anguish, but not the sort of anguish that +lesser and weaker loves do. If it is certain of nothing else, it can +always be certain of itself. + + "Its will is strong; + 'It suffers; but it can not suffer long." + +And even in its utmost pangs is an underlying peace which often +approaches to absolute joy. + +Hilary roused herself, and bent her mind steadily on lodgings till +she discovered one from the parlor of which you could see the trees +of Burton Crescent and hear the sound of Saint Pancras's clock. + +"I think we may do here--at least for a while," said she cheerfully; +and then Elizabeth heard her inquiring if an extra bedroom could be +had if necessary. + +There was only one small attic. "Ascott never could put up with +that," said Hilary, half to herself. Then suddenly--"I think I will +see Ascott before I decide. Elizabeth, will you go with me, or remain +here?" + +"I'll go with you, if you please, Miss Hilary." + +"If you please," sounded not unlike, "if I please," and Elizabeth had +gloomed over a little. "Is Mr. Ascott to live with us?" + +"I suppose so." + +No more words were interchanged till they reached Gower street, when +Miss Hilary observed, with evident surprise, what a handsome street +it was. + +"I must have made some mistake. Still we will find out Mr. Ascott's +number, and inquire." + +No, there was no mistake. Mr. Ascott Leaf had lodged there for three +months, but had given up his rooms that very morning. + +"Where had he gone to?" + +The servant--a London lodging house servant all over--didn't know; +but she fetched the landlady, who was after the same pattern of the +dozen London landladies with whom Hilary had that day made +acquaintance, only a little more Cockney, smirking, dirty, and +tawdrily fine. + +"Yes, Mr. Leaf had gone, and he hadn't left no address. Young College +gentlemen often found it convenient to leave no address. P'raps he +would if he'd known there would be a young lady a calling to see +him." + +"I am Mr. Leaf's aunt," said Hilary, turning as hot as fire. + +"Oh, in-deed," was the answer, with civil incredulousness. + +But the woman was sharp of perception--as often-cheated London +landladies learn to be. After looking keenly at mistress and maid, +she changed her tone; nay, even launched out into praises of her late +lodger: what a pleasant gentleman he was; what good company he kept, +and how he had promised to recommend her apartments to his friends. + +"And as for the little some'at of rent, Miss--tell him it makes no +matter, he can pay me when he likes. If he don't call soon p'raps I +might make bold to send his trunk and his books over to Mr. Ascott's +of--dear me, I forget the number and the square." + +Hilary unsuspiciously supplied both. + +"Yes, that's it--the old gen'leman as Mr. Leaf went to dine with +every other Sunday, a very rich old gentleman, who, he says, is to +leave him all his money. Maybe a relation of yours, Miss?" + +"No," said Hilary; and adding something about the landlady's hearing +from Mr. Leaf very soon, she hurried out of the house, Elizabeth +following. + +"Won't you be tired if you walk so fast, Miss Hilary?" + +Hilary stopped, choking. Helplessly she looked up and down the +forlorn, wide, glaring, dusty street; now sinking into the dull +shadow of a London afternoon. + +"Let us go home!" And at the word a sob burst out--just one +passionate pent up sob. No more. She could not afford to waste +strength in crying. + +"As you say, Elizabeth, I am getting tired, and that will not do. Let +me see; something must be decided." And she stood still, passing her +hand over her hot brow and eyes. "I will go back and take the +lodgings, leave you there to make all comfortable, and then fetch my +sisters from the hotel. But stay first, I have forgotten something." + +She returned to the house in Gower Street, and wrote on one of her +cards an address--the only permanent address she could think of--that +of the city broker who was in the habit of paying them their yearly +income of £50. + +"If any creditors inquire for Mr. Leaf, give them this. His friends +may always hear of him at the London University." + +"Thank you, ma'am," replied the now civil landlady. "Indeed, I wasn't +afraid of the young gentleman giving us the slip. For though he was +careless in his bills he was every inch the gentleman. And I wouldn't +object to take him in again. Or p'raps you yourself, ma'am, might be +a-wanting rooms." + +"No, I thank you. Good morning." And Hilary hurried away. + +Not a word did she say to Elizabeth, or Elizabeth to her, till they +got into the dull, dingy parlor--henceforth, to be their sole apology +for "home:" and then she only talked about domestic +arrangements--talked fast and eagerly, and tried to escape the +affectionate eyes which she knew were so sharp and keen. Only to +escape them--not to blind them; she had long ago found out that +Elizabeth was too quick-witted for that, especially in any thing that +concerned "the family." She felt convinced the girl had heard every +syllable that passed at Ascott's lodgings: that she knew all that was +to be known, and guessed what was to be feared as well as Hilary +herself. + +"Elizabeth"--she hesitated long, and doubted whether she should say +the thing before she did say it--"remember we are all strangers in +London, and family matters are best kept within the family. Do not +mention either in writing home, or to any body here, about--about--" + +She could not name Ascott; she felt so horribly ashamed. + + + +CHAPTER X. + +Living in lodgings, not temporarily, but permanently, sitting down to +make one's only "home" in Mrs. Jones's parlor or Mrs. Smith's first +floor, of which not a stick or a stone that one looks at is one's +own, and whence one may be evicted or evade, with a week's notice or +a week's rent, any day--this sort of life is natural and even +delightful to some people. There are those who, like strawberry +plants, are of such an errant disposition, that grow them where you +will, they will soon absorb all the pleasantness of their habitat, +and begin casting out runners elsewhere; may, if not frequently +transplanted, would actually wither and die. Of such are the pioneers +of society--the emigrants, the tourists, the travelers round the +world; and great is the advantage the world derives from them, +active, energetic, and impulsive as they are. Unless, indeed, their +talent for incessant locomotion degenerates into rootless +restlessness, and they remain forever rolling stones, gathering no +moss, and acquiring gradually a smooth, hard surface, which adheres +to nothing, and to which nobody dare venture to adhere. + +But there are others possessing in a painful degree this said quality +of adhesiveness, to whom the smallest change is obnoxious; who like +drinking out of a particular cup, and sitting in a particular chair; +to whom even a variation in the position of furniture is unpleasant. +Of course, this peculiarity has its bad side, and yet it is not in +itself mean or ignoble. For is not adhesiveness, faithfulness, +constancy--call it what you will--at the root of all citizenship, +clanship, and family love? Is it not the same feeling which, granting +they remain at all, makes old friendships dearer than any new? Nay, +to go to the very sacredest and closest bond, is it not that which +makes an old man see to the last in his old wife's faded face the +beauty which perhaps nobody ever saw except himself, but which he +sees and delights in still, simply because it is familiar and his +own. + +To people who possess a large share of this rare--shall I say +fatal?--characteristic of adhesiveness, living in lodgings is about +the saddest life under the sun. Whether some dim foreboding of this +fact crossed Elizabeth's mind as she stood at the window watching for +her mistresses' first arrival at "home," it is impossible to say. She +could feel, though she was not accustomed to analyze her feelings. +But she looked dull and sad. Not cross, even Ascott could not have +accused her of "savageness." + +And yet she had been somewhat tried. First, in going out what she +termed "marketing," she had traversed a waste of streets, got lost +several times, and returned with light weight in her butter, and sand +in her moist sugar; also with the conviction that London tradesmen +were the greatest rogues alive. Secondly, a pottle of strawberries, +which she had bought with her own money to grace the tea-table with +the only fruit Miss Leaf cared for, had turned out a large delusion, +big and beautiful at top, and all below small, crushed, and stale. +She had thrown it indignantly, pottle and all, into the kitchen fire. + +Thirdly, she had a war with the landlady, partly on the subject of +their fire--which, with her Stowbury notions on the subject of coals, +seemed wretchedly mean and small--and partly on the question of table +cloths at tea, which Mrs. Jones had "never heard of," especially when +the use of plate and lines was included in the rent. And the +dinginess of the article produced at last out of an omnium-gatherum +sort of kitchen cupboard, made an ominous impression upon the country +girl, accustomed to clean, tidy, country ways--where the kitchen was +kept as neat as the parlor, and the bedrooms were not a whit behind +the sitting rooms in comfort and orderliness. Here it seemed as if, +supposing people could show a few respectable living rooms, they were +content to sleep any where, and cook any how, out of anything, in the +midst of any quantity of confusion and dirt. Elizabeth set all this +down as "London," and hated it accordingly. + +She had tried to ease her mind by arranging and rearranging the +furniture--regular lodging house furniture--table, six chairs, +horse-hair sofa, a what not, and the chiffonnier, with a tea-caddy +upon it, of which the respective keys had been solemnly presented to +Miss Hilary. But still the parlor looked homeless and bare; and the +yellowish paper on the walls, the large patterned, many colored +Kidderminster on the floor, gave an involuntary sense of discomfort +and dreariness. Besides, No. 15 was on the shady side of the +street--cheap lodgings always are; and no one who has not lived in +the like lodgings--not a house--can imagine what it is to inhabit +perpetually one room where the sunshine just peeps in for an hour a +day, and vanishes by eleven A. M.; leaving behind in winter a chill +dampness, and in summer a heavy, dusty atmosphere, that weighs like +lead on the spirits in spite of one's self. No wonder that, as is +statistically known and proved, cholera stalks, fever rages, and the +registrar's list is always swelled along the shady side of a London +street. + +Elizabeth felt this, though she had not the dimmest idea why. She +stood watching the sunset light fade out of the topmost windows of +the opposite house--ghostly reflection of some sunset over fields and +trees far away; and she listened to the long monotonous cry melting +away round the crescent, and beginning again at the other end of the +street--"Straw-berries--straw-ber-ries!" Also, with an eye to +tomorrow's Sunday dinner, she investigated the cart of the tired +costermonger, who crawled along beside his equally tired donkey, +reiterating at times, in tones hoarse with a day's bawling, his +dreary "Cauli-flower! Cauli-flower!--Fine new pease, sixpence peck!" + +But, alas! the pease were neither fine nor new; and the cauliflowers +were regular Saturday night's cauliflowers. Besides, Elizabeth +suddenly doubted whether she had any right, unordered, to buy these +things which, from being common garden necessaries, had become +luxuries. This thought, with some others that it occasioned, her +unwonted state of Idleness and the dullness of every thing about +her--what is so dull as a "quiet" London street on a summer +evening?--actually made Elizabeth stand, motionless and meditative, +for a quarter of an hour. Then she started to hear two cabs drive up +to the door; the "family" had at length arrived. + +Ascott was there too. Two new portmanteaus and a splendid hat-box +east either ignominy or glory upon the poor Stowbury luggage; +and--Elizabeth's sharp eye noticed--there was also his trunk which +she had seen lying detained for rent in his Gower Street lodgings. +But he looked quite easy and comfortable: handed out his Aunt +Johanna, commanded the luggage about, and paid the cabmen with such a +magnificent air, that they touched their bats to him, and winked at +one another as much as to say. "That's a real gentleman!" + +In which statement the landlady evidently coincided, and courtesied +low when Miss Leaf introducing him as "my nephew," hoped that a room +could be found for him. Which at last there was, by his appropriating +Miss Leaf's, while she and Hilary took that at the top of the house. +But they agreed, Ascott must have a good airy room to study in. + +"You know, my dear boy," said his Aunt Johanna to him--and at her +tender tone he looked a little downcast, as when he was a small +fellow and had been forgiven something -- "You know you will have to +work very hard." + +"All right, aunt! I'm your man for that! This will be a jolly room; +and I can smoke up the chimney capitally!" + +So they came down stairs quite cheerfully, and Ascott applied himself +with the best of appetites to what he called a "hungry" tea. True, +the ham, which Elizabeth had to fetch from an eating house some +streets off, cost two shillings a pound, and the eggs, which caused +her another war below over the relighting of a fire to boil them, +were dismissed by the young gentleman as "horrid stale." Still, +woman-like, when there is a man in the question, his aunts let him, +have his why. It seemed as if they had resolved to try their utmost +to make the new home to which he came, or rather was driven, a +pleasant home, and to bind him to it with cords of love, the only +cords worth any thing, though sometimes--Heaved knows why--even they +fail, and are snapped and thrown aside like straws. + +Whenever Elizabeth went in and out of the parlor she always heard +lively talk going on among the family; Ascott making his jokes, +telling about his college life, and planning his life to come as a +surgeon in full practice, on the most extensive scale. And when she +brought in the chamber candles, she saw him kiss his aunts +affectionately, and even help his Aunt Johanna--who looked +frightfully pale and tired, but smiling still--to her bed-room door. + +"You'll not sit up long, my dear? No reading to night?" said she, +anxiously. + +"Not a bit of it. And I'll be up with the lark to-morrow morning. I +really will auntie. I'm going to turn over a new leaf, you know." + +She smiled again at the immemorial joke, kissed and blessed him, and +the door shut up on her and Hilary. + +Ascott descended to the parlor, threw himself on the sofa with an air +of great relief, and an exclamation of satisfaction that "the women" +were all gone. He did not perceive Elizabeth, who, hidden behind, was +kneeling to arrange something in the chiffonnier, till she rose up +and proceeded to fasten the parlor shutters. + +"Hollo! are you there? Come, I'll do that when I go to bed. You may +'slope' if you like." + +"Eh, Sir." + +"Slope, mizzle, cut your stick; don't you understand. Any how, don't +stop here, bothering me." + +"I don't mean to," replied Elizabeth; gravely, rather than gruffly, +as if she had made up her mind to things as they were, and was +determined to be a belligerent party no longer. Besides, she was +older now; too old to have things forgiven to her that might be +overlooked in a child; and she had received a long lecture from Miss +Hilary on the necessity of showing respect to Mr. Ascott, or Mr. +Leaf, as it was now decided he was to be called, in his dignity and +responsibility as the only masculine head of the family. As he lay +and lounged there, with his eyes lazily shut, Elizabeth stood a +minute gazing at him. Then, steadfast in her new good behavior, she +inquired "if he wanted any thing more to-night?" + +"Confound you! no! Yes; stop." And the young man took a furtive +investigation of the plain, honest face, and not over-graceful, +ultra-provincial figure, which still characterized his aunt's "South +Sea Islander." + +"I say, Elizabeth, I want you to do something for me." He spoke so +civilly, almost coaxingly, that Elizabeth turned round surprised. +"Would you just go and ask the landlady if she has got such thing as +a latch key?" + +"A what, Sir?" + +"A latch-key--a--oh, she knows. Every London house has it. Tell her +I'll take care of it, and lock the front door all right. She needn't +be afraid of thieves." + +"Very well, Sir." + +Elizabeth went, but shortly reappeared with the information that Mrs. +Jones had gone to bed: in the kitchen, she supposed, as she could not +get in. But she laid on the table the large street door key. + +"Perhaps that's what you wanted, Mr. Leaf. Though I think you needn't +be the least afraid of robbers, for there's three bolts, and a chain +besides." + +"All right!" cried Ascott, smothering down a laugh. "Thank you! +That's for you," throwing a half-crown across the table. + +Elizabeth took it up demurely, and put it down again. Perhaps she did +not like him enough to receive presents from him; perhaps she +thought, being an honest minded girl, that a young man who could not +pay his rent had no business to be giving away half-crowns; or else +she herself had not been so much as many servants are, in the habit +of taking them. For Miss Hilary had put into Elizabeth some of her +own feeling as to this habit of paying an inferior with money for any +little civility or kindness which, from an equal, would be accepted +simply as kindness, and only requited with thanks. Any how, the coin +remained on the table, and the door was just shutting upon Elizabeth, +when the young gentleman turned round again. + +"I say, since my aunts are so horridly timid of robbers and such +like, you'd better not tell them any thing about the latch-key." + +Elizabeth stood a minute perplexed, and then replied briefly: "Miss +Hilary isn't a bit timid; and I always tells Miss Hilary every +thing." + +Nevertheless, though she was so ignorant as never to have heard of a +latch-key, she had the wit to see that all was not right. She even +lay awake, in her closet off Miss Leaf's room, whence she could hear +the murmur of her two mistresses talking together, long after they +retired--lay broad awake for an hour or more, trying to put things +together--the sad things that she felt certain must have happened +that day, and wondering what Mr. Ascott could possibly want with the +key. Also, why he had asked her about it, instead of telling his +aunts at once; and why he had treated her in the matter with such +astonishing civility. + +It may be said a servant had no business to think about these things, +to criticize her young master's proceedings, or wonder why her +mistresses were sad: that she had only to go about her work like an +automaton, and take no interest in any thing. I can only answer to +those who like such service, let them have it: and as they sow they +will assuredly reap. But long after Elizabeth, young and hearty, was +soundly snoring on her hard, cramped bed, Johanna and Hilary Leaf, +after a brief mutual pretence of sleep, soon discovered by both, lay +consulting together over ways and means. How could the family +expenses, beginning with twenty-five shillings per week as rent, +possibly be met by the only actual certain family income, their £50 +per annum from a mortgage? For the Misses Leaf were or that +old-fashioned stamp which believed that to reckon an income by mere +probabilities is either insanity or dishonesty. + +Common arithmetic soon proved that this £50 a year could not maintain +them; in fact they must soon draw on the little sum--already dipped +into to-day, for Ascott--which had been produced by the sale of the +Stowbury furniture. That sale, they now found had been a mistake; and +they half feared whether the whole change from Stowbury to London had +not been a mistake--one of those sad errors in judgment which we all +commit sometimes, and have to abide by, and make the best of, and +learn from if we can. Happy those who "Dinna greet ower spilt +milk"--a proverb wise as cheerful, which Hilary, knowing well who it +came from, repeated to Johanna to comfort her--teaches a second brave +lesson, how to avoid spilling the milk a second time. And then they +consulted anxiously about what was to be done to earn money. + +Teaching presented itself as the only resource. In those days women's +work and women's rights had not been discussed so freely as at +present. There was a strong feeling that the principal thing required +was our duties--owed to ourselves, our home, our family and friends. +There was a deep conviction--now, alas! slowly disappearing--that a +woman, single or married, should never throw herself out of the safe +circle of domestic life till the last extremity of necessity; that it +is wiser to keep or help to keep a home, by learning how to expend +its income, cook its dinners, make and mend its clothes, and, by the +law that "prevention is better than cure," studying all those +preservative means of holding a family together--as women, and women +alone, can--than to dash into men's sphere of trades and professions, +thereby, in most instances, fighting an unequal battle, and coming +out of it maimed, broken, unsexed; turned into beings that are +neither men nor women, with the faults and corresponding sufferings +of both, and the compensations of neither. + +"I don't see," said poor Hilary, "what I can do but teach. And oh, if +I could only get daily pupils, so that I might come home or nights, +and creep into the fireside; and have time to mend the stockings and +look after Ascott's linen, that he need not be so awfully +extravagant." + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +Aunt Hilary fixed her honest eyes on the lad's face--the lad, so +little younger than herself, and yet who at tunes, when he let out +sayings such as this, seemed so awfully, so pitifully old; and she +felt thankful that, at all risks and costs, they had come to London +to be beside him, to help him, to save him, if he needed saving, as +women only can. For, after all, he was but a boy. And though as he +walked by her side, stalwart and manly, the thought smote her +painfully that many a young fellow of his age was the stay and bread +winner of some widowed mother or sister, nay even of wife and child, +still she repeated cheerfully. "What can one expect from him? He is +only a boy." + +God help the women who, for those belonging to them--husbands, +fathers, brothers, lovers, sons--have ever so tenderly to apologize. + +When they came in sight of St. Pancras's Church, Ascott said, +suddenly, "I think you'll knew your way now, Aunt Hilary." + +"Certainly. Why?" + +"Because--you wouldn't be vexed if I left you? I have an engagement; +some fellows that I dine with, out at Hampstead, or Richmond, or +Blackwell, every Sunday. Nothing wicked, I assure you. And you know +it's capital for one's health to get a Sunday in fresh air." + +"Yes; but Aunt Johanna will be sorry to miss you." + +"Will she? Oh, you'll smooth her down. Stay! Tell her I shall be back +to tea." + +"We shall be having tea directly." + +"I declare I had quite forgotten. Aunt Hilary, you must change your +hours. They don't suit me at all. No men can ever stand early +dinners. By, by! You are the very prettiest auntie. Be sure you get +home safe. Hollo, there! That's my omnibus." + +He jumped on the top of it, and was off. + +Aunt Hilary stood quite confounded, and with one of those strange +sinkings of the heart which had come over her several times this day. +It was not that Ascott showed any unkindness--that there was any +actual badness in his bright and handsome young face. Still there was +a want there--want of earnestness, steadfastness, truthfulness, a +something more discoverable as the lack of something else than as +aught in itself tangibly and perceptibly wrong. It made her sad; it +caused her to look forward to his future with an anxious heart. It +was so different from the kind of anxiety, and yet settled repose, +with which she thought of the only other man in whose future she felt +the smallest interest. Of Robert Lyon, she was certain that whatever +misfortune visited him he would bear it in the best way it could be +borne; whatever temptation assailed him he would fight against it as +a brave and good Christian should fight. But Ascott? + +Ascott's life was as yet an unanswered query. She could but leave it +in Omnipotent hands. + +So she found her way home, asking it once or twice of civil +policemen, and going a little distance round--dare I make this +romantic confession about so sensible and practical a little +woman?--that she might walk once up Burton Street and down again. But +nobody knew the fact, and it did nobody any harm. + +Meantime at No 15 the afternoon had passed heavily enough. Miss +Selina had gone to lie down; she always did of Sundays, and +Elizabeth, after making her comfortable, by the little attentions the +lady always required, had descended to the dreary wash house, which +had been appropriated to herself, under the name of a "private +kitchen," in the which, after all the cleanings and improvements she +could achieve, sat like Marius among the rains of Carthage, and +sighed for the tidy bright house place at Stowbury. Already, from her +brief experience, she had decided that London people were horrid +shams, because they did not in the least care to have their kitchens +comfortable. She wondered how she should ever exist in this one, and +might have carried her sad and sullen face up stairs, if Miss Leaf +had not come down stairs, and glancing about with that ever gentle +smile of hers, said kindly, "Well, it is not very pleasant, but you +have made the best of it, Elizabeth. We must all put up with +something, you know. Now, as my eyes are not very good to-day, +suppose you come up and read me a chapter." + +So, in the quiet parlor, the maid sat down opposite her mistress, and +read aloud out of that Book which says distinctly: "Servants, be +obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with +fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as unto Christ: knowing, +that whatsoever good thing a man doeth, the same shall he receive of +the Lord, whether he be bond or free." + +And yet says immediately after: "Ye masters, to the same things unto +them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in +heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him." + +And I think that Master whom Paul served, not in preaching only, but +also in practice, when he sent back the slave Onesimus to Philemon, +praying that he might be received, "no' now as a servant, but above a +servant, a brother beloved," that Divine Master must have looked +tenderly upon these two women--both women, though of such different +age and position, and taught them through His Spirit in His word, as +only He can teach. + +The reading was disturbed by a carriage driving up to the door, and a +knock, a tremendously grand and forcible footman's knock, which made +Miss Leaf start in her easy chair. + +"But it can't be visitors to us. We know nobody. Sit still, +Elizabeth." + +It was a visitor, however, though by what ingenuity he found them out +remained, when they came to think of it, a great puzzle. A card was +sent in by the dirty servant of Mrs. Jones, speedily followed by a +stout, bald headed, round faced man--I suppose I ought to write +"gentleman"--in whom, though she had not seen him for years, Miss +Leaf found no difficulty in recognizing the grocer's prentice boy, +now Mr. Peter Ascott, of Russell Square. + +She rose to receive him: there was always a stateliness in Miss +Leaf's reception of strangers; a slight formality belonging to her +own past generation, and to the time when the Leafs were a "county +family." Perhaps this extra dignity, graceful as it was, overpowered +the little man; or else, being a bachelor, he was unaccustomed to +ladies' society: but he grew red in the face, twiddled his hat, and +then cast a sharp inquisitive glance toward her. + +"Miss Leaf, I presume, ma'am. The eldest?" + +"I am the eldest Miss Leaf, and very glad to have an opportunity of +thanking you for your long kindness to my nephew. Elizabeth, give Mr. +Ascott a chair." + +While doing so, and before her disappearance, Elizabeth took a rapid +observation of the visitor, whose name and history were perfectly +familiar to her. Most small towns have their hero, and Stowbury's was +Peter Ascott, the grocer's boy, the little fellow who had gone up to +London to seek his fortune, and had, strange to say, found it. +Whether by industry or luck--except that industry is luck, and luck +is only another word for industry--he had gradually risen to be a +large city merchant, a dry-salter I conclude it would be called, with +a handsome house, carriage, etc. He had never revisited his native +place, which indeed could not be expected of him, as he had no +relations, but, when asked, as was not seldom of course, he +subscribed liberally to its charities. + +Altogether he was a decided hero in the place, and though people +really knew very little about him, the less they knew the more they +gossiped, holding him up to the rising generation as a modern Dick +Whittington, and reverencing him extremely as one who had shed glory +on his native town. Even Elizabeth had conceived a great idea of Mr. +Ascott. When she saw this little fat man, coarse and common looking +in spite of his good clothes and diamond ring, and in manner a +curious mixture of pomposity and awkwardness, she laughed to herself, +thinking what a very uninteresting individual it was about whom +Stowbury had told so many interesting stories. However, she went up +to inform Miss Selina, and prevent her making her appearance before +him in the usual Sunday dishabille in which she indulged when no +visitors were expected. + +After his first awkwardness, Mr. Peter Ascott became quite at his +ease with Miss Leaf. He began to talk--not of Stowbury, that was +tacitly ignored by both--but of London, and then of "my house in +Russell Square," "my carriage," "my servants"--the inconvenience of +keeping coachmen who would drink, and footmen who would not clean the +plate properly; ending by what was a favorite moral axiom of his, +that "wealth and position are heavy responsibilities." + +He himself seemed, however, not to have been quite overwhelmed by +them; he was fat and flourishing--with an acuteness and power in the +upper half of his face which accounted for his having attained his +present position. The lower half, somehow Miss Leaf did not like it, +she hardly knew why, though a physiognomist might have known. For +Peter Ascott had the underhanging, obstinate, sensual lip, the large +throat--bull-necked, as it has been called--indications of that +essentially animal nature which may be born with the nobleman as with +the clown; which no education can refine, and no talent, though it +may co-exist with it, can ever entirely remove. He reminded one, +perforce, of the rough old proverb; "You can't make a silk purse out +of a sow's ear." + +Still, Mr. Ascott was not a bad man, though something deeper than his +glorious indifference to grammar, and his dropped h's--which, to +steal some one's joke, might have been swept up in bushels from Miss +Leaf's parlor--made it impossible for him ever to be, by any culture +whatever, a gentleman. + +They talked of Ascott, as being the most convenient mutual subject; +and Miss Leaf expressed the gratitude which her nephew felt, and she +earnestly hoped would ever show, toward his kind godfather. + +Mr. Ascott looked pleased. + +"Um--yes, Ascott's not a bad fellow--believe he means well: but weak, +ma'am, I'm afraid he's weak. Knows nothing of business--has no +business habits whatever. However, we must make the best of him; I +don't repent any thing I've done for him." + +"I hope not," said Miss Leaf, gravely. + +And then there ensued an uncomfortable pause, which was happily +broken by the opening of the door, and the sweeping in of a large, +goodly figure. + +"My sister, Mr. Ascott; my sister Selina." + +The little stout man actually started, and, as he bowed, blushed up +to the eyes. + +Miss Selina was, as I have stated, the beauty of the family, and had +once been an acknowledged Stowbury belle. Even now, though nigh upon +forty, when carefully and becomingly dressed, her tall figure, and +her well featured, fair complexioned, unwrinkled face, made her still +appear a very personable woman. At any rate, she was not faded +enough, nor the city magnate's heart cold enough to prevent a sudden +revival of the vision which--in what now seemed an almost +antediluvian stage of existence--had dazzled, Sunday after Sunday, +the eyes of the grocer's lad. If there is one pure spot in a man's +heart--oven the very worldliest of men--it is usually his boyish +first love. + +So Peter Ascott looked hard at Miss Selina, then into his hat, then, +as good luck would have it, out of the window, where he caught sight +of his carriage and horses. These revived his spirits, and made him +recognize what he was--Mr. Ascott, of Russell Square, addressing +himself in the character of a benevolent patron to the Leaf family. + +"Glad to see you, Miss. Long time since we met--neither of us so +young as we have been--but you do wear well, I must say." + +Miss Selina drew back; she was within an inch of being highly +offended, when she too happened to catch a glimpse of the carriage +and horses. So she sat down and entered into conversation with him; +and when she liked, nobody could be more polite and agreeable than +Miss Selina. So it happened that the handsome equipage crawled round +and round the Crescent, or stood pawing the silent Sunday street +before No. 15, for very nearly an hour, even till Hilary came home. +It was vexatious to have to make excuses for Ascott: particularly as +his godfather said with a laugh, that "young fellows would be young +fellows," they needn't expect to see the lad till midnight, or till +to-morrow morning. + +But though in this, and other things, he somewhat annoyed the ladies +from Stowbury, no one could say he was not civil to them--exceedingly +civil. He offered them Botanical Garden tickets--Zoological Garden +tickets; he even, after some meditation and knitting of his shaggy +grey eyebrows, bolted out with an invitation for the whole family to +dinner at Russell Square the following Sunday. + +"I always give my dinners on Sunday. I've no time any other day," +said he, when Miss Leaf gently hesitated. "Come or not, just as you +like." + +Miss Selina, to whom the remark was chiefly addressed, bowed the most +gracious acceptance. The visitor took very little notice of Miss +Hilary. Probably, if asked, he would have described her as a small, +shabbily-dressed person, looking very like a governess. Indeed, the +fact of her governess-ship seemed suddenly to recur to him; he asked +her if she meant to set up another school, and being informed that +she rather wished private pupils, promised largely that she should +have the full benefit of his "patronage" among his friends. Then he +departed, leaving a message for Ascott to call next day, as he wished +to speak to him. + +"For you must be aware, Miss Leaf, that though your nephew's +allowance is nothing--a mere drop in the bucket out of my large +income--still, when it comes year after year, and no chance of his +shifting for himself, the most benevolent man in the world feels +inclined to stop the supplies. Not that I shall do that--at least not +immediately: he is a fine young fellow, whom I'm rather proud to have +helped a step up the ladder, and I've a great respect"--here he bowed +to Miss Selina--"a great respect for your family. Still there must +come a time when I shall be obliged to shut up my purse-strings. You +understand, ma'am." + +"I do," Miss Leaf answered, trying to speak with dignity, and yet +with patience, for she saw Hilary's face beginning to flame. "And I +trust, Mr. Ascott, my nephew will soon cease to be an expense to you. +It was your own voluntary kindness that brought it upon yourself, and +I hope you have not found, never will find, either him or us +ungrateful." + +"Oh, as to that, ma'am, I don't look for gratitude. Still, if Ascott +does work his way into a good position--and he'll be the first of his +family that ever did, I reckon--but I beg your pardon, Miss Leaf. +Ladies, I'll bid you good day. Will your servant call my carriage?" + +The instant he was gone Hilary burst forth-- + +"If I were Ascott, I'd rather starve in a garret, break stones in the +high road, or buy a broom and sweep a crossing, than I'd be dependent +on this man, this pompous, purse-proud, illiterate fool!" + +"No, not a fool," reproved Johanna. "An acute, clear-headed, nor, I +think, bad-hearted man. Coarse and common, certainly; but if we were +to hate every thing coarse or common, we should find plenty to hate. +Besides, though he does his kindness in an unpleasant way, think how +very, very kind he has been to Ascott." + +"Johanna, I think you would find a good word for the de'il himself, +as we used to say," cried Hilary, laughing. "Well, Selina; and what +is your opinion of our stout friend?" + +Miss Selina, bridling a little, declared that she did not see so much +to complain of in Mr. Ascott. He was not educated, certainly, but he +was a most respectable person. And his calling upon them so soon was +most civil and attentive. She thought, considering his present +position, they should forget--indeed, as Christians they were bound +to forget--that he was once their grocer's boy, and go to dine with +him next Sunday. + +"For my part, I shall go, though it is Sunday. I consider it quite a +religious duty--my duty towards my neighbor." + +"Which is to love him as yourself. I am sure, Selina, I have no +objection. It would be a grand romantic wind-up to the story which +Stowbury used to tell--of how the 'prentice boy stared his eyes out +at the beautiful young lady; and you would get the advantage of 'my +house in Russell Square,' 'my carriage and servants,' and be able to +elevate your whole family. Do, now! set your cap at Peter Ascott." +Here Hilary, breaking out into one of her childish fits of +irrepressible laughter, was startled to see Selina's face in one +blaze of indignation. + +"Hold your tongue, you silly chit, and don't chatter about things you +don't understand." + +And she swept majestically out of the room. + +"What have I done? Why she is really vexed. If I had thought she +would have taken it in earnest I would never have said a word. Who +would have thought it!" + +But Miss Selina's fits of annoyance were so common that the sisters +rarely troubled themselves long on the matter. And when at tea-time +she came down in the best of spirits, they met her half-way, as they +always did, thankful for these brief calms in the family atmosphere, +which never lasted too long. It was a somewhat heavy evening. They +waited supper till after ten; and yet Ascott did not appear. Miss +Leaf read the chapter as usual; and Elizabeth was sent to bed, but +still no sign of the absentee. + +"I will sit up for him. He cannot be many minutes new," said his Aunt +Hilary, and settled herself in the solitary parlor, which one candle +and no fire made as cheerless as could possibly be. There she waited +till midnight before the young man came in. Perhaps he was struck +with compunction by her weary white face--by her silent lighting of +his candle, for he made her a thousand apologies. + +"'Pon my honor, Aunt Hilary, I'll never keep you up so late again. +Poor dear auntie, how tired she looks!" and he kissed her +affectionately. "But if you were a young fellow, and got among other +young fellows, and they over-persuaded you." + +"You should learn to say, No." + +"Ah"--with a sigh--"so I ought, if I were as good as my Aunt Hilary." + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +Months slipped by; the trees in Burton Crescent had long been all +bare; the summer cries of itinerant vegetable dealers and flower +sellers had vanished out of the quiet street.--The three sisters +almost missed them, sitting in that one dull parlor from morning till +night, in the intense solitude of people who, having neither heart +nor money to spend in gayeties, live forlorn in London lodgings, and +knowing nobody, have nobody to visit, nobody to visit them. + +Except Mr. Ascott, who still called, and occasionally stayed to tea. +The hospitalities, however, were all on their side. The first +entertainment--to which Selina insisted upon going, and Johanna +thought Hilary and Ascott had better go too--was splendid enough, but +they were the only ladies present; and though Mr. Ascott did the +honors with great magnificence, putting Miss Selina at the head of +his table, where she looked exceedingly well, still the sisters +agreed it was better that all further invitations to Russell Square +should be declined. Miss Selina herself said it would be more +dignified and decorous. + +Other visitors they had none. Ascott never offered to bring any of +his friends; and gradually they saw very little of him. He was +frequently out, especially at meal times, so that his aunts gave up +the struggle to make the humble dinners better and more to his +liking, and would even have hesitated to take the money which he was +understood to pay for his board, had he ever offered it, which he did +not. Yet still whenever he did happen to remain with them a day, or +an evening, he was good and affectionate, and always entertained them +with descriptions of all he would do as soon as he got into practice. + +Meantime they kept house as economically as possible upon the little +ready money they had, hoping that more would come in--that Hilary +would get pupils. + +But Hilary never did. To any body who knows London this will not be +surprising.--The wonder was in the Misses Leaf being so simple as to +imagine that a young country lady, settling herself in lodgings in an +obscure metropolitan street, without friends or introduction, could +ever expect such a thing. No thing but her own daring, and the +irrepressible well-spring of hope that was in her healthy youth, +could have sustained her in what, ten years after, would have +appeared to her, as it certainty was, downright insanity. But Heaven +takes care of the mad, the righteously and unselfishly mad, and +Heaven took care of poor Hilary. + +The hundred labors she went through--weariness of body and travail of +soul, the risks she ran, the pitfalls she escaped--what need to +record here? Many have recorded the like, many more have known them, +and acknowledged that when such histories are reproduced in books how +utterly imagination fades before reality. Hilary never looked +back-upon that time herself without a shuddering wonder how she could +have dared all and gone through all. Possibly she never could, but +for the sweet old face, growing older yet sweeter every day, which +smiled upon her the minute she opened the door of that dull parlor, +and made even No. 15 look like home. + +When she told, sometimes gayly, sometimes with burning, bursting +tears, the tale of her day's efforts and day's failures, it was +always comfort to feel Johanna's hand on her hair Johanna's voice +whispering over her, "Never mind, my child, all will come right in +time All happens for good." + +And the face, withered and worn, yet calm as a summer sea, full of +the "peace which passeth all understanding," was a living comment on +the truth of these words. + +Another comfort Hilary had--Elizabeth.--During her long days of +absence, wandering from one end of London to the other, after +advertisements that she had answered, or governess institutions that +she had applied to the domestic affairs fell almost entirely into the +hands of Elizabeth. It was she who bought in, and kept a jealous eye, +not unneeded, over provisions; she who cooked and waited, and +sometimes even put a helping hand, coarse, but willing, into the +family sewing and mending. This had now become so vital a necessity +that it was fortunate Miss Leaf had no other occupation, and Miss +Selina no other entertainment, than stitch, stitch, stitch, at the +ever-beginning, never-ending wardrobe wants which assail decent +poverty every where, especially in London. + +"Clothes seem to wear out frightfully fast," said Hilary one day, +when she was putting on her oldest gown, to suit a damp, foggy day, +when the streets were slippery with the mud of settled rain. + +"I saw such beautiful merino dresses in a shop in Southampton Row," +insinuated Elizabeth; but her mistress shook her head. + +"No, no; my old black silk will do capitally, and I can easily put on +two shawls. Nobody knows me; and people may wear what they like in +London. Don't look so grave, Elizabeth. What does it signify if I can +but keep myself warm? Now, run away." + +Elizabeth obeyed, but shortly reappeared with a bundle--a large, old +fashioned thick shawl. + +"Mother gave it me; her mistress gave it her; but we've never worn +it, and never shall. If only you didn't mind putting it on, just this +once--this terrible soaking day!" + +The scarlet face, the entreating tones--there was no resisting them. +One natural pang Hilary felt--that in her sharp poverty she had +fallen so low as to be indebted to her servant, and then she too +blushed, less for shame at accepting the kindness than for her own +pride that could not at once receive it as such. + +"Thank you, Elizabeth," she said, gravely and gently, and let herself +be wrapped in the thick shawl. Its gorgeous reds and yellows would, +she knew, make her noticeable, even though "people might wear any +thing in London." Still, she put it on with a good grace, and all +through her peregrinations that day it warmed not only her shoulders, +but her heart. + +Coming home, she paused wistfully before a glittering shoe shop; her +poor little feet were so soaked and cold. Could she possibly afford a +new pair of boots? It was not a matter of vanity--she had passed +that. She did not care now how ugly and shabby looked the "wee feet" +that had once been praised; but she felt it might be a matter of +health and prudence. Suppose she caught cold--fell ill--died: died, +leaving Johanna to struggle alone; died before Robert Lyon came home. +Both thoughts struck sharp. She was too young still, or had not +suffered enough, calmly to think of death and dying. + +"It will do no harm to inquire the price. I might stop it out in +omnibuses." + +For this was the way that every new article of dress had to be +procured--"stopping it cut" of something else. + +After trying several pairs-with a fierce, bitter blush at a small +hole which the day's walking had worn in her well darned stockings, +and which she was sure the shopman saw, as well as an old lady who +sat opposite--Hilary bought the plainest and stoutest of boots. The +bill overstepped her purse by six pence, but she promised that sum on +delivery, and paid the rest. She had got into a nervous horror of +letting any account stand over for a single day. + +Look tenderly, reader, on this picture of struggles so small, of +sufferings so uninteresting and mean. I paint it not because it is +original, but because it is so awfully true. Thousands of women, well +born, well reared, know it to be true--burned into them by the cruel +conflict of their youth; happy they if it ended in their youth, while +mind and body had still enough vitality and elasticity to endure! I +paint it, because it accounts for the accusation sometimes +made--especially by men--that women are naturally stingy. Possibly +so: but in many instances may it not have been this petty struggle +with petty wants this pitiful calculating of penny against penny, how +best to save here and spend there, which narrows a woman's nature in +spite of herself? It sometimes takes years of comparative ease and +freedom from pecuniary cares to counteract the grinding, lowering +effects of a youth of poverty. + +And I paint this picture, too, literally, and not on its picturesque +side--it, indeed, poverty has a picturesque side--in order to show +another side which it really has--high, heroic, made up of dauntless +endurance, self sacrifice, and self control Also, to indicate that +blessing which narrow circumstances alone bestow, the habit of +looking more to the realities than to the shows of things, and of +finding pleasure in enjoyments mental rather than sensuous, inward +rather than external. When people can truly recognize this they cease +either to be afraid or ashamed of poverty. + +Hilary was not ashamed:--not even now, when hers smote sharper and +harder than it had ever done at Stowbury. She felt it a sore thing +enough; but it never humiliated nor angered her. Either she was too +proud or not proud enough; but her low estate always seemed to her +too simply external a thing to affect her relations with the world +outside. She never thought of being annoyed with the shopkeeper, who, +though he trusted her with the sixpence, carefully took down her name +and address: still less to suspecting the old lady opposite, who sat +and listened to the transaction--apparently a well-to-do customer, +clad in a rich black silk and handsome sable furs--of looking down +upon her and despising her. She herself never despised any body, +except for wickedness. + +So she waited contentedly, neither thinking of herself, nor of what +others thought of her; but with her mind quietly occupied by the two +thoughts, which in any brief space of rest always recurred, calming +down all annoyances, and raising her above the level of petty +pains--Johanna and Robert Lyon. Under the influence of these her +tired face grew composed, and there was a wishful, far away, fond +look in her eyes, which made it not wonderful that the said old +lady--apparently an acute old soul in her way--should watch her, as +we do occasionally watch strangers in whom we have become suddenly +interested. + +There is no accounting for these interests, or to the events to which +they give rise. Sometimes they are pooh-pooh-ed as "romantic," +"unnatural," "like a bit in a novel;" and yet they are facts +continually occurring, especially to people of quick intuition, +observation, and sympathy. Nay, even the most ordinary people have +known or heard of such, resulting in mysterious, life-long loves; +firm friendships; strange yet often wonderful happy marriages; sudden +revolutions of fortune and destiny: things utterly unaccountable for, +except by the belief in the inscrutable Providence which + + "Shapes our ends, + Rough-how them as we will." + +When Hilary left the shop she was startled by a voice at her elbow. + +"I beg your pardon, but if your way lies up Southampton Row, would +you object to give an old woman a share of that capital umbrella of +yours?" + +"With pleasure," Hilary answered, though the oddness of the request +amused her. And it was granted really with pleasure; for the old lady +spoke with those "accents of the mountain tongue" which this foolish +Hilary never recognized without a thrill at the heart. + +"May be you think an old woman ought to take a cab, and not be +intruding upon strangers; but I am hale and hearty, and being only a +streets length from my own door, I dislike to waste unnecessary +shillings." + +"Certainly," acquiesced Hilary, with a half sigh: shillings were only +too precious to her. + +"I saw you in the boot shop, and you seemed the sort of young lady +who would do a kindness to an old body like me; so I said to myself, +'Ill ask her.'" + +"I am glad you did." Poor girl! she felt unconsciously pleased at +finding herself still able to show a kindness to any body. + +They walked on and on--it was certainly a long street's length--to +the stranger's door, and it took Hilary a good way round from hers; +but she said nothing of this, concluding, of course, that her +companion was unaware of where she lived; in which she was mistaken. +They stopped at last before a respectable house near Brunswick +Square, bearing a brass plate, with the words "Miss Balquidder." + +"That is my name, and very much obliged to you, my dear. How it +rains! Ye're just drenched." + +Hilary smiled and shook her damp shawl. "I shall take no harm. I am +used to go out in all weathers." + +"Are you a governess?" The question was so direct and kindly, that it +hardly seemed an impertinence. + +"Yes; but I have no pupils, and I fear I shall never get any." + +"Why not?" + +"I suppose, because I know nobody here. It seems so very hard to get +teaching in London. But I beg your pardon." + +"I beg yours," said Miss Balquidder--not without a certain +dignity--"for asking questions of a stranger. But I was once a +stranger here myself, and had a 'sair fecht,' as we say in Scotland, +before I could earn even my daily bread. Though I wasn't a governess, +still I know pretty well what the sort of life is, and if I had +daughters who must work for their bread, the one thing I would urge +upon them should be--'Never become a governess.' " + +"Indeed. For what reason?" + +"I'll not tell you now, my dear, standing with all your wet clothes +on; but as I said, if you will do me the favor to call." + +"Thank you!" said Hilary, not sufficiently initiated in London +caution to dread making a new acquaintance. Besides, she liked the +rough hewn, good natured face; and the Scotch accent was sweet to her +ear. + +Yet when she reached home she was half shy of telling her sisters the +engagement she had made. Selina was extremely shocked, and considered +it quite necessary that the London Directory, the nearest clergyman, +or, perhaps, Mr. Ascott, who living in the parish, must know--should +be consulted as to Miss Balquidder's respectability. + +"She has much more reason to question ours," recollected Hilary, with +some amusement; for I never told her my name or address. She does not +know a single thing about me. + +Which fact, arguing the matter energetic ally two days after, the +young lady might not have been so sure of, could she have penetrated +the ceiling overhead. In truth, Miss Balquidder, a prudent person, +who never did things by halves, and, like most truly generous people, +was cautious even in her extremist fits of generosity, at that very +moment was sitting in Mrs. Jones's first floor, deliberately +discovering every single thing possible to be learned about the Leaf +family. + +Nevertheless, owing to Selina's indignant pertinacity, Hilary's own +hesitation, and a dim hope of a pupil which rose up and faded like +the rest, the possible acquaintance lay dormant for two or three +weeks; till, alas! the fabulous wolf actually came to the door; and +the sisters, after paying their week's rent, looked aghast at one +another, not knowing where in the wide world the next week's rent was +to come from. + +"Thank God, we don't owe any thing: not a penny!" gasped Hilary. + +"No; there is comfort in that," said Johanna. And the expression of +her folded hands and upward face was not despairing, even though that +of the poor widow, when her barrel of meal was gone, and her cruse of +oil spent, would hardly have been sadder. + +"I am sure we have wasted nothing, and cheated nobody;--surely God +will help us." + +"I know He will, my child." + +And the two sisters, elder and younger, kissed one another, cried a +little, and then sat down to consider what was to be done. + +Ascott must be told how things were with them. Hitherto they had not +troubled him much with their affairs: indeed, he was so little at +home. And after some private consultation, both Johanna and Hilary +decided that it was wisest to let the lad come and go as he liked; +not attempting--as he once indignantly expressed it--"to tie him to +their apron strings." For instinctively these maiden ladies felt that +with men, and, above all, young men, the only way to bind the +wandering heart was to leave it free, except by trying their utmost +that home should be always a pleasant home. + +It was touching to see their efforts, when Ascott came in of +evenings, to enliven for his sake the dull parlor at No. 15. How +Johanna put away her mending, and Selina ceased to grumble, and +Hilary began her lively chat, that never failed to brighten and amuse +the household. Her nephew even sometimes acknowledged that wherever +he went, he met nobody so "clever" as Aunt Hilary. + +So, presuming upon her influence with him, on this night, after the +rest were gone to bed, she, being always the boldest to do any +unpleasant thing, said to him. + +"Ascott, how are your business affairs progressing? When do you think +you will be able to get into practice?" + +"Oh, presently. There's no hurry." + +"I am not so sure of that. Do you know, my dear boy"--and she opened +her purse, which contained a few shillings--"this is all the money we +have in the world." + +"Nonsense," said Ascott, laughing. "I beg your pardon," he added, +seeing it was with her no laughing matter; "but I am so accustomed to +be hard up that I don't seem to care. It always comes right +somehow--at least with me." + +"How?" + +"Oh, I don't exactly know; but it does. Don't fret, Aunt Hilary. I'll +lend you a pound or two." + +She drew back. These poor, proud, fond women, who, if their boy, +instead of a fine gentleman, had been a helpless invalid, would have +tended him, worked for him, nay, begged for him--cheerfully, oh, how +cheerfully! wanting nothing in the whole world but his love--they +could not ask him for his money. Even now, offered thus, Hilary felt +as if to take it would be intolerable. + +Still the thing must be done. + +"I wish, Ascott"--and she nerved herself to say what somebody ought +to say to him--"I would you would not lend but pay us the pound a +week you said you could so easily spare." + +"To be sure I will. What a thoughtless fellow I have been! +But--but--I fancied you would have asked me if you wanted it. Never +mind, you'll get it all in a lump. Let me see--how much will it come +to? You are the best head going for arithmetic, Aunt Hilary. Do +reckon it all up?" She did so; and the sum total made Ascott open his +eyes wide. + +"Upon my soul I had no idea it was so much. I'm very sorry, but I +seem fairly cleaned out this quarter--only a few sovereigns left to +keep the mill going. You shall have them, or half of them, and I'll +owe you the rest. Here!" + +He emptied on the table, without counting, four or five pounds. +Hilary took two, asking him gravely "If he was sure he could spare so +much? She did not wish to inconvenience him." + +"Oh, not at all; and I wouldn't mind if it did; you have been good +aunts to me." + +He kissed her, with a sudden fit of compunction, and bade her +good-night, looking as if he did not care to be "bothered" any more. + +Hilary retired, more sad, more hopeless about him than if he had +slammed the door in her face, or scolded her like a trooper. Had he +met her seriousness in the same spirit, even though it had been a +sullen or angry spirit--and little as she said he must have felt she +wished him to feel--that his aunts were displeased with him; but that +utterly unrepressible light-heartedness of his--there was no doing +any thing with it. There was so to speak, "no catching hold" of +Ascott. He meant no harm. She repeated over and over again that the +lad meant no harm. He had no evil ways; was always pleasant, +good-natured, and affectionate, in his own careless fashion; but was +no more to be relied on than a straw that every wind blows hither and +thither; or, to use a common simile, a butterfly that never sees any +thing farther than the nearest flower. His was, in short, the +pleasure-loving temperament, not positively sinful or sensual, but +still holding pleasure as the greatest good; and regarding what +deeper natures call "duty," and find therein their strong-hold and +consolation, as a mere bugbear or a sentimental theory, or an +impossible folly. + +Poor lad! and he had the world to fight with; how would it use him? +Even if no heavy sorrows for himself or others smote him, his +handsome face would have to grow old, his strong frame to meet +sickness--death.--How would he do it? That is the thought which +always recurs. What is the end of such men as these? Alas! the answer +would come from hospital wards, alms-houses and work-houses, debtors' +prisons and lunatic asylums. + +To apprehensions like this--except the last, happily it was as yet +too far off--Hilary had been slowly and sadly arriving about Ascott +for weeks past; and her conversation with him to-night seemed to make +them darken down upon her with added gloom. As she went up stairs she +set her lips together hard. + +"I see there is nobody to do any thing except me. But I must not tell +Johanna." + +She lay long awake, planning every conceivable scheme for saving +money; till at length, her wits sharpened by the desperation of the +circumstances, there flashed upon her an idea that came out of a talk +she had had with Elizabeth that morning. True, it was a perfectly new +and untried chance--and a mere chance; still it was right to overlook +nothing. She would not have ventured to tell Selina of it for the +world, and even to Johanna, she only said--finding her as wakeful as +herself--said it in a careless manner, as if it had relation to +nothing, and she expected nothing from it-- "I think, as I have +nothing else to do, I will go and see Miss Balquidder to-morrow +morning." + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +Miss Balquidder's house was a handsome one, handsomely furnished, and +a neat little to aid-servant showed Hilary at once into the +dining-parlor, where the mistress sat before a business-like +writing-table, covered with letters, papers, etc., all arranged with +that careful order in disorder which indicates, even in the smallest +things, the possession of an accurate, methodical mind, than which +there are few greater possessions, either to its owner or to the +world at large. + +Miss Balquidder was not a personable woman; she had never been so +even in youth; and age had told its tale upon those large, strong +features--"thoroughly Scotch features," they would have been called +by those who think all Scotchwomen are necessarily big, raw-boned, +and ugly; and have never seen that wonderfully noble beauty--not +prettiness, but actual beauty in its highest physical as well as +spiritual development--which is not seldom found across the Tweed. + +But while there was nothing lovely, there was nothing unpleasant or +uncomely in Miss Balquidder. Her large figure, in its plain black +silk dress; her neat white cap, from under which peeped the little +round curls of flaxen hair, neither gray nor snowy, but real +"lint-white locks" still; and her good-humored, motherly +look--motherly rather than old-maidish--gave an impression which may +be best described by the word "comfortable."--She was a "comfortable" +woman. She had that quality--too rarely, alas! in all people, and +rarest in women going solitary down the hill of life--of being able, +out of the deep content of her own nature, to make other people the +same. + +Hilary was cheered in spite of herself: it always conveys hope to the +young, when in sore trouble, if they see the old looking happy. + +"Welcome, my dear! I was afraid you had forgotten your promise." + +"Oh no," said Hilary, responding heartily to the hearty clasp of a +hand large as a man's, but soft as a woman's. + +"Why did you not come sooner?" + +More than one possible excuse flashed thro' Hilary's mind, but she +was too honest to give it. She gave none at all. Nor did she like to +leave the impression that this was merely a visit, when she knew she +had only come from secondary and personal motives. + +"May I tell you why I came to-day?--Because I want advice and help, +and I think you can give it, from something I heard about you +yesterday." + +"Indeed! From whom?" + +"In rather a roundabout way; from Mrs. Jones, who told our +maid-servant." + +"The same girl I met on the staircase at your bones? I beg your +pardon, but I know where you live, Miss Leaf; your landlady happens +to be an acquaintance of mine." + +"So she said: and she told our Elizabeth that you were a rich and +benevolent woman, who took a great interest in helping other women; +not in money"--blushing scarlet at be idea--"I don't mean that, but +in procuring them work. I want work--oh! so terribly. If you only +knew--" + +"Sit down, my dear;" for Hilary was rambling much, her voice +breaking, and her eyes filling, in spite of all her self-command. + +Miss Balquidder--who seemed accustomed to wait upon herself--went out +of the room, and returned with cake and glasses; then she took the +wine from the side-board, poured some oat for herself and Hilary, and +began to talk. + +"It is nearly my luncheon-time, and I am a great friend to regular +eating and drinking. I never let any thing interfere with my own +meals, or other folks' either, if I can help it. I would as soon +expect that fire to keep itself up without coals, as my mind to go on +working if I don't look after my body. You understand? You seem to +have good health, Miss Leaf. I hope you are a prudent girl, and take +care of it." + +"I think I do;" and Hilary smiled. "At any rate my sister does for +me, and also Elizabeth." + +"Ah, I liked the look of that girl. If families did but know that the +most useful patent of respectability they can carry about with them +is their maid-servant! That is how I always judge my new +acquaintances." + +"There's reason in it, too," said Hilary, amused and drawn out of +herself by the frank manner and the cordial voice--I use the +adjective advisedly; none the less sweet because its good terse +English had a decided Scotch accent, with here and there a Scotch +word. Also there was about Miss Balquidder a certain dry humor +essentially Scotch--neither Irish "wit" nor English "fun," but Scotch +humor; a little ponderous perhaps, yet sparkling: like the sparkles +from a large lump of coal, red-warm at the heart, and capable of +warming a whole household. As many a time it had warmed the little +household at Stowbury--for Robert Lyon had it in perfection. Like a +waft as from old times, it made Hilary at once feel at home with Miss +Balquidder. Equally, Miss Balquidder might have seen something in +this girl's patient, heroic, forlorn youth which reminded her of her +own. Unreasoning as these sudden attractions appear, there is often a +hidden something beneath which in reality makes them both natural and +probable, as was the case here. In half an hour these two women were +sitting talking like old friends; and Hilary had explained her +present position, needs and desires. They ended in the one +cry--familiar to how many thousands more of helpless young women!--"I +want work!" + +Miss Balquidder listened thoughtfully. Not that it was a new +story--alas! she heard it every day; but there was something new in +the telling of it; such extreme directness and simplicity, such utter +want of either false pride or false shame, No asking of favors, and +yet no shrinking from well-means kindness; the poor woman speaking +freely to the rich one, recognizing the common womanhood of both, and +never supposing for an instant that mere money or position could make +any difference between them. + +The story ended, both turned, as was the character of both, to the +practical application of it--what it was exactly that Hilary needed, +and what Miss Balquidder could supply. + +The latter said, after a turn or two up and down the room, with her +hands behind her--the only masculine trick she had-- + +"My dear, before going further, I ought to tell you one thing--I am +not a lady." + +Hilary looked at her in no little bewilderment. + +"That is," explained Miss Balquidder, laughing, "not an educated +gentlewoman like you. I made my money myself--in trade. I kept an +outfitter's shop." + +"You must have kept it uncommonly well," was the involuntary reply, +which, in its extreme honesty and naivete, was perhaps the best thing +that Hilary could have said. + +"Well, perhaps I did," and Miss Balquidder laughed her hearty laugh, +betraying one of her few weaknesses--a consciousness of her own +capabilities as a woman of business, and a pleasure at her own +deserved success. + +"Therefore, you see. I can not help you as a governess. Perhaps I +would not if I could, for, so far as I see, a good clearance of one +half the governesses into honest trades would be for their own +benefit, and greatly to the benefit of the other half. But that's not +my affair. I only meddle with things I understand. Miss Leaf, would +you be ashamed of keeping a shop?" + +It is no reflection upon Hilary to confess that this point-blank +question startled her.--Her bringing up had been strictly among the +professional class; and in the provinces sharper than even in London +is drawn the line between the richest tradesman who "keeps a shop," +and the poorest lawyer, doctor, or clergyman who ever starved in +decent gentility. It had been often a struggle for Hilary Leaf's +girlish pride to have to teach A B C to little boys and girls whose +parents stood behind counters; but as she grew older she grew wiser, +and intercourse with Robert Lyon had taught her much. She never +forgot, one day, when Selina asked him something about his +grandfather or great-grandfather, and he answered quickly, smiling, +"Well, I suppose I had one, but I really never heard." Nevertheless +it takes long to conquer entirely the class prejudices of years, nay, +more, of generations. In spite of her will Hilary felt herself wince, +and the color rush all over her face, at Miss Balquidder's question. + +"Take time to answer, and speak out, my dear. Don't be afraid. You'll +not offend me." + +The kindly cheerful tone made Hilary recover her balance immediately. + +"I never thought of it before; the possibility of such a thing did +not occur to me; but I hope I should not be ashamed of any honest +work for which I was competent. Only--to serve in a shop--to want +upon strangers--I am so horribly shy of strangers." And again the +sensitive color rushed in a perfect tide over checks and forehead. + +Miss Balquidder looked, half amused, compassionately at her. + +"No, my dear, you would not make a good shop-woman, at least there +are many who are better fitted for it than you; and it is my maxim +that people should try to find out, and to do, only that which they +are best fitted for. If they did we might not have so many cases of +proud despair and ambitious failure in the world. It looks very grand +and interesting sometimes to try and do what you can't de, and then +tear your hair, and think the world has ill-used you--very grand, but +very silly: when all the while, perhaps, there is something else you +can do thoroughly well; and the world will be exceedingly obliged to +you for doing it, and not doing the other thing.--As doubtless the +world was to me, when, instead of being a mediocre musician, as I +once wished to be--it's true, my dear--I took to keeping one of the +best ladies' outfitting warehouses in London." + +While she talked her companion had quite recovered herself, and Miss +Balquidder then went on to explain, what I will tell more briefly, if +less graphically, than the good Scotchwoman, who, like all who have +had a hard struggle in their youth, liked a little to dilate upon it +in easy old age. Hard as it was, however, it had ended early, for at +fifty she found herself a woman of independent property, without kith +or kin, still active, energetic, and capable of enjoying life. She +applied her mind to find out what she could best do with herself and +her money. + +"I might have bought a landed estate to be inherited by--nobody; or a +house in Belgravia, and an opera-box, to be shared by--nobody. We all +have our pet luxuries; none of these were exactly mine." + +"No," assented Hilary, somewhat abstractedly. She was thinking--if +she could make a fortune, and--and give it away!--if, by any means, +any honorable, upright heart could be made to understand that it did +not signify, in reality, which side the money came from; that it +sometimes showed deeper, the very deepest attachment, when a proud, +poor man had self-respect and courage enough to say to a woman, "I +love you, and I will marry you; I am not such a coward as to be +afraid of your gold." + +But, oh! what a ridiculous dream!--and she sat there, the penniless +Hilary Leaf, listening to Miss Balquidder, the rich lady, whose life +seemed so easy. For the moment, perhaps, her own appeared hard. But +she had hope, and she was young. She knew nothing of the years and +years that had had to be lived through before those kind eyes looked +as clear and cloudless as now; before the voice had gained the sweet +evenness of tone which she liked to listen to, and felt that it made +her quiet and "good," almost like Johanna's. + +"You see, my dear," said Miss Balquidder, "when one has no duties, +one must just make them; when we have nobody to care for us, we must +take to caring for every body. I suppose"--here a slight pause +indicated that this life, like all women's lives, had had its tale, +now long, long told--"I suppose I was not meant to be a wife; but I +am quite certain I was meant to be a mother. And"--with her peculiar, +bright, humorous look--"you'd be astonished, Miss Leaf, if you knew +what lots of 'children' I have in all parts of the world." + +Miss Balquidder then went on to explain, that finding, from her own +experience, how great was the number, and how sore the trial of young +women who nowadays are obliged to work--obliged to forget that there +is such a thing as the blessed privilege of being worked for--she had +set herself, in her small way, to try and help them. Her pet project +was to induce educated women to quit the genteel starvation of +governesships for some good trade thereby bringing higher +intelligence into a class which needed, not the elevation of the work +itself, which was comparatively easy and refined, but of the workers. +She had therefore invested sum after sum of her capital in setting up +various small shops in the environs of London, in her own former +line, and others--stationers, lace-shops, etc.--trades which could be +well carried on by women.--Into the management of these she put as +many young girls as she could find really fitted for it, or willing +to learn, paying them regular salaries, large or small, according to +their deserts. + +"Fair work, fair pay; not one penny more or less; I never do it; it +would not be honest. I overlook each business myself, and it is +carried on in my name. Sometimes it brings me in a little profit; +sometimes not. Of course," she added, smiling. "I would rather have +profits than losses; still, I balance one against the other, and it +leaves me generally a small interest for my money--two or three per +cent., which is all I care about. Thus, you see. I and my young +people make a fair bargain on both sides; it's no charity. I don't +believe in charity." + +"No," said Hilary, feeling her spirit rise. She was yet young enough, +yet enough unworn by the fight to feel the deliciousness of +work--honest work for honest pay. "I think I could do it," she added. +"I think, with a little practice, I really could keep a shop." + +"At all events, perhaps you could do what I find more difficult to +get done, and well done, for it requires a far higher class of women +than generally apply: you could keep the accounts of a shop; you +should be the head, and it would be easy to find the hands, Let me +see; there is a young lady, she has managed my stationer's business +at Kensington these two years, and now she is going to be married. +Are you good at figures; do you understand book-keeping?" + +And suddenly changing into the woman of business, and one who was +evidently quite accustomed both to arrange and command, Miss +Balquidder put Hilary through a sort of extempore arithmetical +catechism, from which she came off with flying colors. + +"I only wish there were more like you. I wish there were more young +ladies brought up like--" + +"Like boys!" said Hilary, laughing, "for I always used to say that +was my case." + +"No, I never desire to see young women made into men." And Miss +Balquidder seemed a little scandalized. "But I do wish girls were +taught fewer accomplishments, and more reading, writing, and +arithmetic; were made as accurate, orderly, and able to help +themselves as boys are. But to business. Will you take the management +of my stationer's shop?" + +Hilary's breath came hard and fast. Much as she had longed for work, +to get this sort of work--to keep a stationer's shop? What would her +sisters say? what would he say! But she dared not think of that just +now. + +"How much should I be able to earn, do you think?" + +Miss Balquidder considered a moment, and then said, rather shortly, +for it was not exactly acting on her own principles; she knew the pay +was above the work. "I will give you a hundred a year." + +A hundred a year! actually certain, and over and above any other +income. It seemed a fortune to poor Hilary. + +"Will you give me a day or two to think about it and consult my +sisters?" + +She spoke quietly, but Miss Balquidder could see how agitated she +was; how she evidently struggled with many feelings that would be +best struggled with alone. The good old lady rose. + +"Take your own time, my dear; I will keep the situation open for you +for one week from this date. And now I must send you away, for I have +a great deal to do." + +They parted quite like friends; and Hilary went out, walking quickly, +feeling neither the wind nor the rain. Yet when she reached No. 15 +she could not bring herself to enter, but took another turn or two +round the Crescent, trying to be quite sure of her own mind before +she opened the matter to her sisters.-- + +And there was one little battle to be fought which the sisters did +know. + +It was perhaps foolish, seeing she did not belong to him in any open +way, and he had no external right over her life or her actions, that +she should go back and back to the question, "What would Robert Lyon +say?" + +He knew she earned her daily bread; sometimes this had seemed to vex +and annoy him, but it must be done; and when a thing was inevitable, +it was not Mr. Lyon's way to say much about it. But being a governess +was an accredited and customary mode of a young lady's earning her +livelihood. This was different. If he should think it too public, too +unfeminine: he had such a horror of a woman's being any thing but a +woman, as strong and brave as she could, but in a womanly way; doing +any thing, however painful, that she was obliged to do, but never out +of choice or bravado, or the excitement of stepping out of her own +sphere into man's. Would Robert Lyon think less of her, Hilary, +because she had to earn to take care of herself, to protect herself, +and to act in so many ways for herself, contrary to the natural and +right order of things? That old order--God forbid it should ever +change!--which ordained that the women should be "keepers at home;" +happy rulers of that happy little world, which seemed as far off as +the next world from this poor Hilary. + +"What if he should look down upon me? What if he should return and +find me different from what he expected?" + +And bitter tears burned in her eyes, as she walked rapidly and +passionately along the deserted street. Then a revulsion came. + +"No; love is worth nothing that is not worth every thing, and to be +trusted through every thing. If he could forget me--could love any +one better than me--me myself, no matter what I was--ugly or pretty, +old or young, rich or poor--I would not care for his love. It would +not be worth my having; I'd let it go. Robert, though it broke my +heart, I'd let you go." + +Her eyes flashed; her poor little hand clenched itself under her +shawl; and then, as a half reproach, she heard in fancy the steady +loving voice--which could have calmed her wildest paroxysm of passion +and pain--"You must trust me, Hilary." + +Yes, he was a man to be trusted. No doubt very much like other men, +and by no means such a hero to the world at large as this fond girl +made him out to be; but Robert Lyon had, with all people, and under +all circumstances, the character of reliableness. He had also--you +might read it in his face--a quality equally rare, faithfulness. Not +merely sincerity, but faithfulness; the power of conceiving one clear +purpose, or one strong love--in unity of strength--and of not only +keeping true to it at the time, but of holding fast to it with a +single-minded persistency that never even takes in the idea of +voluntary change, as long as persistency is right or possible. + +"Robert, Robert!" sobbed this forlorn girl, as if slowly waking up to +a sense of her forlorness, and of the almost universal fickleness, +not actual falseness, but fickleness, which prevails in the world and +among mankind. "O Robert, be faithful! faithful to yourself--faithful +to me!" + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +When Miss Hilary reached home Elizabeth opened the door to her; the +parlor was deserted. + +Miss Leaf had gone to lie down, and Miss Selina was away to see the +Lord Mayor's Show with Mr. Peter Ascott. + +"With Mr. Peter Ascott!" Hilary was a little surprised; but on second +thoughts she found it natural; Selina was glad of any amusement--to +her, not only the narrowness but the dullness of their poverty was +inexpressibly galling. "She will be back to dinner, I suppose?" + +"I don't know," said Elizabeth briefly. + +Had Miss Hilary been less preoccupied, she would have noticed +something not quite right about the girl--something that at any other +time would have aroused the direct question, "What is the matter, +Elizabeth?" For Miss Hilary did not consider it beneath her dignity +to observe that things might occasionally go wrong with this solitary +young woman, away from her friends, and exposed to all the annoyances +of London lodgings; that many trifles might happen to worry and +perplex her. If the mistress could not set them right, she could at +least give the word of kindly sympathy, as precious to "a poor +servant" as to the Queen on her throne. + +This time, however, it came not, and Elizabeth disappeared below +stairs immediately. + +The girl was revolving in her own mind a difficult ethical question. +To-day, for the first time in her life, she had not "told Miss Hilary +every thing." Two things had happened, and she could not make up her +mind as to whether she ought to communicate them. + +Now Elizabeth had a conscience, by nature a very tender one, and +which, from circumstances, had been cultivated into a much higher +sensitiveness than, alas! is common among her class, or, indeed, in +any class. This, if an error, was Miss Hilary's doing; it probably +caused Elizabeth a few more miseries, and vexations, and painful +shocks in the world than she would have had had she imbibed only the +ordinary tone of morality, especially the morality of ordinary +domestic servants; but it was an error upon which, in summing up her +life, the Recording Angel would gravely smile. + +The first trial had happened at breakfast time. Ascott, descending +earlier than his wont, had asked her. Did any gentleman, short and +dirty, with a hooked nose, inquire for him yesterday? + +Elizabeth thought a minute, and recollected that some person +answering the above not too flattering description had called, but +refused to leave his name, saying he did not know the ladies, but was +a particular friend of Mr. Leaf's. + +Ascott laughed. "So he is--a very particular friend; but my aunts +would not fancy him, and I don't want him to come here. Say, if he +calls, that I'm gone out of town." + +"Very well, sir. Shall you start before dinner?" said Elizabeth, +whose practical mind immediately recurred to that meal, and to the +joint, always contrived to be hot on the days that Ascott dined at +home. + +He seemed excessively tickled. "Bless you, you are the greatest +innocent! Just say what I tell you, and never mind--hush! here's Aunt +Hilary." + +And Miss Hilary's anxious face, white with long wakefulness, had put +out of Elizabeth's head the answer that was coming; indeed the matter +slipped from her mind altogether, in consequence of another +circumstance which gave her much more perplexity. + +During her young mistress's absence, supposing Miss Selina out too, +and Miss Leaf up stairs, she had come suddenly into the parlor +without knocking. There, to her amazement, she saw Miss Selina and +Mr. Ascott standing, in close conversation, over the fire. They were +so engrossed that they did not notice her, and she shut door again +immediately. But what confounded her was, that she was certain, +absolutely certain, Mr. Ascott had his arm round Miss Selina's waist! + +Now that was no business of hers, and yet the faithful domestic was a +good deal troubled; still more so, when, by Miss Leaf's excessive +surprise at hearing of the visitor who had come and gone, carrying +Miss Selina away to the city, she was certain the elder sister was +completely in the dark as to any thing going to happen in the family. + +Could it be a wedding? Could Miss Selina really love, and be +intending to marry, that horrid little man? For strange to say, this +young servant had, what many a young beauty of rank and fashion has +not, or has lost forever--the true, pure, womanly creed, that loving +and marrying are synonymous terms; that to let a man put his arm +round your waist when you do not intend to marry him, or to intend to +marry him for money or any thing else when you do not really love +him, are things quite impossible and incredible to any womanly mind. +A creed somewhat out of date, and perhaps existing only in stray +nooks of the world; but thank God! it does exist. Hilary had it, and +she had taught it to Elizabeth. + +"I wonder whether Miss Hilary knows of this? I wonder what she would +say to it?" + +And now arose the perplexing ethical question aforesaid, as to +whether Elizabeth ought to tell her. + +It was one of Miss Hilary's doctrines--the same for the kitchen as +for the parlor, nay, preached strongest in the kitchen, where the +mysteries of the parlor are often so cruelly exposed--that a secret +accidentally found out should be kept as sacred as if actually +confided; also, that the secret of an enemy should no more be +betrayed than that of a beloved and trusting friend. + +"Miss Selina isn't my enemy," smiled Elizabeth: "but I'm not overfond +of her, and so I'd rather not tell of her, or vex her if I can help +it. Any how, I'll keep it to myself for a bit." + +But the secret weighed heavily upon her, and besides, her honest +heart felt a certain diminution of respect for Miss Selina. What +could she see to like in that common looking, commonplace man, whom +she could not have met a dozen times, of whose domestic life she knew +nothing, and whose personality Elizabeth, with the sharp observation +often found in her class, probably because coarse people do not care +to hide their coarseness from servants, had speedily set down at her +own valuation-- + +"Neither carriage nor horses, nor nothing, will ever make him a +gentleman?" + +He, however, sent Miss Selina home magnificently in the said +carriage; Ascott with her, who had been picked up somewhere in the +City and who came in to his dinner, without the slightest reference +to going "out of town." + +But in spite of her Lord Mayor's Show, and the great attention which +she said she had received from "various members of the Common Council +of the City of London," Miss Selina was, for her, meditative, and did +not talk quite so much as usual. There was in the little parlor an +uncomfortable atmosphere, as if all of them had something on their +minds. Hilary felt the ice must be broken, and if she did not do it +nobody else would. So she said, stealing her hand into Johanna's +under shelter of the dim fire-light, "Selina, I wanted to have a +little family consultation. I have just received an offer." + +"An offer!" repeated Miss Selina, with a visible start. "Oh, I +forgot; you went to see your friend, Miss Balquidder, this morning. +Did you get any thing out of her? Has she any nephews and nieces +wanting a governess?" + +"She has no relations at all. But I will just tell you the story of +my visit." + +"I hope it's interesting," said Ascott, who was lying on the sofa, +half asleep, his general habit after dinner. He woke, however, during +his Aunt Hilary's relation, and when she reached its climax, that the +offer was for her to manage a stationer's shop, he burst out heartily +laughing: + +"Well, that is a rich idea. I'll come and buy of you. You'll look so +pretty standing behind a counter." + +But Selina said, angrily, "You cannot even think of such a thing. It +would be a disgrace to the family." + +"No," said Hilary, clasping tightly her eldest sister's hand--they +two had already talked the matter over: "I can not see any disgrace. +If our family is so poor that the women must earn their living as +well as the men, all we have to see is that it should be honestly +earned. What do you say, Ascott?" + +She looked earnestly at him; she wanted sorely to find out what he +really thought. + +But Ascott took it, as he did every thing, very easily. "I don't see +why Aunt Selina should make such a fuss. Why need you do anything, +Aunt Hilary? Can't we hold out a little longer, and live upon tick +till I get into practice? Of course, I shall then take care of you +all; I'm the head of the family. How horribly dark this room is!" + +He started up, and gave the fire a fierce poke, which consumed in +five minutes a large lump of coal that Hilary had hoped--oh, cruel, +sordid economy--would have lasted half the evening. + +She broke the uneasy silence which followed by asking Johanna to give +her opinion. + +Johanna roused herself and spoke: + +"Ascott says right; he is the head of the family, and, by-and-by. I +trust will take care of us all. But he is not able to do it now, and +meantime we must live." + +"To be sure, we must Auntie." + +"I mean, my boy, we must live honestly; we must not run into debt:" +and her voice sharpened as with the reflected horror of her young +days--if, alas! there ever had been any youth for Henry Leaf's eldest +daughter. "No, Ascott, out of debt out of danger. For myself"--she +laid her thin old fingers on his arm, and looked up at him with a +pitiful mixture of reliance and hopelessness--"I would rather see you +breaking stones in the road than living like a gentleman, as you call +it, and a swindler, as I call it, upon other people's money." + +Ascott sprang up, coloring violently. "You use strong language, Aunt +Johanna. Never mind. I dare say you are right. However, it's no +business of mine. Good-night, for I have an engagement." + +Hilary said, gravely, she wished he would stay and join in the family +consultation. + +"Oh no; I bate talking over things. Settle it among yourselves. As I +said, it isn't my business." + +"You don't care, then, what becomes of us all? I sometimes begin to +think so." + +Struck by the tone, Ascott stopped in the act of putting on his lilac +kid gloves. "What have I done? I may be a very bad fellow, but I'm +not quite so bad as that. Aunt Hilary." + +"She didn't mean it, my boy," said Aunt Johanna, tenderly. + +He was moved, more by the tenderness than the reproach. He came and +kissed his eldest aunt in that warm-hearted, impulsive way, which had +won him forgiveness for many a boyish fault. It did so now. + +"I know I'm not half good enough to you, Auntie, but I mean to be. I +mean to work hard, and be a rich man some day; and then you may be +sure I shall not let my Aunt Hilary keep a shop. Now, good-night, for +I must meet a fellow on business--really business--that may turn out +good for us all, I assure you." + +He went away whistling, with that air of untroubled, good-natured +liveliness peculiar to Ascott Leaf, which made them say continually +that he was "only a boy," living a boy's life, as thoughtless and as +free. When his handsome face disappeared the three women sat down +again round the fire. + +They made no comments on him whatever; they were women, and he was +their own. But--passing him over as if he had never existed--Hilary +began to explain to her sisters all particulars of her new scheme for +maintaining the family. She told these details in a matter of-fact +way, as already arranged; and finally hoped Selina would make no more +objections. + +"It is a thing quite impossible," said Selina, with dignity. + +"Why impossible? I can certainly do the work; and it can not make me +less of a lady. Besides, we had better not be ladies if we can not be +honest ones. And, Selina, where is the money to come from? We have +none in the house; we can not get any till Christmas." + +"Opportunities might occur. We have friends." + +"Not one in London; except, perhaps, Mr. Ascott, and I would not ask +him for a farthing. You don't see, Selina, how horrible it would be +to be helped, unless by some one dearly loved. I couldn't bear it! +I'd rather beg, starve: almost steal!" + +"Don't be violent, child." + +"Oh, but it's hard!" and the cry of long-smothered pain burst out. +"Hard enough to have to earn one's bread in a way one doesn't like; +harder still to have to be parted from Johanna from Monday morning +till Saturday night. But it must be, I'll go. It's a case between +hunger, debt, and work: the first is unpleasant, the second +impossible, the third is my only alternative. You must consent, +Selina, for I will do it." + +"Don't!" Selina spoke more gently, and not without some natural +emotion. "Don't disgrace me, child; for I may as well tell you--I +meant to do so to-night--Mr. Ascott has made me an offer of marriage, +and I--I have accepted it." Had a thunder-bolt fallen in the middle +of the parlor at No. 15, its inmates--that is, two of them--could not +have been more astounded. + +No doubt this surprise was a great instance of simplicity on their +part. Many women would have prognosticated, planned the thing from +the first; thought it a most excellent match; seen glorious visions +of the house in Russell Square, of the wealth and luxury that would +be the portion of "dear Selina," and the general benefit that the +marriage would be to the whole Leaf family. + +But these two were different from others. They only saw their sister +Selina, a woman no longer young, and not without her peculiarities, +going to be married to a man she knew little or nothing about--a man +whom they themselves had endured rather than liked, and for the sake +of gratitude. He was trying enough merely as a chance visitor; but to +look upon Mr. Ascott as a brother-in-law, as a husband-- "Oh, Selina! +you can not be in earnest?" + +"Why not? Why should I not be married as well as my neighbors?" said +she, sharply. + +Nobody arguing that point, both being indeed too bewildered to argue +at all, she continued, majestically, + +"I assure you, sisters, there could not be a more unexceptionable +offer. It is true, Mr. Ascott's origin was rather humble; but I can +overlook that. In his present wealth, and with his position and +character, he will make the best of husbands." + +Not a word was answered; what could be answered? Selina was free to +marry if she liked, and whom she liked. Perhaps, from her nature, it +was idle to expect her to marry in any other way than this; one of +the thousand and one unions where the man desires a handsome, +lady-like wife for the head of his establishment, and the woman +wishes an elegant establishment to be mistress of; so they strike a +bargain--possibly as good as most other bargains. + +Still, with one faint lingering of hope, Hilary asked if she had +quite decided. + +"Quite. He wrote to me last night, and I gave him his answer this +morning." + +Selina certainly had not troubled any body with her "love affairs." +It was entirely a matter of business. + +The sisters saw at once that she had made up her mind. Henceforward +there could be no criticism of Mr. Peter Ascott. + +Now all was told, she talked freely of her excellent prospects. + +"He had behaved handsomely--very much so. He makes a good settlement +on me, and says how happy he will be to help my family, so as to +enable you always to make a respectable appearance." + +"We are exceedingly obliged to him." + +"Don't be sharp, Hilary. He means well. And he must feel that this +marriage is a sort of--ahem! condescension on my part, which I never +should have dreamed of twenty years ago." + +Selina sighed; could it be at the thought of that twenty years ago? +Perhaps, shallow as she seemed, this woman might once have had some +fancy, some ideal man whom she expected to meet and marry; possibly a +very different sort of man from Mr. Peter Ascott. However, the sigh +was but momentary; she plunged back again into all the arrangements +of her wedding, every one of which, down to the wedding-dress, she +had evidently decided. + +"And therefore you see," she added, as it the unimportant, almost +forgotten item of discussion had suddenly occurred to her, "it's +quite impossible that my sister should keep a shop. I shall tell Mr. +Ascott, and you will see what he says to it." + +But when Mr. Ascott appeared next day in solemn state as an accepted +lover he seemed to care very little about the matter. He thought it +was a good thing for every body to be independent; did not see why +young women--he begged pardon, young ladies--should not earn their +own bread if they liked. He only wished that the shop were a little +further off than Kensington, and hoped the name of Leaf would not be +put over the door. + +But the bride-elect, indignant and annoyed, begged her lover to +interfere, and prevent the scheme from being carried out. + +"Don't vex yourself, my dear Selina," said he, dryly--how Hilary +started to hear the stranger use the household name--"but I can't see +that it's my business to interfere. I marry you, I don't marry your +whole family." + +"Mr. Ascott is quite right; we will end the subject," said Johanna, +with grave dignity while Hilary sat with burning cheeks, thinking +that, miserable as the family had been, it had never till now known +real degradation. + +But her heart was very sore that day. It the morning had come the +letter from India never omitted, never delayed; Robert Lyon was +punctual as clock-work in every thing he did. It came, but this month +it was a short and somewhat sad letter--hinting of failing health, +uncertain prospects; full of a bitter longing to come home, and a +dread that it would be years before that longing was realized. + +"My only consolation is," he wrote, for once betraying himself a +little, "that however hard my life out here may be, I bear it alone." + +But that consolation was not so easy to Hilary. That they two should +be wasting their youth apart, when just a little heap of yellow +coins--of which men like Mr. Ascott had such profusion--would bring +them together; and, let trials be many or poverty hard, give them the +unutterable joy of being once more face to face and heart to +heart--oh, it was sore, sore! + +Yet when she went up from the parlor, where the newly-affianced +couple sat together, "making-believe" a passion that did not exist, +and acting out the sham courtship, proper for the gentleman to pay +and the lady to receive--when she shut her bedroom door, and there, +sitting in the cold, read again and again Robert Lyon's letter to +Johanna, so good, so honest; so sad, yet so bravely enduring--Hilary +was comforted. She felt that true love, in its most unsatisfied +longings, its most cruel delays, nay, even its sharpest agonies of +hopeless separation, is sweeter ten thousand times than the most +"respectable" of loveless marriages such as this. + +So, at the week's end, Hilary went patiently to her work at +Kensington, and Selina began the preparations for her wedding. + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +In relating so much about her mistresses, I have lately seemed to +overlook Elizabeth Hand. + +She was a person easy enough to be overlooked. She never put herself +forward, not even now, when Miss Hilary's absence caused the weight +of housekeeping and domestic management to fall chiefly upon her. She +went about her duties as soberly and silently as she had done in her +girlhood; even Miss Leaf could not draw her into much +demonstrativeness: she was one of those people who never "come out" +till they are strongly needed, and then-- But it remained to be +proved what this girl would be. + +Years afterward Hilary remembered with what a curious reticence +Elizabeth used to go about in those days: how she remained as +old-fashioned as ever; acquired no London ways, no fripperies of +dress or flippancies of manner. Also, that she never complained of +anything; though the discomforts of her lodging-house life must have +been great--greater than her mistresses had any idea of at the time. +Slowly, out of her rough, unpliant girlhood, was forming that +character of self-reliance and self-control, which, in all ranks, +makes of some women the helpers rather than the helped, the laborers +rather than the pleasure-seekers; women whose constant lot it seems +to be to walk on the shadowed side of life, to endure rather than to +enjoy. + +Elizabeth had very little actual enjoyment. She made no +acquaintances, and never asked for holidays. Indeed she did not seem +to care for any. Her great treat was when, on a Sunday afternoon, +Miss Hilary sometimes took her to Westminster Abbey or St. Paul's; +when her pleasure and gratitude always struck her mistress--may, even +soothed her, and won her from her own many anxieties. It is such a +blessing to be able to make any other human being, even for an hour +or two, entirely happy. + +Except these bright Sundays, Elizabeth's whole time was spent in +waiting upon Miss Leaf, who had seemed to grow suddenly frail and +old. It might be that living without her child six days out of the +seven was a greater trial than had at first appeared to the elder +sister, who until now had never parted with her since she was born; +or it was perhaps a more commonplace and yet natural cause, the +living in London lodgings, without even a change of air from room to +room; and the want of little comforts and luxuries, which, with all +Hilary's care, were as impossible as ever to their limited means. + +For Selina's engagement, which, as a matter of decorum, she had +insisted should last six months, did not lessen expenses. Old gowns +were shabby, and omnibuses impossible to the future Mrs. Ascott of +Russell Square; and though, to do her justice, she spent as little as +to her self-pleasing nature was possible, still she spent something. + +"It's the last; I shall never cost you any more," she would say, +complacently; and revert to that question of absorbing interest, her +trousseau, an extremely handsome one, provided liberally by Mr. +Ascott. Sorely had this arrangement jarred upon the pride of the Leaf +family; yet it was inevitable. But no personal favors would the other +two sisters have accepted from Mr. Ascott, even had he offered +them--which he did not--save a dress each for the marriage, and a +card for the marriage breakfast, which, he also arranged, was to take +place at a hotel. + +So, in spite of the expected wedding, there was little change in the +dull life that went on at No. 15. Its only brightness was when Miss +Hilary came home from Saturday to Monday. And in those brief +glimpses, when, as was natural, she on her side, and they on theirs, +put on their best face, so to speak, each trying to hide from the +other any special care, it so fell out that Miss Hilary never +discovered a thing which, week by week, Elizabeth resolved to speak +to her about, and yet never could. For it was not her own affair; it +seemed like presumptuously middling in the affairs of the family. +Above all, it involved the necessity of something which looked like +tale-bearing and backbiting of a person she disliked, and there was +in Elizabeth--servant as she was--an instinctive chivalrous honor +which made her especially anxious to be just to her enemies. + +Enemy, however, is a large word to use; and yet day by day her +feelings grew more bitter toward the person concerned--namely. Mr. +Ascott Leaf. It was not from any badness in him: he was the sort of +young man always likely to be a favorite with what would be termed +his "inferiors;" easy, good-tempered, and gentlemanly, giving a good +deal of trouble certainly, but giving it so agreeably that few +servants would have grumbled, and paying for it--as he apparently +thought every thing could be paid for--with a pleasant word and a +handful of silver. + +But Elizabeth's distaste for him had deeper roots. The principal one +was his exceeding indifference to his aunts' affairs, great and +small, from the marriage, which he briefly designated as a "jolly +lark," to the sharp economies which, even with the addition of Miss +Hilary's salary, were still requisite.--None of these latter did he +ever seem to notice, except when they pressed upon himself; when he +neither scolded nor argued, but simply went out and avoided them. + +He was now absent from home more than ever, and apparently tried as +much as possible to keep the household in the dark as to his +movements--leaving at uncertain times, never saying what hour he +would be back, or if he said so, never keeping to his word. This was +the more annoying as there were a number of people continually +inquiring for him, hanging about the house, and waiting to see him +"on business;" and some of these occasionally commented on the young +gentleman in such unflattering terms that Elizabeth was afraid they +would reach the ear of Mrs. Jones, and henceforward tried always to +attend to the door herself. + +But Mrs. Jones was a wide awake woman. She had not let lodgings for +thirty years for nothing. Ere long she discovered, and took good care +to inform Elizabeth of her discovery, that Mr. Ascott Leaf was what +is euphuistically termed "in difficulties." + +And here one word, lest in telling this poor lad's story I may be +supposed to tell it harshly or uncharitably, as if there was no crime +greater than that which a large portion of society seems to count as +none; as if, at the merest mention of the ugly word debt, this rabid +author flew out, and made all the ultra virtuous persons whose +history is here told fly out, like turkeys, after a bit of red cloth +which is a very harmless scrap of red cloth after all. + +Most true, some kind of debt deserves only compassion. The merchant +suddenly failing; the tenderly reared family who by some strange +blunder or unkind kindness have been kept in ignorance of their real +circumstances, and been spending pounds for which there was only +pence to pay; the individuals, men or women, who, without any laxity +of principle, are such utter children in practice, that they have to +learn the value and use of money by hard experience, much as a child +does, and are little better than children in all that concerns L. S. +D. to the end of their days. + +But these are debtors by accident, not error. The deliberate debtor, +who orders what he knows he has no means of paying for; the pleasure +loving debtor, who can not renounce one single luxury for conscience' +sake; the well-meaning, lazy debtor, who might make "ends meet," but +does not, simply because he will not take the trouble; upon such as +these it is right to have no mercy--they deserve none. + +To which of these classes young Ascott Leaf belonged his story will +show. I tell it, or rather let it tell itself, and point its own +moral; it is the story of hundreds and thousands. + +That a young fellow should not enjoy his youth would be hard; that it +should not be pleasant to him to dress well, live well, and spend +with open hand upon himself as well as others, no one will question. +No one would ever wish it otherwise. Many a kindly spendthrift of +twenty-one makes a prudent paterfamilias at forty, while a man who in +his twenties showed a purposeless niggardliness, would at sixty grow +into the most contemptible miser alive. There is something even in +the thoughtless liberality of youth to which one's heart warms, even +while one's wisdom reproves.--But what struck Elizabeth was that +Ascott's liberalities were always toward himself, and himself only. + +Sometimes when she took in a parcel of new clothes, while others yet +unpaid for were tossing in wasteful disorder about his room, or when +she cleaned indefinite pairs of handsome boots, and washed dozens of +the finest cambric pocket-handkerchiefs, her spirit grew hot within +her to remember Miss Hilary's countless wants and contrivances in the +matter of dress, and all the little domestic comforts which Miss +Leaf's frail health required--things which never once seemed to cross +the nephew's imagination. Of course not, it will be said; how could a +young man be expected to trouble himself about these things? + +But they do though. Answer, many a widow's son; many a heedful +brother of orphan sisters; many a solitary clerk living and paying +his way upon the merest pittance; is it not better to think of others +than one's self? Can a man, even a young man, find his highest +happiness in mere personal enjoyment? + +However, let me cease throwing these pebbles of preaching under the +wheels of my story; as it moves on it will preach enough for itself. + +Elizabeth's annoyances, suspicions, and conscience-pricks as to +whether she ought or ought not to communicate both, came to an end at +last. Gradually she made up her mind that, even if it did look like +tale bearing, on the following Saturday night Miss Hilary must know +all. + +It was an anxious week; for Miss Leaf had fallen ill. Not seriously; +and she never complained until her sister had left, when she returned +to her bed and did not again rise. She would not have Miss Hilary +sent for, nor Miss Selina, who was away paying a ceremonious +prenuptial visit to Mr. Ascott's partner's wife at Dulwich. + +"I don't want any thing that you can not do for me. You are becoming +a first rate nurse. Elizabeth," she said, with that passive, peaceful +smile which almost frightened the girl; it seemed as if she were +slipping away from this world and all its cares into another +existence. Elizabeth felt that to tell her any thing about her +nephew's affairs was perfectly impossible. How thankful she was that +in the quiet of the sick-room her mistress was kept in ignorance of +the knocks and inquiries at the door, and especially of a certain +ominous paper which had fallen into Mrs. Jones's hands, and informed +her, as she took good care to inform Elizabeth, that any day "the +bailiffs" might be after her young master. + +"And the sooner the whole set of you clear out of my house the +better; I am a decent respectable woman," said Mrs. Jones, that very +morning; and Elizabeth had had to beg her as a favor not to disturb +her sick mistress, but to wait one day, till Miss Hilary came home. + +Also, when Ascott, ending with a cheerful and careless countenance +his ten minutes' after breakfast chat in his aunt's room, had met +Elizabeth on the staircase, he had stopped to bid her say if any body +wanted him he was gone to Birmingham, and would not be home till +Monday. And on Elizabeth's hesitating, she having determined to tell +no more of these involuntary lies, he had been very angry, and then +stooped to entreaties, begging her to do as he asked, or it would be +the ruin of him. Which she understood well enough when, all the day, +she--grown painfully wise, poor girl!--watched a Jewish-looking man +hanging about the house, and noticing every body that went in or out +of it. + +Now, sitting at Miss Leaf's window, she fancied she saw this man +disappear into the gin-palace opposite, and at the same moment a +figure darted hurriedly round the street corner, and into the door of +No. 15. Elizabeth looked to see if her mistress were asleep, and then +crept quietly out of the room, shutting the door after her. +Listening, she heard the sound of the latch-key, and of some one +coming stealthily up stairs. + +"Hollo!--Oh, it's only you, Elizabeth." + +"Shall I light your candle, sir?" + +But when she did the sight was not pleasant. Drenched with rain, his +collar pulled up, and his hat slouched, so as in some measure to act +as a disguise, breathless and trembling--hardly any body would have +recognized in this discreditable object that gentlemanly young man, +Mr. Ascott Leaf. + +He staggered into his room and threw himself across the bed. + +"Do you want anything, Sir?" said Elizabeth, from the door. + +"No--yes--stay a minute. Elizabeth, are you to be trusted?" + +"I hope I am, Sir." + +"The bailiffs are after me. I've just dodged them. If they know I'm +here the game's all up--and it will kill my aunt." + +Shocked as she was, Elizabeth was glad to hear him say that--glad to +see the burst of real emotion with which he flung himself down on the +pillow, muttering all sorts of hopeless self-accusations. + +"Come, Sir, 'tis no use taking on so," said she, much as she would +have spoken to a child, for there was something childish rather than +man like in Ascott's distress. Nevertheless, she pitied him, with the +unreasoning pity a kind heart gives to any creature, who, blameworthy +or not, has fallen into trouble. "What do you mean to do?" + +"Nothing. I'm cleaned out. And I haven't a friend in the world." + +He turned his face to the wall in perfect despair. + +Elizabeth tried hard not to sit in judgment upon what the catechism +would call her "betters;" and yet her own strong instinct of almost +indefinite endurance turned with something approaching contempt from +this weak, lightsome nature, broken by the first touch of calamity. + +"Come, it's no use making things worse than they are. If no body +knows that you are here, lock your door and keep quiet. I'll bring +you some dinner when I bring up Missis' tea, and not even Mrs. Jones +will be any the wiser." + +"You're a brick, Elizabeth--a regular brick!" cried the young fellow, +brightening up at the least relief. "That will be capital.--Get me a +good slice of beef, or ham, or something. And mind you, don't +forget!--a regular stunning bottle of pale ale." + +"Very well, Sir." + +The acquiescence was somewhat sullen, and had he watched Elizabeth's +face he might have seen there an expression not too flattering. But +she faithfully brought him his dinner, and kept his secret, even +though, hearing from over the staircase Mrs. Jones resolutely deny +that Mr. Leaf had been at home since morning, she felt very much as +if she were conniving at a lie. With a painful, half-guilty +consciousness she waited for her mistress's usual question. "Is my +nephew come home?" but fortunately it was not asked.-- + +Miss Leaf lay quiet and passive, and her faithful nurse settled her +for the night with a strangely solemn feeling, as if she were leaving +her to her last rest, safe and at peace before the overhanging storm +broke upon the family. + +But all shadow of this storm seemed to have passed away from him who +was its cause. As soon as the house was still Ascott crept down and +fell to his supper with as good an appetite as possible. He even +became free and conversational. + +"Don't look so glum, Elizabeth. I shall soon weather through. Old +Ascott will fork out; he couldn't help it. I'm to be his nephew you +know. Oh, that was a clever catch of Aunt Selina's. If only Aunt +Hilary would try another like it." + +"If you please, Sir, I'm going to bed." + +"Off with you, then, and I'll not forget the gown at Christmas. +You're a sharp young woman, and I'm much obliged to you." And for a +moment he looked as if he were about to make the usual unmannerly +acknowledgment of civility from a young gentleman to a servant maid, +viz., kissing her, but he pulled a face and drew back. He really +couldn't; she was so very plain. At this moment there came a violent +ring, and "Fire!" was shouted through the key-hole of the door. +Terrified, Elizabeth opened it, when, with a burst of laughter, a man +rushed in and laid hands upon Ascott. + +It was the sheriff's officer. + +When his trouble came upon him Ascott's manliness returned. He turned +very white, but he made no opposition; had even enough of his wits +about him--or something better than wits--to stop Mrs. Jones from +rushing up in alarm and indignation to arouse Miss Leaf. + +"No; she'll know it quite soon enough.--Let her sleep till morning. +Elizabeth, look here." He wrote upon a card the address of the place +he was to be taken to. "Give Aunt Hilary this. Say if she can think +of a way to get me out of this horrid mess; but I don't +deserve--Never mind. Come on, you fellows." + +He pulled his hat over his eyes, jumped into the cab, and was gone. +The whole thing had not occupied five minutes. + +Stupefied, Elizabeth stood and considered what was best to be done. +Miss Hilary must be told; but how to get at her in the middle of the +night, thereby leaving her mistress to the mercy of Mrs. Jones. It +would never do. Suddenly she thought of Miss Balquidder.--She might +send a message. No, not a message--for the family misery and disgrace +must not be betrayed to a stranger--but a letter to Kensington. With +an effort Elizabeth composed herself sufficiently to write one--her +first--to her dear Miss Hilary. + +"HONORED MADAM,--Mr. Leaf has got himself into trouble, and is taken +away somewhere; and I dare not tell missis; and I wish you was at +home, as she is not well, but better than she has been, and she shall +know nothing about it till you come.--Your obedient and affectionate +servant, +ELIZABETH HAND." + +Taking Ascott's latch-key she quitted the house and slipped out into +the dark night, almost losing her way among the gloomy squares, where +she met not a creature except the solitary policeman, plashing +steadily along the wet pavement. When he turned the glimmer of his +bull's eye upon her she started like a guilty creature, till she +remembered that she really was doing nothing wrong, and so need not +be afraid of any thing. This was her simple creed, which Miss Hilary +had taught her, and it upheld her, even till she knocked at Miss +Balquidder's door. There, poor girl, her heart sank, especially when +Miss Balquidder, in an anomalous costume and a severe voice, opened +the door herself, and asked who was there, disturbing a respectable +family at this late hour? + +Elizabeth answered, what she had before determined to say, as +sufficiently explaining her errand, and yet betraying nothing that +her mistress might wish concealed. + +"Please, ma'am, I'm Miss Leaf's servant. My missis is ill, and I want +a letter sent at once to Miss Hilary." + +"Oh! come in, then. Elizabeth, I think, your name is?" + +"Yes, ma'am." + +"What made you leave home at this hour of the night? Did your +mistress send you?" + +"No." + +"Is she so very ill? It seems sudden. I saw Miss Hilary to-day, and +she knew nothing at all about it." + +Elizabeth shrank a little before the keen eye that seemed to read her +through. + +"There's more amiss than you have told me, young woman. Is it because +your mistress is in serious danger that you want to send for her +sister?" + +"No." + +"What is it then? You had better tell me at once. I hate +concealment." + +It was a trial; but Elizabeth held her ground. + +"I beg your pardon, ma'am; but I don't think missis would like any +body to know, and therefore I'd rather not tell you." + +Now the honest Scotswoman, as she said, hated any thing underhand, +but she respected the right of every human being to maintain silence +if necessary. She looked sharply in Elizabeth's face, which +apparently re-assured her, for she said, not unkindly, + +"Very well, child, keep your mistress's secrets by all means. Only +tell me what you want. Shall I take a cab and fetch Miss Hilary at +once?" + +Elizabeth thanked her, but said she thought that would not do; it +would be better just to send the note the first thing to-morrow +morning, and then Miss Hilary would come home just as if nothing had +happened, and Miss Leaf would not be frighted by her sudden +appearance. + +"You are a good, mindful girl," said Miss Balquidder. "How did you +learn to be so sensible?" + +At the kindly word and manner, Elizabeth, bewildered and exhausted +with the excitement she had gone through, and agitated by the feeling +of having, for the first time in her life, to act on her own +responsibility, gave way a little. She did not exactly cry, but she +was very near it. + +Miss Balquidder called over the stair-head, in her quick, imperative +voice-- + +"David, is your wife away to her bed yet?" + +"No, ma'am." + +"Then tell her to fetch this young woman to the kitchen and give her +some supper. And afterward, will you see her safe home, poor lassie? +She's awfully tired, you see." + +"Yes, ma'am." + +And following David's gray head, Elizabeth, for the first time since +she came to London, took a comfortable meal in a comfortable kitchen, +seasoned with such stories of Miss Balquidder's goodness and +generosity, that when, an hour after, she went home and to sleep, it +was with a quieter and more hopeful than she could have believed +possible under the circumstances. + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +Next morning, while with that cheerful, unanxious countenance which +those about an invalid must learn continually to wear, Elizabeth was +trying to persuade her mistress not to rise, she heard a knock, and +made some excuse for escaping. She well knew what it was and who had +come. + +There, in the parlor, sat Miss Hilary, Mrs. Jones talking at her +rather than to her, for she hardly seemed to hear. But that she had +heard every thing was clear enough. Her drawn white face, the tight +clasp of her hands, showed that the ill tidings had struck her hard. + +"Go away, Mrs. Jones," cried Elizabeth, fiercely. "Miss Hilary will +call when she wants you." + +And with an ingenious movement that just fell short of a push, +somehow the woman was got on the other side of the parlor door, which +Elizabeth immediately shut. Then Miss Hilary stretched her hands +across the table and looked up piteously in her servant's face. + +Only a servant; only that poor servant to whom she could look for any +comfort in this sore trouble, this bitter humiliation. There was no +attempt at disguise or concealment between mistress and maid. + +"Mrs. Jones has told me every thing, Elizabeth. How is my sister? She +does not know?" + +"No; and I think she is a good deal better this morning. She has been +very bad all week; only she would not let me send for you. She is +really getting well now; I'm sure of that!" + +"Thank God!" And then Miss Hilary began to weep. + +Elizabeth also was thankful, even for those tears, for she had been +perplexed by the hard, dry-eyed look of misery, deeper than anything +she could comprehend, or than the circumstances seemed to warrant. + +It was deeper. The misery was not only Ascott's arrest; many a lad +has got into debt and got out again--the first taste of the law +proving a warning to him for life; but it was this ominous "beginning +of the end." The fatal end--which seemed to overhang like a +hereditary cloud, to taint as with hereditary disease, the Leaf +family. + +Another bitterness (and who shall blame it, for when love is really +love, have not the lovers a right to be one another's first +thought?)--what would Robert Lyon say? To his honest Scotch nature +poverty was nothing; honor every thing. She knew his horror of debt +was even equal to her own. This, and her belief in his freedom from +all false pride, had sustained her against many doubts lest he might +think the less of her because of her present position--might feel +ashamed could he see her sitting at her ledger in that high desk, or +even occasionally serving in the shop. + +Many a time things she would have passed over lightly on her own +account she had felt on his; felt how they would annoy and vex him. +The exquisitely natural thought which Tennyson has put into poetry-- + + "If I am dear to some one else, + Then I should be to myself more dear"-- + +had often come, prosaically enough perhaps, into her head, and +prevented her from spoiling her little hands with unnecessarily rough +work, or carelessly passing down ill streets and by-ways, where she +knew Robert Lyon, had he been in London, would never have allowed her +to go. Now what did such things signify? What need of taking care of +herself? These were all superficial, external disgraces, the real +disgrace was within. The plague-spot had burst out anew; it seemed as +if this day were the recommencement of that bitter life of penury, +misery, and humiliation, familiar through three generations to the +women of the Leaf family. + +It appeared like a fate. No use to try and struggle out of it, +stretching her arms up to Robert Lyon's tender, honest, steadfast +heart, there to be sheltered, taken care of, and made happy. No +happiness for her! Nothing but to go on enduring and enduring to the +end. + +Such was Hilary's first emotion; morbid perhaps, yet excusable. It +might have lasted longer--though in her healthy nature it could not +have lasted very long--had not the reaction come, suddenly and +completely, by the opening of the parlor door, and the appearance of +Miss Leaf. + +Miss Leaf--pale, indeed; but neither alarmed nor agitated, who +hearing somehow that her child had arrived, had hastily dressed +herself, and come down stairs, in order not to frighten Hilary. And +as she took her in her arms, and kissed her with those mother-like +kisses, which were the sweetest Hilary had as yet ever known--the +sharp anguish went out of the poor girl's heart. + +"Oh, Johanna! I can bear any thing as long as I have you" + +And so in this simple and natural way the miserable secret about +Ascott came out. + +Being once out, it did not seem half so dreadful; nor was its effect +nearly so serious as Miss Hilary and Elizabeth had feared.--Miss Leaf +bore it wonderfully; she might almost have known it beforehand; they +would have thought she had, but that she said decidedly she had not. + +"Still you need not have minded telling me; though it was very good +and thoughtful of you Elizabeth. You have gone through a great deal +for our sakes, my poor girl." + +Elizabeth burst into one smothered sob the first and the last. + +"Nay," said Miss Leaf, very kindly; for this unwonted emotion in +their servant moved them both. "You shall tell me the rest another +time. Go down now, and get Miss Hilary some breakfast." + +When Elizabeth had departed the sisters turned to one another. They +did not talk much; where was the use of it? They both knew the worst, +both as to facts and fears. + +"What must be done. Johanna?" + +Johanna, after a long pause, said, "I see but one thing--to get him +home." + +Hilary started up, and walked to and fro along the room. + +"No, not that. I will never agree to it.--We can not help him. He +does not deserve helping. If the debts were for food now, or any +necessaries; but for mere luxuries, mere fine clothes; it is his +tailor who has arrested him, you know. I would rather have gone in +rags! I would rather see us all in rags!--It's mean, selfish, +cowardly, and I despise him for it. Though he is my own flesh and +blood, I despise him." + +"Hilary!" + +"No." and the tears burst from her angry eyes, "I don't mean that I +despise him. I'm sorry for him: there is good in him, poor dear lad; +but I despise his weakness; I feel fierce to think how much it will +cost us all, and especially you, Johanna. Only think what comforts of +all sorts that thirty pounds would have brought to you!" + +"God will provide," said Johanna, earnestly. "But I know, my dear, +this is sharper to you than to me. Besides, I have been more used to +it." + +She closed her eyes, with a half shudder, as if living over again the +old days--when Henry Leaf's wife and eldest daughter used to have +to give dinner parties upon food that stuck in their throats, as if +every morsel had been stolen; which in truth it was, and yet they +were helpless, innocent thieves; when they and the children had to +wear clothes that seemed to poison them like the shirt of Dejanira; +when they durst not walk along special streets, nor pass particular +shops, for the feeling that the shop people must be staring, and +pointing, and jibing at them, "Pay me what thou owest!" + +"But things can not again be so bad as those days, Hilary. Ascott is +young; he may mend. People can mend, my child; and he had such a +different bringing up from what his father had, and his grandfather, +too. We must not be hopeless yet. You see," and making Hilary kneel +down before her, she took her by both hands, as if to impart +something of her own quietness to this poor heart, struggling as +young, honest, upright hearts do struggle with something which their +whole nature revolts against, and loathes, and scorns--"you see, the +boy is our boy; our own flesh and blood. We were very foolish to let +him away from us for so long. We might have made him better if we had +kept him at Stowbury. But he is young; that is my hope of him; and he +was always fond of his aunts, and is still, I think." + +Hilary smiled sadly. "Deeds, not words I don't believe in words." + +"Well, let us put aside believing, and only act. Let us give him +another chance." + +Hilary shook her head. "Another, and another, and another--it will be +always the same. I know it will. I can't tell how it is, Johanna; but +whenever I look at you, I feel so stern and hard to Ascott. It seems +as if there were circumstances when pity to some, to one, was wicked +injustice to others: as if there were times when it is right and +needful to lop off, at once and forever, a rotten branch rather than +let the whole tree go to rack and ruin. I would do it! I should think +myself justified in doing it." + +"But not just yet. He is only a boy--our own boy." + +And the two women, in both of whom the maternal passion existed +strong and deep, yet in the one never had found, and in the other +never might find, its natural channel, wept together over this lad, +almost as mothers weep. + +"But what can we do?" said Hilary at last. + +"Thirty pounds, and not a halfpenny to pay it with; must we borrow?" + +"Oh no--no," was the answer, with a shrinking gesture; "no borrowing. +There is the diamond ring." + +This was a sort of heir-loom from eldest daughter to eldest daughter +of the Leaf family which had been kept even as a sort of +superstition, through all temptations of poverty.--The last time Miss +Leaf looked at it she had remarked, jestingly, it should be given +some day to that important personage talked of for many a year among +the three aunts--Mrs. Ascott Leaf. + +"Who must do without it now," said Johanna, looking regretfully at +the ring; "that is, if he ever takes to himself a wife, poor boy." + +Hilary answered, beneath her breath, "Unless he alters, I earnestly +hope he never may." And there came over her involuntarily a wild, +despairing thought, Would it not be better that neither Ascott nor +herself should ever be married, that the family might die out, and +trouble the world no more? + +Nevertheless she rose up to do what she knew had to be done, and what +there was nobody to do but herself. + +"Don't mind it, Johanna; for indeed I do not. I shall go to a first +rate, respectable jeweler, and he will not cheat me; and then I shall +find my way to the sponging-house--isn't that what they call it? I +dare say many a poor woman has been there before me. I am not the +first, and shall not be the last, and no body will harm me. I think I +look honest, though my name is Leaf." + +She laughed--a bitter laugh; but Johanna silenced it in a close +embrace; and when Hilary rose up again she was quite her natural +self. She summoned Elizabeth, and began giving her all domestic +directions, just as usual; finally, bade her sister good by in a tone +as like her usual tone as possible, and left her settled on the sofa +in content and peace. + +Elizabeth followed to the door. Miss Hilary had asked her for the +card on which Ascott had written the address of the place where he +had been taken to; and though the girl said not a word, her anxious +eyes made piteous inquiry. + +Her mistress patted her on the shoulder. + +"Never mind about me; I shall come to no harm, Elizabeth." + +"It's a bad place; such a dreadful place, Mrs. Jones says." + +"Is it?" Elizabeth guessed part, not the whole of the feelings that +made Hilary hesitate, shrink even, from the duty before her, turning +first so hot, and then so pale. Only as a duty could she have done it +at all. "No matter, I must go. Take care of my sister." + +She ran down the door steps, and walked quickly through the Crescent. +It was a clear, sunshiny, frosty day--such a day as always both +cheered and calmed her. She had, despite all her cares, youth, +health, energy; and a holy and constant love lay like a sleeping +angel in her heart. Must I tell the truth, and own that before she +had gone two streets' length Hilary ceased to feel so very, very +miserable? + +Love--this kind of love of which I speak--is a wonderful thing, the +most wonderful thing in all the world. The strength it gives, the +brightness, the actual happiness, even in hardest times, is often +quite miraculous. When Hilary sat waiting in the jeweler's shop, she +watched a little episode of high life--two wealthy people choosing +their marriage plate; the bride, so careless and haughty; the +bridegroom, so unutterably mean to look at, stamped with that innate +smallness and coarseness of soul which his fine clothes only made +more apparent. And she thought--oh, how fondly she thought!--of that +honest, manly mein; of that true, untainted heart, which she felt +sure, had never loved any woman but herself; of the warm, firm hand, +carving its way thro' the world for her sake, and waiting patiently +till it could openly clasp hers, and give her every thing it had won. +She would not have exchanged him. Robert Lyon, with his penniless +love, his half-hopeless fortunes, or maybe his lot of never ending +care, for the "brawest bridegroom" under the sun. + +Under this sun--the common, everyday winter sun of Regent and Oxford +streets--she walked now as brightly and bravely as if there were no +trouble before her, no painful meeting with Ascott, no horrid +humiliation from which every womanly feeling in her nature shrunk +with acute pain. "Robert, my Robert!" she whispered in her heart, and +felt him so near to her that she was at rest, she hardly knew why. + +Possibly grand, or clever, or happy people who condescend to read +this story may despise it, think it unideal, uninteresting; treating +of small things and common people--"poor persons," in short. I can +not help it. I write for the poor; not to excite the compassion of +the rich toward them, but to show them their own dignity and the +bright side of their poverty. For it has its bright side; and its +very darkest, when no sin is mixed up therewith, is brighter than +many an outwardly prosperous life. + +"Better is a dinner of herbs, where love is, than a stalled ox and +hatred therewith. Better is a dry morsel, and quietness therewith, +than a house full of sacrifices and strife." + +With these two sage proverbs--which all acknowledge and scarcely any +really believe, or surely they would act a little more as if they +did--I leave Johanna Leaf sitting silently in her solitary parlor, +knitting stockings for her child; weaving many a mingled web of +thought withal, yet never letting a stitch go down; and Hilary Leaf +walking cheerily and fearlessly up one strange street and down +another to find out the "bad" place, where she once had no idea it +would ever have been her lot to go.--One thing she knew, and gloried +in the knowledge, that if Robert Lyon had known she was going, or +known half the cares she had to meet, he would have recrossed the +Indian seas--have risked fortune, competence, hope of the future, +which was the only cheer of his hard present--in order to save her +from them all. + +The minute history of this painful day I do not mean to tell. Hilary +never told it till, years after, she wept it out upon a bosom that +could understand the whole, and would take good care that while the +life beat in his she never should go through the like again. + +Ascott came home--that is, was brought home--very humbled, contrite, +and grateful. There was no one to meet him but his Aunt Johanna, and +she just kissed him quietly, and bade him come over to the fire; he +was shivering, and somewhat pale. He had even two tears in his +handsome eyes, the first Ascott had been known to shed since he was a +boy. That he felt a good deal, perhaps as much as was in his nature +to feel, there could be no doubt. So his two aunts were glad and +comforted; gave him his tea and the warmest seat at the hearth; said +not a harsh word to him, but talked to him about indifferent +things.--Tea being over, Hilary was anxious to get every thing +painful ended before Selina came home--Selina, who, they felt by +instinct, had now a separate interest from themselves, and had better +not be told this sad story if possible; so she asked her nephew "if +he remembered what they had to do this evening?" + +"Had to do? Oh, Aunt Hilary, I'm so tired! can't you let me be quiet? +Only this one night. I promise to bring you everything on Monday." + +"Monday will be too late. I shall be away. And you know you can't do +without my excellent arithmetic," she added with a faint smile. "Now, +Ascott, be a good boy--fetch down all those bills and let us go over +them together." + +"His debts came to more than the thirty pounds then?" said his Aunt +Johanna, when he was gone. + +"Yes. But the ring sold for fifty." And Hilary drew to the table, got +writing materials, and sat waiting, with a dull, silent patience in +her look, at which Johanna sighed and said no more. + +The aunt and nephew spent some time in going over that handful of +papers, and approximating to the sum total, in that kind of awful +arithmetic when figures cease to be mere figures, but grow into +avenging monsters, bearing with them life or death. + +"Is that all! You are quite sure it is all?" said Hilary at last, +pointing to the whole amount, and looking steadily into Ascott's +eyes. + +He flushed up, and asked what she meant by doubting his word? + +"Not that, but you might easily have made a mistake; you are so +careless about money matters." + +"Ah, that's it. I'm just careless, and so I come to grief. But I +never mean to be careless any more. I'll be as precise as you. I'll +balance my books every week--every day if you like--exactly as you do +at that horrid shop, Aunt Hilary." + +So he was rattling on, but Hilary stopped him by pointing to the +figures. + +"You see, this sum is more than we expected. How is it to be met? +Think for yourself. You are a man now." + +"I know that," said Ascott, sullenly; "but what's the use of +it?--money only makes the man, and I have none. If the ancient Peter +would but die now and leave me his heir, though to be sure Aunt +Selina might be putting her oar in. Perhaps--considering I'm Aunt +Selina's nephew--if I were to walk into the old chap now he might be +induced to fork out! Hurrah! that's a splendid idea." + +"What idea?" + +"I'll borrow the money from old Ascott." + +"That means, because he has already given, you would have him keep on +giving--and you would take and take and take--Ascott, I'm ashamed of +you." + +But Ascott only burst out laughing. "Nonsence!--he has money and I +have none; why shouldn't he give it me?" + +"Why?"--she repeated, her eyes flashing and her little feminine +figure seeming to grow taller as she spoke--"I'll tell you, since you +don't seem yourself to understand it. Because a young man, with +health and strength in him, should blush to eat any bread but what he +himself earns. Because he should work at any thing and every thing, +stint himself of every luxury and pleasure, rather than ask or +borrow, or, except under rare circumstances, rather than be indebted +to any living soul for a single half-penny. I would not, if I were a +young man." + +"What a nice young man you would make, Aunt Hilary!" + +There was something in the lad's imperturbable good humor at once +irritating and disarming. Whatever his faults, they were more +negative than positive; there was no malice prepense about him, no +absolute personal wickedness. And he had the strange charm of manner +and speech which keeps up one's outer surface of habitual affection +toward a person long after all its foundations of trust and respect +have hopelessly crumbled away. + +"Come now, my pretty aunt must go with me. She will manage the old +ogre much better than I. And he must be managed somehow. It's all +very fine talking of independence, but isn't it hard that a poor +fellow should be living in constant dread of being carried off to +that horrid, uncleanly, beastly den--bah! I don't like thinking of +it--and all for the want of twenty pounds? You must go to him, Aunt +Hilary." + +She saw they must--there was no help for it. Even Johanna said so. It +was after all only asking for Ascott's quarterly allowance three days +in advance, for it was due on Tuesday. But what jarred against her +proud, honest spirit was the implication that such a request gave of +taking as a right that which had been so long bestowed as a favor. +Nothing but the great strait they were in could ever have driven her +to consent that Mr. Ascott should be applied to at all; but since it +must be done, she felt that she had better do it herself. Was it from +some lurking doubt or dread that Ascott might not speak the entire +truth, as she had insisted upon its being spoken, before Mr. Ascott +was asked for any thing? since whatever he gave must be given with a +full knowledge on his part of the whole pitiable state of affairs. + +It was with a strange, sad feeling--the sadder because he never +seemed to suspect it, but talked and laughed with her as usual--that +she took her nephew's arm and walked silently through the dark +squares, perfectly well aware that he only asked her to go with him +in order to do an unpleasant thing which he did not like to do +himself, and that she only went with him in the character of watch, +or supervisor, to try and save him from doing something which she +herself would be ashamed should be done. + +Yet he was ostensibly the head, hope, and stay of the family. Alas! +many a family has to submit to, and smile under an equally melancholy +and fatal sham. + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +Mr. Ascott was sitting half asleep in his solitary dining room, his +face rosy with wine, his heart warmed also, probably from the same +cause. Not that he was in the least "tipsy"--that low-word +applicable only to low people, and not men of property, who have a +right to enjoy all the good things of this life. He was scarcely even +"merry," merely "comfortable," in that cozy, benevolent state which +middle aged or elderly gentlemen are apt to fall into after a good +dinner and good wine, when they have no mental resources, and the +said good dinner and good wine constitutes their best notion of +felicity. + +Yet wealth and comfort are not things to be despised. Hilary herself +was not insensible to the pleasantness of this warm, well-lit, +crimson-atmosphered apartment. She as well as her neighbors liked +pretty things about her, soft, harmonious colors to look at and wear, +well-cooked food to eat, cheerful rooms to live in. If she could have +had all these luxuries with those she loved to share them, no doubt +she would have been much happier. But yet she felt to the full that +solemn truth that "a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of +things that he possesses;" and though hers was outwardly so dark, so +full of poverty, anxiety, and pain, still she knew that inwardly it +owned many things, one thing especially, which no money could buy, +and without which fine houses, fine furniture, and fine +clothes--indeed, all the comforts and splendors of existence, would +be worse that valueless, actual torment. So as she looked around her +she felt not the slightest envy of her sister Selina. + +Nor of honest Peter, who rose up from his arm-chair, pulling the +yellow silk handkerchief from his sleepy face, and, it must be +confessed, receiving his future connections very willingly, and even +kindly. + +Now how was he to be told? How when she and Ascott sat over the wine +and desert he had ordered for them, listening to the rich man's +complaisant pomposities, were they to explain that they had come a +begging, asking him, as the climax to his liberalities, to advance a +few pounds in order to keep the young man whom he had for years +generously and sufficiently maintained out of prison? This, smooth it +over as one might, was, Hilary felt, the plain English of the matter, +and as minute after minute lengthened, and nothing was said of their +errand, she sat upon thorns. + +But Ascott drank his wine and ate his walnuts quite composedly. + +At last Hilary said, in a sort of desperation, "Mr. Ascott, I want to +speak to you." + +"With pleasure, my dear young lady. Will you come to my study?--I +have a most elegantly furnished study, I assure you. And any affair +of yours--" + +"Thank you, but it is not mine; it concerns my nephew here." + +And then she braced up all her courage, and while Ascott busied +himself over his walnuts--he had the grace to look excessively +uncomfortable--she told, as briefly as possible, the bitter truth. + +Mr. Ascott listened, apparently without surprise, and any how, +without comment. His self-important loquacity ceased, and his +condescending smile passed into a sharp, reticent, business look. He +knitted his shaggy brows, contracted that coarsely-hung, but resolute +mouth, in which lay the secret of his success in life, buttoned up +his coat, and stuck his hands behind him over his coat-tails. As he +stood there on his own hearth, with all his comfortable splendors +about him--a man who had made his own money, hardly and honestly, who +from the days when he was a poor errand-lad had had no one to trust +to but himself, yet had managed always to help himself, ay, and +others too--Hilary's stern sense of justice contrasted him with the +graceful young man who sat opposite to him, so much his inferior, and +so much his debtor. She owned that Peter Ascott had a right to look +both contemptuously and displeased. + +"A very pretty story, but I almost expected it," said he. + +And there he stopped. In his business capacity he was too acute a man +to be a man of many words, and his feelings, if they existed, were +kept to himself. + +"It all comes to this, young man," he continued, after an +uncomfortable pause, in which Hilary could have counted every beat of +her heart, and even Ascott played with his wine glass in a nervous +kind of way--"you want money, and you think I'm sure to give it, +because it wouldn't be pleasant just now to have discreditable +stories going about concerning the future Mrs. Ascott's relatives. +You're quite right, it wouldn't. But I'm too old a bird to be caught +with chaff for all that. You must rise very early in the morning to +take me in." + +Hilary started up in an agony of shame. "That's not fair, Mr. Ascott. +We do not take you in. Have we not told you the whole truth? I was +determined you should know it before we asked you for one farthing of +your money. If there were the smallest shadow of a chance for Ascott +in any other way, we never would have come to you at all. It is a +horrible, horrible humiliation!" + +It might be that Peter Ascott had a soft place in his heart, or that +this time, just before his marriage, was the one crisis which +sometimes occurs in a hard man's life, when, if the right touch +comes, he becomes malleable ever after; but he looked kindly at the +poor girl, and said, in quite a gentle way, "Don't vex yourself, my +dear. I shall give the young fellow what he wants: nobody ever called +Peter Ascott stingy. But he has cost me enough already: he must shift +for himself now. Hand me over that check-book, Ascott; but remember +this is the last you'll ever see of my money." + +He wrote the memorandum of the check inside the page, then tore off +the check itself, and proceeded to write the words "Twenty pounds," +date it, and sign it, lingering over the signature, as if he had a +certain pride in the honest name "Peter Ascott," and was well aware +of its monetary value on Change and elsewhere. + +"There, Miss Halary, I flatter myself that's not a bad signature, nor +would be easily forged. One can not be too careful over-- What's +that? a letter, John?" + +By his extreme eagerness, almost snatching it from his footman's +hands, it was one of importance. He made some sort of rough apology, +drew the writing materials to him, wrote one or two business-looking +letters, and made out one or two more checks. + +"Here's yours Ascott; take it, and let me have done with it," said +he, throwing it across the table folded up. "Can't waste time on such +small transactions. Ma'am, excuse me, but five thousand pounds +depends on my getting these letters written and sent off within a +quarter of an hour." + +Hilary bent her head, and sat watching the pen scratch, and the clock +tick on the mantle-piece; thinking if this really was to be the last +of his godfather's allowance, what on earth would become of Ascott? +For Ascott himself, he said not a word. Not even when, the letters +dispatched, Mr. Ascott rose, and administering a short, sharp homily, +tacitly dismissed his visitors: Whether this silence was sullenness, +cowardice, or shame, Hilary could not guess. + +She quitted the house with a sense of grinding humiliation almost +intolerable. But still the worst was over; the money had been begged +and given--there was no fear of a prison. And spite of every thing, +Hilary felt a certain relief that this was the last time Ascott would +be indebted to his godfather. Perhaps this total cessation of +extraneous help might force the young man upon his own resources, +compel his easy temperament into active energy, and bring out in him +those dormant qualities that his aunts still fondly hoped existed in +him. + +"Don't be down-hearted, Ascott," she said: "we will manage to get on +somehow till you bear of a practice, and then you must work--work +like a 'brick,' as you call it. You will, I know." + +He answered nothing. + +"I won't let you give in, my boy," she went on, kindly. "Who would +ever dream of giving in at your age, with health and strength, a good +education, and no encumbrances whatever--not even aunts! for we will +not stand in your way, be sure of that. If you can not settle here, +you shall try to get out abroad, as you have sometimes wished, as an +army surgeon or a ship's doctor; you say these appointments are easy +enough to be had. Why not try? Any thing; we will consent to any +thing, if only we can see your life busy and useful and happy." + +Thus she talked, feeling far more tenderly to him in his forlorn +despondency than when they had quitted the house two hours before. +But Ascott took not the slightest notice. A strange fit of sullenness +or depression seemed to have come over him, which, when they reached +home and met Aunt Johanna's silently-questioning face, changed into +devil-may-care indifference. + +"Oh yes, aunt, we've done it; we've got the money, and now I may go +to the dogs as soon as I like." + +"No," said Aunt Hilary, "it is nothing of the sort: it is only that +Ascott must now depend upon himself, and not upon his godfather. Take +courage," she added, and went up to him and kissed him on the +forehead; "we'll never let our boy go to the dogs! and as for this +disappointment, or any disappointment, why it's just like a cold +bath, it takes away your breath for the time, and then you rise up +out of it brisker and fresher than ever." + +But Ascott shook his head with a fierce denial. "Why should that old +fellow be as rich as Croesus and I as poor as a rat? Why should I be +put into the world to enjoy myself, and can't? Why was I made like +what I am, and then punished for it? Whose fault is it?" + +Ay, whose? The eternal, unsolvable problem rose up before Hilary's +imagination. The ghastly spectre of that everlasting doubt, which +haunts even the firmest faith sometimes--and which all the nonsense +written about that mystery which, + + "Binding nature fate to fate, + Leaves free the human will," + +only makes darker than before--oppressed her for the time being with +an inexpressible dread. + +Ay, why was it that the boy was what he was? From his inherited +nature, his temperament, or his circumstances? What, or more awful +question still, who was to blame? + +But as Hilary's thoughts went deeper down the question answered +itself--at least as far as it ever can be answered in this narrow, +finite stage of being. Whose will--we dare not say whose blame--is it +that evil must inevitably generate evil? that the smallest +wrong-doing in any human being rouses a chain of results which may +fatally involve other human beings in an almost incalculable circle +of misery? The wages of sin is death. Were it not so sin would cease +to be sin, and holiness, holiness. If He, the All-holy, who for some +inscrutable purpose saw fit to allow the existence of evil, allowed +any other law than this, in either the spiritual or material world, +would He not be denying Himself, counteracting the necessities of His +own righteous essence, to which evil is so antagonistic, that we can +not doubt it must be in the end cast into total annihilation--into +the allegorical lake of fire and brimstone, which is the "second +death?" Nay, do they not in reality deny Him and His holiness almost +as much as Atheists do, who preach that the one great salvation which +He has sent into the world is a salvation from punishment--a keeping +out of hell and getting into heaven--instead of a salvation from sin, +from the power and love of sin, through the love of God in Christ? + +I tell these thoughts, because like lighting they passed through +Hilary's mind, as sometimes a whole chain of thoughts do, link after +link, and because they helped her to answer her nephew quietly and +briefly, for she saw he was in no state of mind to be argued with. + +"I can not explain, Ascott, why it is that any of us are what we are, +and why things happen to us as they do; it is a question we none of +us understand, and in this world never shall. But if we know what we +ought to be, and how we may make the best of every thing, good or +bad, that happens to us, surely that is enough without perplexing +ourselves about any thing more." + +Ascott smiled, half contemptuously, half carelessly: he was not a +young fellow likely to perplex himself long or deeply about these +sort of things. + +"Any how, I've got £20 in my pocket, so I can't starve for a day or +two. Let's see; where is it to be cashed? Hillo! who would have +thought the old fellow would have been so stupid? Look there, Aunt +Hilary!" + +She was so unfamiliar with checks for £20, poor little woman! that +she did not at first recognize the omission of the figures "£20" at +the left-hand corner. Otherwise the check was correct. + +"Ho, ho!" laughed Ascott, exceedingly amused, so easily was the +current of his mind changed. "It must have been the £5000 pending +that muddled the 'cute old fellow's brains. I wonder whether he will +remember it afterward, and come posting up to see that I've taken no +ill-advantage of his blunder; changed this 'Twenty' into 'Seventy.' I +easily could, and put the figures £70 here. What a good joke!" + +"Had ye not better go to him at once, and have the matter put right?" + +"Rubbish! I can put it right myself. It makes no difference who fills +up a check, so that it is signed all correct. A deal you women know +of business!" + +But still Hilary, with a certain womanish uneasiness about money +matters, and an anxiety to have the thing settled beyond doubt, urged +him to go. + +"Very well; just as you like. I do believe you are afraid of my +turning forger." + +He buttoned his coat with a half sulky, half defiant air, left his +supper untasted, and disappeared. + +It was midnight before he returned. His aunts were still sitting up, +imagining all sorts of horrors, in an anxiety too great for words; +but when Hilary ran to the door, with the natural "Oh, Ascott, where +have you been?" he pushed her aside with a gesture that was almost +fierce in its repulsion. + +"Where have I been? taking a walk round the Park; that's all. Can't I +come and go as I like, without being pestered by women? I'm horribly +tired. Let me alone--do!" + +They did let him alone. Deeply wounded, Aunt Johanna took no further +notice of him than to set his chair a little closer to the fire, and +Aunt Hilary slipped down stairs for more coals. There she found +Elizabeth, who they thought had long since gone to bed, sitting on +the stairs, very sleepy, but watching still. + +"Is he come in?" she asked; "because there are more bailiffs after +him. I'm sure of it; I saw them." + +This, then, might account for his keeping out of the way till after +twelve o'clock, and also for his wild, haggard look. Hilary put aside +her vague dread of some new misfortune; assured Elizabeth that all +was right; he had got wherewithal to pay every body on Monday +morning, and would be safe till then. All debtors were safe on +Sunday. + +"Go to bed now--there's a good girl; it is hard that you should be +troubled with our troubles." + +Elizabeth looked up with those fond gray eyes of hers. She was but a +servant, and yet looks like these engraved themselves ineffaceably on +her mistress's heart, imparting the comfort that all pure love gives +from any one human being to another. + +And love has its wonderful rights and rewards. Perhaps Elizabeth, who +thought herself nothing at all to her mistress, would have marveled +to know how much closer her mistress felt to this poor, honest, +loving girl, whose truth she believed in, and on whose faithfulness +she implicitly depended, than toward her own flesh and blood, who sat +there moodily over the hearth; deeply pitied, sedulously cared for, +but as for being confided in relied on, in great matters or small, +his own concerns or theirs--the thing was impossible. + +They could not even ask him--they dared not, in such a strange mood +was he--the simple question, Had he seen Mr. Ascott, and had Mr. +Ascott been annoyed about the check? It would not have been referred +to at all had not Hilary, in holding his coat to dry, taken his +pocket book out of the breast pocket, when he snatched at it angrily. + +"What are you meddling with my things for? Do you want to get at the +check, and be peering at it to see if it's all right? But you can't; +I've paid it away. Perhaps you'd like to know who to? Then you +shan't. I'll not be accountable to you for all my proceedings. I'll +not be treated like a baby. You'd better mind what you are about, +Aunt Hilary." + +Never, in all his childish naughtiness, or boyish impertinence, had +Ascott spoken to her in such a tone. She regarded him at first with +simple astonishment, then hot indignation, which spurred her on to +stand up for her dignity, and not submit to be insulted by her own +nephew. But then came back upon her her own doctrine, taught by her +own experience, that character and conduct alone constitutes real +dignity or authority. She had, in point of fact, no authority over +him; no one can have, not even parents, over a young man of his age, +except that personal influence which is the strongest sway of all. + +She said only, with a quietness that surprised herself--"You mistake, +Ascott; I have no wish to interfere with you whatever; you are your +own master, and must take your own course. I only expect from you the +ordinary respect that a gentleman shows to a lady. You must be very +tired and ill, or you would not have forgotten that." + +"I didn't; or, if I did, I beg your pardon," said he, half subdued. +"When are you going to bed?" + +"Directly. Shall I light your candle also?" + +"Oh no; not for the world; I couldn't sleep a wink. I'd go mad if I +went to bed. I think I'll turn out and have a cigar." + +His whole manner was so strange that his Aunt Johanna, who had sat +aloof, terribly grieved, but afraid to interfere, was moved to rise +up and go over to him. + +"Ascott, my dear, you are looking quite ill. Be advised by your old +auntie. Go to bed at once, and forget every thing till morning." + +"I wish I could; I wish I could. Oh, Auntie, Auntie!" + +He caught hold of her hand, which she had laid upon his head, looked +up a minute into her kind, fond face, and burst into a flood of +boyish tears. + +Evidently his troubles had been too much for him; he was in a state +of great excitement. For some minutes his sobs were almost +hysterical: then by a struggle he recovered him-self, seemed +exceedingly annoyed and ashamed, took up his candle, bade them a +hurried goodnight, and went to bed. + +That is, he went to his room; but they heard him moving about +overhead for a long while after: nor were they surprised that he +refused to rise next morning, but lay most of the time with his door +locked, until late in the afternoon, when he went out for a long +walk, and did not return till supper, which he ate almost in silence. +Then, after going up to his room, and coming down again, complaining +bitterly how very cold it was, he crept in to the fireside with a +book in his hand, of which Hilary noticed he scarcely read a line. + +His aunts said nothing to him; they had determined not: they felt +that further interference would be not only useless but dangerous. + +"He will come to himself by-and by; his moods, good or bad, never +last long, you know," said Hilary, somewhat bitterly. "But, in the +mean time, I think we had better just do as he says--let him alone." + +And in that sad, hopeless state they passed the last hours of that +dreary Sunday--afraid either to comfort him or reason with him; +afraid, above all, to blame him lest it might drive him altogether +astray. That he was in a state of great misery, halt sullen, half +defiant, they saw, and were scarcely surprised at it; it was very +hard not to be able to open their loving hearts to him, as those of +one family should always do, making every trouble a common care, and +every joy a universal blessing. But in his present state of mind--the +sudden obstinacy of a weak nature conscious of its weakness, and +dreading control--it seemed impossible either to break upon his +silence or to force his confidence. + +They might have been right in this, or wrong; afterward Hilary +thought the latter. Many a time she wished and wished, with a bitter +regret, that instead of the quiet "Good night, Ascott!" and the one +rather cold kiss on his forehead, she had flung her arms round his +neck, and insisted on his telling out his whole mind to her, his +nearest kinswoman, who had been half aunt and half sister to him all +his life. But it was not done: she parted from him, as she did Sunday +after Sunday, with a sore sick feeling of how much he might be to +her, to them all, and how little he really was. + +If this silence of hers was a mistake--one of those mistakes which +sensitive people sometimes make--it was, like all similar errors, +only too sorrowfully remembered and atoned for. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +The week passed by, and Hilary received no ill tidings from home. +Incessant occupation kept her from dwelling too much on anxious +subjects: besides, she would not have thought it exactly right, while +her time and her mental powers were for so many hours per diem +legally Miss Balquidder's, to waste the one and weaken the other by +what is commonly called "fretting." Nor, carrying this conscientious +duty to a higher degree, and toward a higher Master, would she have +dared to sit grieving overmuch over their dark future. And yet it was +very dark. She pondered over what was to be done with Ascott, or +whether he was still to be left to the hopeless hope of doing +something for himself: how long the little establishment at No. 15 +could be kept together, or if, after Selina's marriage, it would not +be advisable to make some change that should contract expenses, and +prevent this hard separation, from Monday to Saturday, between +Johanna and herself. + +These, with equally anxious thoughts, attacked her in crowds every +day and every hour; but she had generally sufficient will to put them +aside: at least till after work was done, and they could neither +stupefy nor paralyze her. Trouble had to her been long enough +familiar to have taught her its own best lesson--that the mind can, +in degree, rule itself, even as it rules the body. + +Thus, in her business duties, which were principally keeping +accounts; in her management of the two young people under her, and of +the small domestic establishment connected with the shop, Hilary went +steadily on, day after day; made no blunders in her arithmetic, no +mistakes in her housekeeping. Being new to all her responsibilities, +she had to give her whole mind to them; and she did it: and it was a +blessing to her--the sanctified blessing which rests upon labor, +almost seeming to neutralize its primeval curse. + +But night after night, when work was over, she sat alone at her +sewing--the only time she had for it--and her thoughts went faster +than her needle. She turned over plan after plan, and went back upon +hope after hope, that had risen and broken like waves of the +sea--nothing happening that she had expected; the only thing which +had happened, or which seemed to have any permanence or reality, +being two things which she had never expected at all--Selina's +marriage, and her own engagement with Miss Balquidder. It often +happens so, in most people's lives, until at last they learn to live +on from day to day, doing each day's duty within the day, and +believing that it is a righteous as well as a tender hand which keeps +the next day's page safely folded down. + +So Hilary sat, glad to have a quiet hour, not to grieve in, but to +lay out the details of a plan which had been maturing in her mind all +week, and which she meant definitely to propose to Johanna when she +went home next day. It would cost her something to do so, and she had +had some hesitations as to the scheme itself, until at last she threw +them all to the winds, as an honest-hearted, faithful and +faithfully-trusting woman would. Her plan was, that they should write +to the only real friend the family had--the only good man she +believed in--stating plainly their troubles and difficulties about +their nephew; asking his advice, & possibly his help. He might know +of something--some opening for a young surgeon in India, or some +temporary appointment for the voyage out and home, which might catch +Ascott's erratic and easily attracted fancy: give him occupation for +the time being, and at least detach him from his present life, with +all its temptations and dangers. + +Also, it might result in bringing the boy again under that influence +which had been so beneficial to him while it lasted, and which Hilary +devoutly believed was the best influence in the world. Was it +unnatural, if, mingled with an earnest desire for Ascott's good, was +an under-lying delight that that good should be done to him by Robert +Lyon? + +So when her plan was made, even to the very words in which she meant +to unfold it to Johanna, and the very form in which Johanna should +write the letter, she allowed herself a few brief minutes to think of +him--Robert Lyon--to call up his eyes, his voice, his smile; to +count, for the hundreth time, how many months--one less than +twenty-four, so she could not say years now--it would be before he +returned to England. Also, to speculate when and where they would +first meet, and how he would speak the one word--all that was needful +to change "liking" into "love," and "friend" into "wife." + +They had so grown together during so many years not the less so +during these years of absence, that it seemed as if such a change +would hardly make any difference. And yet--and yet--as she sat and +sewed, wearied with her day's labors, sad and perplexed, she +thought--if only, by some strange magic, Robert Lyon were standing +opposite, holding open his arms, ready and glad to take her and all +her cares to his heart, how she would cling there! how closely she +would creep to him, weeping with joy and content, neither afraid nor +ashamed to let him see how dearly she loved him! + +Only a dream! ah, only a dream! and she started from it at the sharp +sound of the doorbell--started, blushing and trembling, as if it had +been Robert Lyon himself, when she knew it was only her two young +assistants whom she had allowed to go out to tea in the neighborhood. +So she settled herself to her work again; put all her own thoughts by +in their little private corners, and waited for the entrance and the +harmless gossip of these two orphan girls, who were already beginning +to love her, and make a friend of her, and toward whom she felt +herself quite an elderly and responsible person. Poor little Hilary! +It seemed to be her lot always to take care of somebody or other. +Would it ever be that any body should take care of her? + +So she cleared away some of her needlework, stirred the fire, which +was dropping hollow and dull, and looked up pleasantly to the opening +door. But it was not the girls: it was a man's foot and a man's +voice. + +"Any person of the name of Leaf living here? I wish to see her, on +business." + +At another time she would have laughed at the manner and words, as if +it were impossible so great a gentleman as Mr. Ascott could want to +see so small a person as the "person of the name of Leaf," except on +business. But now she was startled by his appearance at all. She +sprang up only able to articulate "My sister--" + +"Don't be frightened; your sisters are quite well. I called at No. 15 +an hour ago." + +"You saw them?" + +"No; I thought it unadvisable, under the circumstances." + +"What circumstances?" + +"I will explain, if you will allow me to sit down; bah! I've brought +in sticking to me a straw out of that confounded shaky old cab. One +ought never to be so stupid as to go any where except in one's own +carriage. This is rather a small room, Miss Hilary." + +He eyed it curiously round; and, lastly, with his most acute look he +eyed herself, as if he wished to find out something from her manner, +before going into further explanations. + +But she stood before him a little uneasy, and yet not very much so. +The utmost she expected was some quarrel with her sister Selina; +perhaps the breaking off of the match, which would not have broken +Hilary's heart at all events. + +"So you have really no idea what I'm come about!" + +"Not the slightest." + +"Well!" said Peter Ascott. "I hardly thought it; but when one has +been taken in as I have been, and this isn't the first time by your +family--" + +"Mr. Ascott! will you explain yourself?" + +"I will, ma'am. It's a very unpleasant business I come about; any +other gentleman but me would have come with a police officer at his +back. Look here, Miss Hilary Leaf--did you ever set eyes on this +before?" + +He took out his check book, turned deliberately over the small +memorandum halves of the page, till he came to one in particular, +then hunted in his pocket book for something. + +"My banker sent in to-day my canceled checks, which I don't usually +go over oftener than three months; he knew that, the scamp." + +Hilary looked up. + +"Your nephew, to be sure. See!" + +He spread before her a check, the very one she had watched him write +seven days before, made payable to "Ascott Leaf, or bearer," and +signed with the bold, peculiar signature. "Peter Ascott." Only +instead of being a check for twenty pounds it was for seventy. + +Instantly the whole truth flashed upon Hilary: Ascott's remark about +how easily the T could be made into an S, and what a "good joke" it +would be; his long absence that night; his strange manner: his +refusal to let her see the check again; all was clear as daylight. + +Unfortunate boy! the temptation had been too strong for him. Under +what sudden, insane impulse he had acted--under what delusion of +being able to repay in time; or of Mr. Ascott's not detecting the +fraud; or if discovered, of its being discovered after the marriage, +when to prosecute his wife's nephew would be a disgrace to himself, +could never be known. But there unmistakable was the altered check, +which had been presented and paid, the banker of course not having +the slightest suspicion of any thing amiss. + +"Well, isn't this a nice return for all my kindness? So cleverly +done, too. But for the merest chance I might not have found it out +for three months. Oh, he's a precious young rascal, this nephew of +yours. His father was only a fool, but he-- Do you know that this is +a matter of forgery--forgery, ma'am," added Mr. Ascott, waxing hot in +his indignation. + +Hilary uttered a bitter groan. + +Yes, it was quite true. Their Ascott, their own boy, was no longer +merely idle, extravagant, thoughtless--faults bad enough, but capable +of being mended as he grew older: he had done that which to the end +of his days he could never blot out. He was a swindler and a forger. + +She clasped her hands tightly together, as one struggling with sharp +physical pain, trying to read the expression of Mr. Ascott's face. At +last she put her question into words. + +"What do you mean to do? Shall you prosecute him?" + +Mr. Ascott crossed his legs, and settled his neckcloth with a +self-satisfied air. He evidently rather enjoyed the importance of his +position. To be dictator, almost of life and death, to this +unfortunate family was worth certainly fifty pounds. + +"Well, I haven't exactly determined. The money, you see, is of no +moment to me, and I couldn't get it back any how. He'll never be +worth a half-penny, that rascal. I might prosecute, and nobody would +blame me; indeed, if I were to decline marrying your sister, and cut +the whole set of you, I don't see," and he drew himself up, "that any +thing could be said against me. But--" + +Perhaps, hard man as he was, he was touched by the agony of suspense +in Hilary's face, for he added. + +"Come, come, I won't disgrace your family; I won't do any thing to +harm the fellow." + +"Thank you!" said Hilary, in a mechanical, unnatural voice. + +"As for my money, he's welcome to it, and much good may it do him. +'Set a beggar on horseback, and he'll ride to the devil,' and in +double quick time too. I won't hinder him. I wash my hands of the +young scape-grace. But he'd better not come near me again." + +"No," acquiesced Hilary, absently. + +"In fact," said Mr. Ascott, with a twinkle of his sharp eye, "I have +already taken measures to frighten him away, so that he may make +himself scarce, and give neither you nor me any farther trouble. I +drove up to your door with a policeman, asked to see Mr. Leaf, and +when I heard that he was out--a lie, of course I left word I'd be +back in half an hour. Depend upon it," and he winked confidentially, +"he will smell a rat, and make a moonlight flitting of it, and we +shall never hear of him any more." + +"Never hear of Ascott any more?" repeated Hilary; and for an instant +she ceased to think of him as what he was--swindler, forger, +ungrateful to his benefactors, a disgrace to his home and family. She +saw only the boy Ascott, with his bright looks and pleasant ways, +whom his aunts had brought up from his cradle, and loved with all his +faults--perhaps loved still. "Oh, I must go home. This will break +Johanna's heart!" + +Mr. Peter Ascott possibly never had a heart, or it had been so +stunted in its growth that it had never reached its fair development. +Yet he felt sorry in his way for the "young person," who looked so +deadly white, yet tried so hard not to make a scene, nay, when her +two assistants came into the one little parlor, deported herself with +steady composure; told them that she was obliged suddenly to go home, +but would be back, if possible, the next morning. Then, in that +orderly, accurate way which Peter Ascott could both understand and +appreciate, she proceeded to arrange with them about the shop and the +house in case she might be detained till Monday. + +"You're not a bad woman of business," said he, with a patronizing +air. "This seems a tidy little shop; I dare say you'll get on in it." + +She looked at him with a bewildered air, and went on speaking to the +young woman at the door. + +"How much might your weekly receipts be in a place like this? And +what salary does Miss--Miss What's-her-name give to each of you? +You're the head shop-woman, I suppose?" + +Hilary made no answer: she scarcely heard. All her mind was full of +but one thing: "Never see Ascott any more!" + +There came back upon her all the dreadful stories she had ever heard +of lads who had committed forgery or some similar offense, and, in +dread of punishment, had run away in despair, and never been heard of +for years--come to every kind of misery, perhaps even destroyed +themselves. The impression was so horribly vivid, that when, pausing +an instant in putting her books in their places, she heard the door +bell ring Hilary with difficulty repressed a scream. + +But it was no messenger of dreadful tidings, it was only Elizabeth +Hand; and the quiet fashion in which she entered showed Hilary at +once that nothing dreadful had happened at home. + +"Oh no, nothing has happened," confirmed the girl. "Only Miss Leaf +sent me to see if you could come home to night instead of tomorrow. +She is quite well, that is, pretty well; but Mr. Leaf--" + +Here, catching sight of Miss Hilary's visitor, Elizabeth stopped +short. Peter Ascott was one of her prejudices. She determined in his +presence to let out no more of the family affairs. + +On his part, Mr. Ascott had always treated Elizabeth as people like +him usually do treat servants, afraid to lose an inch of their +dignity, lest it should be an acknowledgment of equal birth and +breeding with the class from which they are so terribly ashamed to +have sprung. He regarded her now with a lordly air. + +"Young woman--I believe you are the young woman who this afternoon +told me that Mr. Leaf was out. It was a fib, of course." + +Elizabeth turned round indignantly. "No, Sir; I don't tell fibs. He +was out." + +"Did you give him my message when he came in?" + +"Yes, Sir." + +"And what did he say, oh?" + +"Nothing." + +This was the literal fact; but there was something behind which +Elizabeth had not the slightest intention of communicating. In fact, +she set herself, physically and mentally, in an attitude of dogged +resistance to any pumping of Mr. Ascott: for though, as she had truly +said, nothing special had happened, she felt sure that he was at the +bottom of something which had gone wrong in the household that +afternoon. + +It was this. When Ascott returned, and she told him of his +godfather's visit, the young man had suddenly turned so ghastly pale +that she had to fetch him a glass of water; and his Aunt +Johanna--Miss Selina was out--had to tend him and soothe him for +several minutes before he was right again. When at last he seemed +returning to his natural self, he looked wildly up at his aunt, and +clung to her in such an outburst of feeling, that Elizabeth had +thought it best to slip out of the room. It was tea time, but still +she waited outside for a half hour or longer, when she gently +knocked, and after a minute or two Miss Leaf came out. There seemed +nothing wrong, at least not much--not more than Elizabeth had noticed +many and many a time after talks between Ascott and his aunts. + +"I'll take the tea in myself," she said; "for I want you to start at +once for Kensington to fetch Miss Hilary. Don't frighten her--mind +that Elizabeth. Say I am much as usual myself; but that Mr. Leaf is +not quite well, and I think she might do him good. Remember the exact +words." + +Elizabeth did, and would have delivered them accurately, it Mr. +Ascott had not been present, and addressed her in that authoritative +manner. Now, she resolutely held her tongue. + +Mr. Ascott might in his time have been accustomed to cringing, +frightened, or impertinent servants, but this was a phase of the +species with which he was totally unfamiliar. The girl was neither +sullen nor rude, yet evidently quite independent; afraid neither of +her mistress, nor of himself. He was sharp enough to see that +whatever he wanted to get out of Elizabeth must be got in another +way. + +"Come, my wench, you'd better tell; it'll be none the worse for you, +and it shan't harm the young fellow, though I dare say he has paid +you well for holding your tongue." + +"About what, sir?" + +"Oh! you know what happened when you told him I had called, eh? +Servants get to know all about their master's affairs." + +"Mr. Leaf isn't my master, and his affairs are nothing to me; I don't +pry into 'em," replied Elizabeth. "If you want to know any thing, +Sir, hadn't you better ask himself! He's at home to-night. I left +him and my missus going to their tea." + +"Left them at home, and at tea?" + +"Yes, Miss Hilary." + +It was an inexpressible relief. For the discovery must have come. +Ascott must have known or guessed that Mr. Ascott had found him out; +he must have confessed all to his Aunt, or Johanna would never have +done two things which her sister knew she strongly disliked--sending +Elizabeth wandering through London at night, and fetching Hilary home +before the time. Yet they had been left sitting quietly at their tea! + +Perhaps, after all, the blow had not been so dreadful. Johanna saw +comfort through it all. Vague hopes arose in Hilary also; visions of +the poor sinner sitting "clothed and in his right mind," contrite and +humbled; comforted by them all, with the inexpressible tenderness +with which we yearn over one who "was dead and is alive again, was +lost, and is found;" helped by them all in the way that women--some +women especially, and these were of them--seem formed to help the +erring and unfortunate; for, erring as he was, he had also been +unfortunate. + +Many an excuse for him suggested itself. How foolish of them, +ignorant women that they were, to suppose that seventeen years of the +most careful bringing up could, with his temperament, stand against +the countless dangers of London life; of any life where a young man +is left to himself in a great town, with his temptations so many, and +his power of resistance so small. + +And this might not, could not be a deliberate act. It must have been +committed under a sudden impulse, to be repented of for the rest of +his days. Nay, in the strange way in which our sins and mistakes are +made not only the whips to scourge us, but the sicknesses out of +which we often come--suffering and weak indeed, but yet relieved, and +fresh, and sound--who could tell but that this grave fault, this +actual guilt, the climax of so many lesser errors, might not work out +in the end Ascott's complete reformation? + +So in the strange way in which, after a great shock, we begin to +revive a little, to hope against hope, to see a slender ray breaking +through the darkness, Hilary composed herself, at least so far as to +enable her to bid Elizabeth go down stairs, and she would be ready +directly. + +"I think it is the best thing I can do--to go home at once," said +she. + +"Certainly, my dear." replied Mr. Ascott, rather flattered by her +involuntary appeal, and by an inward consciousness of his own +exceeding generosity. "And pray don't disturb yourselves. Tell your +sister from me--your sister Selina, I mean--that I overlook every +thing, on condition that you keep him out of my sight, that young +blackguard!" + +"Don't, don't!" cried Hilary, piteously. + +"Well, I won't, though it's his right name--a fellow who could-- Look +you, Miss Hilary, when his father sent to me to beg ten pounds to +bury his mother with. I did bury her, and him also, a month after, +very respectably too, though he had no claim upon me, except that he +came from Stowbury. And I stood godfather to the child, and I've done +my duty by him. But mark my words, what's bred in the bone will come +in the flesh. He was born in a prison, and he'll die in a prison." + +"God forbid!" said Hilary, solemnly. And again she felt the strong +conviction, that whatever his father had been, or his mother, of whom +they had heard nothing till she was dead, Ascott could not have lived +all these years of his childhood and early boyhood with his three +aunts at Stowbury without gaining at least some good, which might +counteract the hereditary evil; as such evil can be counteracted, +even as hereditary disease can be gradually removed by wholesome and +careful rearing in a new generation. + +"Well, I'll not say any more," continued Peter Ascott: "only the +sooner the young fellow takes himself off the better. He'll only +plague you all. Now, can you send out for a cab for me?" + +Hilary mechanically rang the bell, and gave the order. + +"I'll take you to town with me if you like. It'll save you the +expense of the omnibus. I suppose you always travel by omnibus?" + +Hilary answered something, she hardly knew what, except that it was a +declining of all these benevolent attentions. At last she got Mr. +Ascott outside the street door, and returning, put her hand to her +head with a moan. + +"Oh, Miss Hilary, don't look like that." + +"Elizabeth, do you know what has happened?" + +"No." + +"Then I don't want you to know. And you must never try to find it +out; for it is a secret that ought to be kept strictly within the +family. Are you to be trusted?" + +"Yes, Miss Hilary." + +"Now, get me my bonnet, and let us make haste and go home." + +They walked down the gas-lit Kensington High Street, Hilary taking +her servant's arm; for she felt strangely weak. As she sat in the +dark corner of the omnibus she tried to look things in the face, and +form some definite plan; but the noisy rumble at once dulled and +confused her faculties. She felt capable of no consecutive thought, +but found herself stupidly watching the two lines of faces, +wondering, absently, what sort of people they were; what were their +lives and histories; and whether they all had, like herself, their +own personal burden of woe. Which was, alas! the one fact that never +need be doubted in this world. + +It was nigh upon eleven o'clock when Hilary knocked at the door of +No. 15. + +Miss Leaf opened it; but for the first time in her life she had no +welcome for her child. + +"Is it Ascott? I thought it was Ascott," she cried, peering eagerly +up and down the street. + +"He is gone out, then? When did he go?" asked Hilary, feeling her +heart turn stone-cold. + +"Just after Selina came in. She--she vexed him. But he can not be +long? Is not that man he?" + +And just as she was, without shawl or bonnet, Johanna stepped out +into the cold, damp night, and strained her eyes into the darkness; +but in vain. + +"I'll walk round the Crescent once, and may be I shall find him. Only +go in, Johanna." + +And Hilary was away again into the dark, walking rapidly, less with +the hope of finding Ascott than to get time to calm herself, so as to +meet, and help her sisters to meet, this worst depth of their +calamity. For something warned her that this last desperation of a +weak nature is more to be dreaded than any overt obstinacy of a +strong one. She had a conviction that Ascott never would come home. + +After a while they gave up waiting and watching at the front door, +and shut themselves up in the parlor. The first explanation past, +even Selina ceased talking; and they sat together, the three women, +doing nothing, attempting to do nothing, only listening; thinking +every sound was a step on the pavement or a knock at the door. Alas! +what would they not have given for the fiercest knock, the most +impatient, angry footstep, if only it had been their boy's? + +About one o'clock, Selina had to be put to bed in strong hysterics. +She had lashed her nephew with her bitter tongue till he had rushed +out of the house, declaring that none of them should ever see his +face again. Now she reproached herself as being the cause of all, and +fell into an agony of remorse, which engrossed her sisters' whole +care; until her violent emotion having worn itself out, she went to +sleep, the only one who did sleep in that miserable family. + +For Elizabeth also, having been sent to bed hours before, was found +by Miss Hilary sitting on the kitchen stairs, about four in the +morning. Her mistress made no attempt at reproach, but brought her +into the parlor to share the silent watch, never broken except to +make up the fire or light a fresh candle; till candles burned up, and +shutters were opened, and upon their great calamity stared the broad +unwelcome day. + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +"Missing"--"Lost"--"To--"--all the initials of the alphabet--we read +these sort of advertisements in the newspapers; and unless there +happens to be in them something intensely pathetic, comical, or +horrible, we think very little about them. Only those who have +undergone all that such an advertisement implies can understand its +depth of misery: the sudden missing of the person out of the home +circle, whether going away in anger or driven away by terror or +disgrace; the hour after hour and day after day of agonized suspense; +the self-reproach, real or imaginary, lest any thing might have been +said or done that was not said or done--any thing prevented that was +not prevented; the gnawing remorse for some cruel, or careless, or +bitter word, that could so easily have been avoided. + +Alas! if people could only be made to feel that every word, every +action carries with it the weight of an eternity; that the merest +chance may make something said or done quite unpremeditatedly, in +vexation, sullenness, or spite, the last action, the last word; which +may grow into an awful remembrance, rising up between them and the +irredeemable past, and blackening the future for years! + +Selina was quite sure her unhappy nephew had committed suicide, and +that she had been the cause of it. This conviction she impressed +incessantly on her two sisters as they waited upon her, or sat +talking by her bedside during that long Saturday, when there was +nothing else to be done. + +That was the misery of it. There was nothing to be done. They had not +the slightest clew to Ascott's haunts or associates. With the last +fingering of honest shame, or honest respect for his aunts, he had +kept all these things to himself. To search for him in wide London +was altogether impossible. + +Two courses suggested themselves to Hilary--one, to go and consult +Miss Balquidder; the other--which came into her mind from some +similar case she had heard of--to set on foot inquiries at all police +stations. But the first idea was soon rejected: only at the last +extremity could she make patent the family misery--the family +disgrace. To the second, similar and even stronger reasons applied. +There was something about the cool, matter-of-fact, business-like act +of setting a detective officer to hunt out their nephew, from which +these poor women recoiled. Besides, impressed as he was--he had told +his Aunt Johanna so--with the relentlessness of Mr. Ascott, might not +the chance of his discovering that he was hunted drive him to +desperation? + +Hardly to suicide. Hilary steadfastly disbelieved in that. When +Selina painted horrible pictures of his throwing himself off Waterloo +Bridge: or being found hanging to a tree in one of the parks; or +locking himself in a hotel bed chamber and blowing out his brains, +her younger sister only laughed--laughed as much as she could--if +only to keep Johanna quiet. + +Yet she herself had few fears. For she knew that Ascott was, in a +sense, too cowardly to kill himself. He so disliked physical pain, +physical unpleasantness of all kinds. She felt sure he would stop +short, even with the razor or the pistol in his hand, rather than do +a thing so very disagreeable. + +Nevertheless, in spite of herself, while she and her sisters sat +together, hour after hour, in a stillness almost like that when there +is a death in the house, these morbid terrors took a double size. +Hilary ceased to treat them as ridiculous impossibilities, but began +to argue them out rationally. The mere act of doing so made her +recoil; for it seemed an acknowledgment that she was fighting not +with chimeras but realities. + +"It is twenty-four hours since he went," she reasoned. "If he had +done anything desperate he would have done it at once, and we should +have heard of it long before now; ill news always travels fast. +Besides, his name was marked on all his clothes in full. I did it +myself. And his coat pockets were always stuffed with letters; he +used to cram them in as soon as he got them, you know." + +And at this small remembrance of one of his "ways," even though it +was an unkind way, and had caused them many a pain, from the want of +confidence it showed, his poor, fond aunts turned aside to hide their +starting tears. The very phrase "he used to," seemed such an +unconscious admission that his life with them was over and done; that +he never would either please them or vex them any more. + +Yet they took care that during the whole day every thing should be +done as if he were expected minute by minute; that Elizabeth should +lay the fourth knife and fork at dinner, the fourth cup and saucer at +tea. Elizabeth, who throughout had faithfully kept her pledge; who +went about silently and unobservantly, and by every means in her +power put aside the curiosity of Mrs. Jones as to what could be the +reason that her lodgers had sat up all night, and what on earth had +become of young Mr. Leaf. + +After tea, Johanna, quite worn out, consented to go to bed; and then +Hilary, left to her own responsibility, set herself to consider how +long this dreadful quietness was to last, whether nothing could be +done. She could endure whatever was inevitable, but it was against +her nature as well as her conscience to sit down tamely to endure any +thing whatsoever till it did become inevitable. + +In the first place, she determined on that which a certain sense of +honor, as well as the fear of vexing him should he come home, had +hitherto prevented the examining of Ascott's room, drawers, clothes, +and papers. It was a very dreary business--almost like doing the like +to a person who was dead, only without the sad sanctity that belongs +to the dead, whose very errors are forgotten and forgiven, who can +neither suffer nor make others suffer any more. + +Many things she found, and more she guessed at--things which stabbed +her to the heart, things that she never told, not even to Johanna; +but she found no clew whatever to Ascott's whereabouts, intentions, +or connections. One thing, however, struck her--that most of his +clothes, and all his somewhat extensive stock of jewelry were gone; +every thing, in short, that could be convertible into money. It was +evident that his flight, sudden as it was, had been premeditated as +at least a possibility. + +This so far was satisfactory. It took away the one haunting fear of +his committing suicide; and made it likely that he was still +lingering about, hiding from justice and Mr. Ascott, or perhaps +waiting for an opportunity to escape from England--from the fear that +his godfather, even if not prosecuting him, had the power and +doubtless the will completely to crush his future, wherever he was +known. + +Where could he go? His Aunt tried to think over every word he had +ever let fall about America, Australia, or any other place to which +the hopeless outlaws of this country fly; but she could recollect +nothing to enable her to form any conclusion. One thing only she was +sure of--that if once he went away, his own words would come true; +they would never see his face again. The last tie, the last +constraint that bound him to home and a steady, righteous life would +be broken; he would go all adrift, be tossed hither and thither on +every wave of circumstance--what he called circumstance--till Heaven +only knew what a total wreck he might speedily become, or in what +forlorn and far off seas his ruined life might go down. He, Ascott +Leaf, the last of the name and family. + +"It can not be; it shall not be!" cried Hilary. A sharp, bitter cry +of resistance to the death; and her heart seemed to go out to the +wretched boy and her hands to clutch at him, as if he were drowning, +and she were the only one to save him. How could she do it? + +If she could only get at him, by word or letter! But that seemed +impossible, until, turning over scheme after scheme, she suddenly +thought of the one which so many people had tried in similar +circumstances, and which she remembered they had talked over and +laughed over, they and Ascott, one Sunday evening not so very long +ago. This was--a Times advertisement. + +The difficulty how to word it, so as to catch his attention and yet +escape publicity, was very great, especially as his initials were so +common. Hundreds of "A. L.'s" might be wandering away from home, to +whom all that she dared say to call Ascott back would equally apply. +At last a bright thought struck her. + +"A. leaf" (will a small l) "will be quite safe wherever found. Come. +Saturday. 15." + +As she wrote it--this wretched double-entendre--she was seized with +that sudden sense of the ludicrous which sometimes intrudes in such a +ghastly fashion in the very midst of great misery. She burst into +uncontrollable laughter, fit after fit; so violent that Elizabeth, +who came in by chance, was terrified out of her wits, and kneeling +beside her mistress, implored her to be quiet. At last the paroxysm +ended in complete exhaustion. The tension of the last twenty-four +hours had given way, and Hilary knew her strength was gone. Yet the +advertisement ought to be taken to the Times office that very night, +in order to be inserted without fail on Monday morning. + +There was but one person whom she could trust--Elizabeth. + +She looked at the girl, who was kneeling beside the sofa, rubbing her +feet, and sometimes casting a glance round, in the quiet way of one +well used to nursing, who can find out how the sufferer is without +"fussing" with questions. She noticed, probably because she had seen +little of her of late, a curious change in Elizabeth. It must have +been gradual, but yet its result had never been so apparent before. +Her brusqueness had softened down, and there had come into her and +shone out of her, spite of all her natural uncomeliness of person, +that beautiful, intangible something, common alike to peasant and +queen, as clear to see and as sad to miss in both--womanliness. Added +thereto was the gentle composure of mein which almost invariably +accompanied it, which instinctively makes you fell that in great +things or small, whatever the woman has to do, she will do it in the +womanliest, wisest, and best way. + +So thought Miss Hilary as she lay watching her servant, and then +explained to her the errand upon which she wished to send her. + +Not much explanation, for she merely gave her the advertisement to +read, and told her what she wished done with it. And Elizabeth, on +her part, asked no questions, but simply listened and obeyed. + +After she was gone Hilary lay on the sofa, passive and motionless. +Her strength and activity seemed to have collapsed at once into that +heavy quietness which comes when one has endured to the utmost limit +of endurance when one feels as if to speak a word or to lift a finger +would be as much as life was worth. + +"Oh, if I could only go to sleep!" was all she thought. + +By-and-by sleep did come, and she was taken far away out of these +miseries. By the strange peculiarity of dreams that we so seldom +dream about any grief that oppresses us at the time but generally of +something quite different, she thought she was in some known unknown +land, lovely and beautiful, with blue hills rising in the distance, +and blue seas creeping and curling on to the shore. On this shore she +was walking with Robert Lyon, just as he used to be, with his true +face and honest voice. He did not talk to her much; but she felt him +there, and knew they had but "one heart between them." A heart which +had never once swerved, either from the other; a heart whole and +sound, into which the least unfaith had never come--that had never +known, or recognized even as a possibility, the one first doubt, the +ominous -- + + + "Little rift within the lute, + That by-and-by will make the music mute, + And ever widening slowly silence all." + + +Is it ever so in this world? Does God ever bring the faithful man to +the faithful woman, and make them love one another with a righteous, +holy, persistent tenderness, which dare look in His face, nor be +ashamed; which sees in this life only the beginning of the life to +come; and in the closest, most passionate human love something to be +held with a loose hand, something frail as glass and brittle as +straw, unless it is perfected and sanctified by the love divine? + +Hilary at least believed so. And when at Elizabeth's knock she woke +with a start, and saw--not the sweet sea-shore and Robert Lyon, but +the dull parlor, and the last flicker of the fire, she thanked God +that her dream was not all a dream--that, sharp as her misery was, it +did not touch this--the love of her heart: she believed in Robert +Lyon still. + +And so she rose and spoke quite cheerfully, asking Elizabeth how she +had managed, and whether the advertisement would be sure to be in on +Monday morning. + +"Yes, Miss Hilary; it is sure to be all right." + +And then the girl hung about the room in an uneasy way, as if she had +something to tell, which was the fact. + +Elizabeth had had an adventure. It was a new thing in her monotonous +life; it brightened her eyes, and flushed her cheeks, and made her +old nervousness of manner return. More especially as she was somewhat +perplexed, being divided in her mind between the wish she had to tell +her mistress every thing, and the fear to trouble her, at this +troublous time, with any small matter that merely concerned herself. + +The matter was this. When she had given in her advertisement at the +Times office, and was standing behind the counter waiting for her +change and receipt, there stood beside her a young man, also waiting. +She had hardly noticed him, till on his talking to the clerk about +some misprint in his advertisement, apparently one of the great +column of "Want Places," her ear was caught by the unmistakable +Stowbury accent. + +It was the first time she had heard it since she left home, and to +Elizabeth's tenacious nature home in absence had gained an additional +charm, had grown to be the one place in the world about which her +affections clung. In these dreary wilds of London, to hear a Stowbury +tongue, to catch sight of a Stowbury person, or even one who might +know Stowbury, made her heart leap up with a bound of joy. She turned +suddenly, and looked intently at the young man, or rather the lad, +for he seemed a mere lad, small, slight, and whiskerless. + +"Well, Miss. I hope you'll know me again next time." said the young +fellow. At which remark Elizabeth saw that he was neither so young +nor so simple as she had at first thought. She drew back, very much +ashamed, and coloring deeply. + +Now, if Elizabeth ever looked any thing like comely, it was when she +blushed; for she had the delicate skin peculiar to the young women of +her district; and when the blood rushed through it, no cheek of lady +fair ever assumed a brighter rose. That, or the natural vanity of man +in being noticed by woman, caught the youth's attention. + +"Come now, Miss, don't be shy or offended. Perhaps I'm going your +way? Would you like company home?" + +"No, thank you," said Elizabeth, with great dignity. + +"Well, won't you even tell a fellow your name? Mine's Tom Cliffe, and +I live--" + +"Cliffe! Are you little Tommy Cliffe, and do you come from Stowbury?" + +And all Elizabeth's heart was in her eyes. + +As has been said, she was of a specially tenacious nature. She liked +few people, but those she did like she held very fast. Almost the +only strong interest of her life, except Miss Hilary, had been the +little boy whom she had snatched from under the horse's heels; and +though he was rather a scape-grace, and cared little for her, and his +mother was a decidedly objectionable woman, she had clung to them +both firmly till she lost sight of them. + +Now it was not to be expected that she should recognize in this +London stranger the little lad whose life she had saved--a lad, too, +from her beloved Stowbury--without a certain amount of emotion, at +which the individual in question broadly stared. + +"Bless your heart, I am Tommy Cliffe from Stowbury, sure enough. Who +are you?" + +"Elizabeth Hand." + +Whereupon ensued a most friendly greeting. Tom declared he should +have known her any where, and had never forgotten her--never! How far +that was true or not, he certainly looked as if it were; and two +great tears of pleasure dimmed Elizabeth's kind eyes. + +"You've grown a man now, Tommy," said she, looking at him with a sort +of half-maternal pride, and noticing his remarkably hand some and +intelligent face, so intelligent that it would have attracted notice, +though it was set upon broad, stooping shoulders, and a small, slight +body. "Let me see; how old are you?" + +"I'm nineteen, I think." + +"And I'm two-and-twenty. How aged we are growing!" said Elizabeth, +with a smile. + +Then she asked after Mrs. Cliffe, but got only the brief answer, +"Mother's dead," given in a tone as if no more inquiries would be +welcome. His two sisters, also, had died of typhus in one week, and +Tom had been "on his own hook," as he expressed it, for the last +three years. + +He was extremely frank and confidential; told how he had begun life +as a printer's "devil," afterward become a compositor, and his health +failing, had left the trade, and gone as servant to a literary +gentleman. + +"An uncommon clever fellow is master; keeps his carriage, and has +dukes to dinner, all out of his books. Maybe you've heard of them, +Elizabeth?" and he named a few, in a patronizing way; at which +Elizabeth smiled, for she knew them well. But she nevertheless +regarded with a certain awe the servant of so great a man, and +"little Tommy Cliffe" took a new importance in her eyes. + +Also, as he walked with her along the street to find an omnibus, she +could not help perceiving what a sharp little fellow he had grown +into; how, like many another printer's boy, he had caught the +influence of the atmosphere of letters, and was educated, +self-educated, of course, to a degree far beyond his position. When +she looked at him, and listened to him, Elizabeth involuntarily +thought of Benjamin Franklin, and of many more who had raised +themselves from the ink-pot and the compositor's desk to fame and +eminence, and she fancied that such might be the lot of "little Tommy +Cliffe." Why not? If so, how excessively proud she should be! + +For the moment she had forgotten her errand; forgotten even Miss +Hilary. It was not till Tom Cliffe asked her where she lived, that +she suddenly recollected her mistress might not like, under present +circumstances, that their abode or any thing concerning them should +be known to a Stowbury person. + +It was a struggle. She would have liked to see the lad again; have +liked to talk over with him Stowbury things and Stowbury people; but +she felt she ought not, and she would not. + +"Tell me where you live, Tom, and that will do just as well; at least +till I speak to my mistress. I never had a visitor before, and my +mistress might not like it." + +"No followers allowed, eh?" + +Elizabeth laughed. The idea of little Tommy Clifie as her "follower," +seemed so very funny. + +So she bade him good-by; having, thanks to his gay frankness, been +made acquainted with all about him, but leaving him in perfect +ignorance concerning herself and her mistress. She only smiled when +he declared contemptuously, and with rather a romantic emphasis, that +he would hunt her out, though it were half over London. + +This was all her adventure. When she came to tell it, it seemed very +little to tell, and Miss Hilary listened to it rather indifferently, +trying hard to remember who Tommy Cliffe was, and to take an interest +in him because he came from Stowbury. But Stowbury days were so far +off now--with such a gulf or pain between. + +Suddenly the same fear occurred to her that had occurred to +Elizabeth. + +"The lad did not see the advertisement, I hope? You did not tell him +about us?" + +"I told him nothing." said Elizabeth. speaking softly, and looking +down. "I did not even mention any body's name." + +"That was right; thank you." + +But oh, the bitterness of knowing, and feeling sure Elizabeth knew +too, the thing for which she thanked her; and that not to mention +Ascott's name was the greatest kindness the faithful servant could +show toward the family. + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +Ascott Leaf never came home. + +Day after day appeared the advertisement, sometimes slightly altered, +as hope or fear suggested; but no word, no letter, no answer of any +kind reached the anxious women. + +By-and-by, moved by their distress, or perhaps feeling that the +scape-grace would be safer got rid of if found and dispatched abroad +in some decent manner, Mr. Ascott himself took measures for privately +continuing the search. Every outward-bound ship was examined; every +hospital visited; every case of suicide investigated: but in vain. +The unhappy young man had disappeared, suddenly and completely, as +many another has disappeared, out of the home circle, and been never +heard of more. + +It is difficult to understand how a family can possibly hear such a +sorrow, did we not know that many have had to bear it, and have borne +it, with all its load of agonizing suspense, slowly dying hope, + +"The hope that keeps alive despair," settling down into a permanent +grief, compared to which the grief for loss by death is light and +endurable. + +The Leaf family went through all this. Was it better or worse for +them that their anguish had to be secret? that there were no friends +to pity, inquire, or console? that Johanna had to sit hour by hour +and day by day in the solitary parlor, Selina having soon gone back +to her old ways of "gadding about," and her marriage preparations; +and that, hardest of all, Hilary had on the Monday morning to return +to Kensington and work, work, work, as nothing were amiss? + +But it was natural that all this should tell upon her; and one day +Miss Balquidder said, after a long covert observation of her face, +"My dear, you look ill. Is there any thing troubling you? My young +people always tell me their troubles, bodily or mental. I doctor +both." + +"I am sure of it," said Hilary, with a sad smile, but entered into no +explanation, and Miss Balquidder had the wise kindliness to inquire +no further. Nevertheless, on some errand or other she came to +Kensington nearly every evening and took Hilary back with her to +sleep at No. 15. + +"Your sister Selina must wish to have you with her as much as +possible till she is married." she said, as a reason for doing this. + +And Hilary acquiesced, but silently, as we often do acquiesce in what +ought to be a truth, but which we know to be the saddest, most +painful falsehood. + +For Selina, it became plain to see, was one of the family no more. +After her first burst of self-reproachful grief she took Mr. Ascott's +view of her nephew's loss--that it was a good riddance; went on +calmly with her bridal preparations, and seemed only afraid lest any +thing should interfere to prevent her marriage. + +But the danger was apparently tided over. No news of Ascott came. +Even the daily inquiries for him by his creditors had ceased. His +Aunt Selina was beginning to breathe freely, when, the morning before +the wedding day, as they were all sitting in the midst of white +finery, but as sadly and silently as if it were a funeral, a person +was suddenly shown in "on business." + +It was a detective officer sent to find out from Ascott Leaf's aunts +whether a certain description of him, in a printed hand-bill, was +correct. For his principal creditor, exasperated, had determined on +thus advertising him in the public papers as having "absconded." + +Had a thunder-bolt fallen in the little parlor the three aunts could +not have been more utterly overwhelmed. They made no "scene"--a +certain sense of pride kept these poor gentlewomen from betraying +their misery to a strange man; though he was a very civil man, and +having delivered himself of his errand, like an automaton, sat +looking into his hat, and taking no notice of aught around him. He +was accustomed to this sort of thing. + +Hilary was the first to recover herself. She glanced round at her +sisters, but they had not a word to say. In any crisis of family +difficulty they always left her to take the helm. + +Rapidly she ran over in her mind all the consequences that would +arise from this new trouble--the public disgrace; Mr. Ascott's anger +and annoyance, not that she cared much for this, except so far as it +would affect Selina; lastly, the death-blow it was to any possible +hope of reclaiming the poor prodigal. Who she did not believe was +dead, but still, fondly trusted he would return one day from his +wanderings and his swine's husks, to have the fatted calf killed for +him and glad tears shed over him. But after being advertised as +"absconded," Ascott never would, never could, come home any home. + +Taking as cool and business-like a tone as she could, she returned +the paper to the detective. + +"This is a summary proceeding. Is there no way of avoiding it?" + +"One, Miss," replied the man, very respectfully. "If the family would +pay the debt." + +"Do you know how much it is?" + +"Eighty pounds." + +"Ah!" + +That hopeless sigh of Johanna's was sufficient answer, though no one +spoke. + +But in desperate cases some women acquire a desperate courage, or +rather it is less courage than faith--the faith which is said to +"remove mountains"--the belief that to the very last there must be +something to be done, and, if it can be done, they will have strength +to do it. True, the mountain may not be removed, but the mere act of +faith, or courage sometimes teaches how to climb over it. + +"Very well. Take this paper back to your employer. He must be aware +that his only chance of payment is by suppressing it. If he will do +that, in two days he shall hear from us, and we will make +arrangements about paying the debt." + +Hilary said this, to her sisters' utter astonishment; so utter that +they let her say it, and let the detective go away with a civil "Good +morning," before they could interfere or contradict by a word. + +"Paying the debt! Hilary, what have you promised? It is an +impossibility." + +"Like the Frenchman's answer to his mistress--'Madame, if it had been +possible it would have been done already; if it is impossible, it +shall be done.' It shall, I say." + +"I wonder you can jest about our misfortunes," said Selina, in her +most querulous voice. + +"I'm not jesting. But where is the use of sitting down to moan! I +mean what I say. The thing must be done." + +Her eyes glittered--her small, red lips were set tightly together. + +"If it is not done, sisters--if his public disgrace is not prevented, +don't you see the result? Not as regards your marriage, Selina--the +man must be a coward who would refuse to marry a woman he cared for, +even though her nearest kinsman had been hanged at the Old +Bailey--but Ascott himself. The boy is not a bad boy, though he has +done wickedly; but there is a difference between a wicked act and a +wicked nature. I mean to save him if I can." + +"How?" + +"By saving his good name; by paying the debt." + +"And where on earth shall you get the money?" + +"I will go to Miss Balquidder and--" + +"Borrow it?" + +"No, never! I would as soon think of stealing it." + +Then controlling herself, Hilary explained that she meant to ask Miss +Balquidder to arrange for her with the creditor to pay the eighty +pounds by certain weekly or monthly installments, to be deducted from +her salary at Kensington. + +"It is not a very great favor to ask of her: merely that she should +say, 'This young woman is employed by me: I believe her to be honest, +respectable, and so forth; also, that when she makes a promise to +pay, she will to the best of her power perform it.' A character which +is at present rather a novelty in the Leaf family." + +"Hilary!" + +"I am growing bitter, Johanna; I know I am. Why should we suffer so +much! Why should we be always dragged down--down--in this way? Why +should we never have had any one to cherish and take care of us, like +other women! Why--" + +Miss Leaf laid her finger on her child's lips-- + +"Because it is the will of God." + +Hilary flung herself on her dear old sister's neck and burst into tears. + +Selina too cried a little, and said that she should like to help in +paying the debt, if Mr. Ascott had no objection. And then she turned +back to her white splendors, and became absorbed in the annoyance of +there being far too much clematis and far too little orange blossom +in the bridal bonnet--which it was now too late to change. A little, +also, she vexed herself about the risk of confiding in Miss +Balquidder, lest by any chance the story might get round to Russell +Square; and was urgent that at least nothing should be said or done +until after to-morrow. She was determined to be married, and dreaded +any slip between the cup and lip. + +But Hilary was resolute. "I said that in two days the matter should +be arranged, and so it must be, or the man will think we too break +our promises." + +"You can assure him to the contrary," said Selina, with dignity. "In +fact, why can't you arrange with him without going at all to Miss +Balquidder?" + +Again the fierce, bitter expression returned to Hilary's face. + +"You forget, Miss Balquidder's honest name is his only guarantee +against the dishonesty of ours." + +"Hilary, you disgrace us--disgrace me--speaking in such a way. Are we +not gentle women?" + +"I don't know, Selina. I don't seem to know or to feel any thing, +except that I would live on bread and water in order to live +peaceably and honestly. Oh, will it ever, ever be?" + +She walked up and down the parlor, disarranging the white draperies +which lay about, feeling unutterable contempt for them and for her +sister. Angry and miserable, with every nerve quivering, she was at +war with the whole world. + +This feeling lasted even when, after some discussion, she gained her +point and was on her way to call on Miss Balquidder. She went round +and round the Square many times, trying to fix in her mind word for +word what she meant to say; revealing no more of the family history +than was absolutely necessary, and stating her business in the +briefest, hardest, most matter-of-fact way--putting it as a +transaction between employer and employed, in which there was no more +favor asked or bestowed than could possibly be avoided. And as the +sharp east wind blew across her at every corner, minute by minute she +felt herself growing more fierce, and hard, and cold. + +"This will never do. I shall be wicked by-and-by. I must go in and +get it over." + +Perhaps it was as well. Well for her, morally as physically, that +there should have been that sudden change from the blighting weather +outside to the warm, well-lighted room where the good rich woman sat +at her early and solitary tea. + +Very solitary it looked--the little table in the centre of that large +handsome parlor, with the one cup and saucer, the one easy-chair. And +as Hilary entered she noticed, amidst all this comfort and luxury, +the still, grave, almost sad expression which solitary people always +get to wear. + +But the next minute Miss Balquidder had turned round, and risen, +smiling. + +"Miss Leaf, how very kind of you to come and see me! Just the day +before the wedding, too, when you must be so busy! Sit down and tell +me all about it. But first, my dear, how wet your boots are! Let me +take them off at once." + +Which she did, sending for her own big slippers, and putting them on +the tiny feet with her own hands. + +Hilary submitted--in truth she was too much surprised to resist. + +Miss Balquidder had, like most folk, her opinions or "crotchets"--as +they might be--and one of them was, to keep her business and friendly +relations entirely distinct and apart. Whenever she went to +Kensington or her other establishments she was always emphatically +"the mistress"--a kindly and even motherly mistress, certainly, but +still authoritative, decided. Moreover, it was her invariable rule to +treat all her employees alike--"making no step-bairns" among them. +Thus for some time it had happened that Hilary had been, and felt +herself to be, just Miss Leaf, the book keeper, doing her duty to +Miss Balquidder, her employer, and neither expecting nor attaining +any closer relation. + +But in her own house, or it might be from the sudden apparition of +that young face at her lonely fireside, Miss Balquidder appeared +quite different. + +A small thing touches a heart that is sore with trouble. When the +good woman rose up--after patting the little feet, and approving +loudly of the woolen stockings--she saw that Hilary's whole face was +quivering with the effort to keep back her tears. + +There are some woman of whom one feels by instinct that they were, as +Miss Balquidder had once jokingly said of herself, specially meant to +be mothers. And though, in its strange providence, Heaven often +denies the maternity, it can not and does not mean to shut up the +well-spring of that maternal passion--truly a passion to such women +as these, almost as strong as the passion of love--but lets the +stream, which might otherwise have blessed one child or one family, +flow out wide and far, blessing wherever it goes. + +In a tone that somehow touched every fibre of Hilary's heart, Miss +Balquidder said, placing her on a low chair beside her own. + +"My dear, you are in trouble. I saw it a week or two ago, but did not +like to speak. Couldn't you say it out, and let me help you? You need +not be afraid. I never tell any thing, and every body tells every +thing to me." + +That was true. Added to this said mother-liness of hers, Miss +Balquidder, possessed that faculty, which some people have in a +remarkable degree, and some--very good people too--are totally +deficient in, of attracting confidence. The secrets she had been +trusted with, the romances she had been mixed up in, the Quixotic +acts she had been called upon to perform during her long life, would +have made a novel--or several novels--such as no novelist could dare +to write, for the public would condemn them as impossible and +unnatural. But all this experience--though happily it could never be +put into a book--had given to the woman herself a view of human +nature at once so large, lenient, and just, that she was the best +person possible to hear the strange and pitiful story of young Ascott +Leaf. + +How it came out Hilary hardly knew; she seemed to have told very +little, and yet Miss Balquidder guessed it all. It did not appear to +surprise or shock her. She neither began to question nor preach; she +only laid her hand, her large, motherly, protecting hand, on the +bowed head, saying. + +"How much you must have suffered, my poor bairn!" + +The soft Scotch tone and word--the grave, quiet Scotch manner, +implying more than it even expressed--was it wonderful if underlying +as well as outside influences made Hilary completely give way? + +Robert Lyon had had a mother, who died when he was seventeen, but of +whom he kept the tenderest remembrance, often saying that of all the +ladies he had met with in the world there was none equal to her--the +strong, tender, womanly peasant woman--refined in mind and word and +ways--though to the last day of her life she spoke broad Scotch, and +did the work of her cottage with her own hands. It seems as if that +mother--toward whom Hilary's fancy had clung, lovingly as a woman +ought to cling, above all others, to the mother of the man she +loves--were speaking to her now, comforting her and helping +her--comfort and help that it would have been sweeter to receive from +her than from any woman living. + +A mere fancy; but in her state of long uncontrolled excitement it +took such possession of her that Hilary fell on her knees and hid her +face in Miss Balquidder's lap, sobbing aloud. + +The other was a little surprised; it was not her Scotch way to yield +to emotion before folk; but she was a wise woman she asked no +questions, merely held the quivering hands and smoothed the throbbing +head, till composure returned. Some people have a magical, mesmeric +power of soothing and controlling; it was hers. When she took the +poor face between her hands, and looked straight into the eyes, with, +"There, you are better now," Hilary returned the gaze as steadily, +nay, smilingly, and rose. + +"Now, may I tell you my business?" + +"Certainly, my dear. When one's friends are in trouble, the last +thing one ought to do is to sit down beside them and moan. Did you +come to ask my advice, or had you any definite plan of your own?" + +"I had." And Hilary told it. + +"A very good plan, and very generous in you to think of it. But I see +two strong objections: first, whether it can be carried out; +secondly, whether it ought." + +Hilary shrank, sensitively. + +"Not on my account, my dear, but your own. I often see people making +martyrs of themselves for some worthless character on whom the +sacrifice is utterly wasted. I object to this, as I would object to +throwing myself or my friend into a blazing house, unless I were +morally certain there was a life to be saved. Is there in this case?" + +"I think there is! I trust in Heaven there is!" said Hilary, +earnestly. + +There was both pleasure and pity expressed in Miss Balquidder's +countenance as she replied, "Be it so: that is a matter on which no +one can judge except yourself. But on the other matter you ask my +advice, and I must give it. To maintain two ladies and pay a debt of +eighty pounds out of one hundred a year is simply impossible." + +"With Johanna's income and mine it will be a hundred and twenty +pounds and some odd shillings a year." + +"You accurate girl! But even with this it can not be done, unless you +were to live in a manner so restricted in the commonest comforts that +at your sister's age she would be sure to suffer. You must look on +the question from all sides, my dear. You must be just to others as +well as to that young man, who seems never to-- But I will leave him +unjudged." + +They were both silent for a minute, and then Miss Balquidder said: "I +feel certain there is but one rational way of accomplishing the thing +if you are bent upon doing it, if your own judgment and conscience +tell you it ought to be done. Is it so?" + +"Yes," said Hilary, firmly. + +The old Scotswoman took her hand with a warm pressure. "Very well. I +don't blame you. I might have done the same myself. Now to my plan. +Miss Leaf, have you known me long enough to confer on me the +benediction--one of the few that we rich folk possess 'It is more +blessed to give than to receive?' " + +"I don't quite understand." + +"Then allow me to explain. I happen to know this creditor of your +nephew's. He being a tailor and outfitter, we have had dealings +together in former times, and I know him to be a hard man, an +unprincipled man, such a one as no young woman should have to do +with, even in business relations. To be in his power, as you would be +for some years if your scheme of gradual payment were carried out, is +the last thing I should desire for you. Let me suggest another way. +Take me for your creditor instead of him. Pay him at once, and I will +write you a check for the amount." + +The thing was put so delicately, in such an ordinary manner, as if it +were a mere business arrangement, that at first Hilary hardly +perceived all it implied. When she did--when she found that it was in +plain terms a gift or loan of eighty pounds offered by a person +almost a stranger, she was at first quite bewildered. Then (ah! let +us not blame her if she carried to a morbid excess that noble +independence which is the foundation of all true dignity in man or +woman) she shrunk back into herself, overcome with annoyance and +shame. At last she forced herself to say, though the words came out +rather coldly. + +"You are very good, and I am exceedingly obliged to you; but I never +borrowed money in my life. It is quite impossible." + +"Very well; I can understand your feelings. I beg your pardon," +replied Miss Balquidder, also somewhat coldly. + +They sat silent and awkward, and then the elderly lady took out a +pencil and began to make calculations in her memorandum book. + +"I am reckoning what is the largest sum per month that you could +reasonably be expected to spare, and how you may make the most of +what remains. Are you aware that London lodgings are very expensive? +I am thinking that if you were to exchange out of the Kensington shop +into another I have at Richmond, I could offer you the first floor +above it for much less rent than you pay Mrs. Jones; and you could +have your sister living with you." + +"Ah! that would make us both so much happier! How good you are!" + +"You will see I only wish to help you to help yourself; not to put +you under any obligation. Though I can not see any thing so very +terrible in your being slightly indebted to an old woman, who has +neither chick nor child, and is at perfect liberty to do what she +likes with her own." + +There was a pathos in the tone which smote Hilary into quick +contrition. + +"Forgive me! But I have such a horror of borrowing money--you must +know why after what I have told you of our family. You must surely +understand--" + +"I do fully; but there are limits even to independence. A person who, +for his own pleasure, is ready to take money from any body and every +body, without the slightest prospect or intention of returning it, is +quite different from a friend who in a case of emergency accepts help +from another friend, being ready and willing to take every means of +repayment, as I knew you were, and meant you to be. I meant, as you +suggested, to stop out of your salary so much per month, till I had +my eighty pounds sate back again." + +"But suppose you never had it back? I am young and strong; still I +might fall ill--I might die, and you never be repaid." + +"Yes, I should," said Miss Balquidder, with a serious smile. "You +forget, my dear bairn, 'Inasmuch as ye have done it to one of these +little ones, ye have done it unto ME.' 'He that giveth to the poor +lendeth to the LORD.' I have lent Him a good deal at different times, +and He has always paid me back with usury." + +There was something at once solemn and a little sad in the way the +old lady spoke. Hilary forgot her own side of the subject; her pride, +her humiliation. + +"But do you not think, Miss Balquidder, that one ought to work on, +struggle on, to the last extremity, before one accepts an obligation, +most of all a money obligation?" + +"I do, as a general principle. Yet money is not the greatest thing in +this world, that a pecuniary debt should be the worst to bear. And +sometimes one of the kindest acts you can do to a +fellow-creature--one that touches and softens his heart, nay, perhaps +wins it to you for life, is to accept a favor from him." + +Hilary made no reply. + +"I speak a little from experience. I have not had a very happy life +myself; at least most people would say so if they knew it; but the +Lord has made it up to me by giving me the means of bringing +happiness, in money as well as other ways, to other people. Most of +us have our favorite luxuries; this is mine. I like to do people +good; I like, also--though maybe that is a mean weakness--to feel +that I do it. If all whom I have been made instrumental in helping +had said to me, as you have done, 'I will not be helped, I will not +be made happy,' it would have been rather hard for me." + +And a smile, half humorous, half sad, came over the hard-featured +face, spiritualizing its whole expression. + +Hilary wavered. She compared her own life, happy still, and hopeful, +for all its cares, with that of this lonely woman, whose only +blessing was her riches, except the generous heart which sanctified +them, and made them such. Humbled, nay, ashamed, she took and kissed +the kindly hand which has succored so many, yet which, in the +inscrutable mystery of Providence, had been left to go down to the +grave alone; missing all that is personal, dear, and precious to a +woman's heart, and getting instead only what Hilary now gave her--the +half-sweet, half-bitter payment of gratitude. + +"Well, my bairn, what is to be done?" + +"I will do whatever you think right," murmured Hilary. + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +It was not a cheerful morning on which to be married. A dense, +yellow, London fog, the like of which the Misses Leaf had never yet +seen, penetrated into every corner of the parlor at No. 15, where +they were breakfasting drearily by candle-light, all in their wedding +attire. They had been up since six in morning, and Elizabeth had +dressed her three mistresses one after the other, taking exceeding +pleasure in the performance. For she was still little more than a +girl, to whom a wedding was a wedding, and this was the first she had +ever had to do with in her life. + +True, it disappointed her in some things. She was a little surprised +that last evening had passed off just like all other evenings. The +interest and bustle of packing soon subsided--the packing consisting +only of the traveling trunk, for the rest of the trousseau went +straight to Russell Square, every means having been taken to ignore +the very existence of No. 15; and then the three ladies had supper as +usual, and went to bed at their customary hour without any special +demonstrations of emotion of affection. To Elizabeth this was +strange. She had not yet learned the unspeakable bitterness of a +parting where no body has any grief to restrain. + +On a wedding morning, of course, there is no time to be spared for +sentiment. The principal business appeared to be--dressing. Mr. +Ascott had insisted on doing his part in making his new connections +appear "respectable" at his marriage, and for Selina's sake they had +consented. Indeed, it was inevitable: they had no money whatever to +clothe themselves withal. They must either have accepted Mr. Ascott's +gifts--in which, to do him justice, he was both thoughtful and +liberal--or they must have staid away from the wedding altogether, +which they did not like to do "for the sake of the family." + +So, with a sense of doing their last duty by the sister, who would +be, they felt, henceforward a sister no more, Miss Leaf attired +herself in her violet silk and white China shawl, and Miss Hilary put +on her silver-grey poplin, with a cardinal cape, as was then in +fashion, trimmed with white swan's-down. It was rather an elderly +costume for a bridemaid; but she was determined to dress warmly, and +not risk, in muslins and laces, the health which to her now was +money, life--nay, honor. + +For Ascott's creditor had been already paid: Miss Balquidder never +let grass grow under her feet. When Hilary returned to her sisters +that day there was no longer any fear of public exposure; she had the +receipted bill in her hand, and she was Miss Balquidder's debtor to +the extent of eighty pounds. + +But it was no debt of disgrace or humiliation, nor did she feel it as +such. She had learned the lesson which the large hearted rich can +always teach the poor, that, while there is sometimes, to some +people, no more galling chain, there is to others--and these are the +highest natures, too--no more firm and sacred bond than gratitude. +But still the debt was there; and Hilary would never feel quite easy +till it was paid--in money, at least. The generosity she never wished +to repay. She would rather feel it wrapping her round, like an arm +that was heavy only through its exceeding tenderness, to the end of +her days. + +Nevertheless she had arranged that there was to be a regular monthly +deduction from her salary; and how, by retrenchment, to make this +monthly payment as large as she could, was a question which had +occupied herself and Johanna for a good while after they had retired +to rest. For there was no time to be lost. Mrs. Jones must be given +notice to; and there was another notice to be given, if the Richmond +plan were carried out; another sad retrenchment, foreboding which, +when Elizabeth brought up supper, Miss Hilary could hardly look the +girl in the face, and, when she bade her good night, had felt almost +like a secret conspirator. + +For she knew that, if the money to clear this debt was to be saved, +they must part with Elizabeth. + +No doubt the personal sacrifice would be considerable, for Hilary +would have to do the work of their two rooms with her own hands, and +give up a hundred little comforts in which Elizabeth, now become a +most clever and efficient servant, had made herself necessary to them +both. But the two ladies did not think of that at the moment; they +only thought of the pain of parting with her. They thought of it +sorely, even though she was but a servant, and there was a family +parting close at hand. Alas! people must take what they earn. It was +a melancholy fact that, of the two impending losses, the person they +should miss most would be, not their sister, but Elizabeth. + +Both regrets combined made them sit at the breakfast table--the last +meal they should ever take together as a family--sad and sorry, +speaking about little else than the subject which presented itself as +easiest and uppermost, namely, clothes. + +Finally, they stood all completely arrayed, even to bonnets; Hilary +looking wonderfully bewitching in hers, which was the very pattern of +one that may still be seen in a youthful portrait of our gracious +Queen--a large round brim, with a wreath of roses inside; while Miss +Leaf's was somewhat like it, only with little bunches of white +ribbon: "for," she said, "my time of roses has gone by." But her +sweet faded face had a peace that was not in the other two--not even +in Hilary's. + +But the time arrived; the carriage drew up at the door. Then nature +and sisterly feeling asserted themselves for a minute. Miss Selina +"gave way," not to any loud or indecorous extent, to nothing that +could in the least harm her white satin, or crumple her laces and +ribbons; but she did shed a tear or two--real honest tears--kissed +her sisters affectionately, hoped they would be very happy at +Richmond, and that they would often come to see her at Russell +Square. + +"You know," said she, half apologetically, "it is a great deal better +for one of us at least to be married and settled. Indeed I assure +you. I have done it all for the good of my family." + +And for the time being she devoutly believed she had. + +So it was all over. Elizabeth herself, from the aisle of St. Pancras +Church, watched the beginning and ending of the show; a very fine +show, with a number of handsomely dressed people, wedding guests, who +seemed to stare about them a good deal and take little interest in +either bride or bridegroom. The only persons Elizabeth recognized +were her mistresses--Miss Leaf, who kept her veil down and never +stirred; and Miss Hilary, who stood close behind the bride, listening +with downcast eyes to the beautiful marriage service. It must have +touched her more than on her sister's account, for a tear, gathered +under each eyelash, silently rolled down the soft cheek and fell." + +"Miss Hilary's an angel, and he'll be a lucky man that gets her," +meditated her faithful "bower-maiden" of old; as, a little excited by +the event of the morning, she stood by the mantle-piece and +contemplated a letter which had come after the ladies departed; one +of these regular monthly Indian letters, after which, Elizabeth was +sharp enough to notice, Miss Hilary's step always grew lighter and +her eye brighter for many days. + +"It must be a nice thing to have somebody fond of one, and somebody +to be fond of," meditated she. And "old fashioned piece of goods" as +she was--according to Mrs. Jones (who now, from the use she was in +the Jones's menage, patronized and confided in her extremely) some +little bit of womanly craving after the woman's one hope and crown of +bliss crept into the poor maid-servant's heart. But it was not for +the maid-servant's usual necessity--a "sweet heart"--somebody to +"keep company with;" it was rather for somebody to love, and perhaps +take care of a little. People love according to their natures; and +Elizabeth's was a strong nature; its principal element being a +capacity for passionate devotedness, almost unlimited in extent. Such +women, who love most, are not always, indeed very rarely, loved best. +And so it was perhaps as well that poor Elizabeth should make up her +mind, as she did very composedly, that she herself should never be +married; but after that glorious wedding of Miss Hilary's to Mr. +Lyon, should settle down to take care of Miss Leaf all her days. + +"And if I turn out only half as good and contented as my mistress, it +can't be such a dreadful thing to be an old maid after all," +stoically said Elizabeth Hand. + +The words were scarcely out of her mouth when her attention was +caught by some one in the passage inquiring for her; yes, actually +for her. She could hardly believe her eyes when she perceived it was +her new-found old acquaintance, Tom Cliffe. + +He was dressed very well, out of livery; indeed, he looked so +extremely like a gentleman that Mrs. Jones's little girl took him for +one, called him "Sir," and showed him into the parlor. + +"All right. I thought this was the house. Uncommon sharp of me to +hunt you out; wasn't it Elizabeth?" + +But Elizabeth was a little stiff, flurried, and perplexed. Her +mistresses were out; she did not know whether she ought to ask Tom +in, especially as it must be into the parlor; there was no other +place to take him to. + +However, Tom settled the matter with a conclusive, "Oh, gammon!"--sat +himself down, and made himself quite comfortable. And Elizabeth was +so glad to see him--glad to have another chance of talking about dear +old Stowbury. It could not be wrong; she would not say a word about, +the family, not even tell him she lived with the Misses Leaf if she +could help it. And Tom did not seem in the least curious. + +"Now, I call this quite a coincidence. I was stopping at St. Pancras +Church to look at a wedding--some old city fogy who lives in Russell +Square, and is making a great splash; and there I see you, Elizabeth, +standing in the crowd, and looking so nice and spicy--as fresh as an +apple and as brisk as a bee. I hummed and hawed and whistled, but I +couldn't catch your eye; then I missed you, and was vexed above a +bit, till I saw one like you going in at this door, so I just knocked +and asked; and here you are! 'Pon my life, I am very glad to see +you." + +"Thank you, Tom," said Elizabeth, pleased, even grateful for the +trouble he had taken about her: she had so few friends; in truth, +actually none. + +They began to talk, and Tom Cliffe talked exceedingly well. He had +added to his natural cleverness a degree of London sharpness, the +result of much "knocking about" ever since childhood. Besides, his +master, the literary gentleman, who had picked him out of the +printing office, had taken a deal of pains with him. Tom was, for his +station, a very intelligent and superior young man. Not a boy, though +he was still under twenty, but a young man: that precocity of +development which often accompanies a delicate constitution, making +him appear, as he was indeed, in mind and character, fully six or +seven years older than his real age. + +He was a handsome fellow, too, though small; dark haired, dark eyed, +with regular and yet sensitive and mobile features. Altogether Tom +Cliffe was decidedly interesting, and Elizabeth took great pleasure +in looking at him, and in thinking, with a certain half motherly, +half romantic satisfaction, that but for her, and her carrying him +home from under the horse's heels, he might, humanly speaking, have +been long ago buried in Stowbury church yard. + +"I have a 'church yard cough' at times still," said he, when speaking +of this little episode of early life. "I don't think I shall ever +live to be a middle-aged man." And he shook his head, and looked +melancholy and poetical; nay, even showed Elizabeth some poetry that +he himself had written on the subject, which was clever enough in its +way. + +Elizabeth's interest grew. An ordinary baker or butcher boy would not +have attracted her in the least; but here was something in the shape +of a hero, somebody who at once touched her sympathies and roused her +admiration. For Tom was quite as well informed as she was herself; +more so, indeed. He was one of the many shrewd and clever working men +who were then beginning to rise up and think for themselves, and +educate themselves. He attended classes at mechanics' institutions, +and young men's debating societies; where every topic of the day, +religion, politics, political economy, was handled freely, as the +young do handle these serious things. He threw himself, heart and +soul, into the new movement, which, like all revolutions, had at +first its great and fatal dangers, but yet resulted in much good; +clearing the political sky, and bringing all sorts of hidden abuses +under the sharp eyes of that great scourge of evil-doers--public +opinion. + +Yet Elizabeth, reared under the wing of the conservative Misses Leaf, +was a little startled when Tom Cliffe, who apparently liked talking +and being listened to, gave her a long dissertation on the true +principles of the Charter, and how Frost, Williams, and Jones--names +all but forgotten now--were very ill-used men, actual martyrs. She +was more than startled--shocked indeed--until there came a reaction +of the deepest pity--when he confessed that he never went to church. +He saw no use in going, he said; the parsons were all shams, paid +largely to chatter about what they did not understand; the only real +religion was that which a man thought out for himself, and acted out +for himself. Which was true enough, though only a half truth; and +innocent Elizabeth did not see the other half. + +But she was touched and carried away by the earnestness and +enthusiasm of the lad, wild, fierce iconoclast as he was, ready to +cast down the whole fabric of Church and State; though without any +personal hankering after lawless rights and low pleasures. His sole +idol was, as he said, intellect, and that was his preservation. + +Also, the fragile health which was betrayed in every flash of his +eye, every flush of his sallow cheek, made Tom Cliffe, even in the +two hours he staid with her, come very close to Elizabeth's heart. It +was such a warm heart, such a liberal heart, thinking so little of +itself or of its own value. + +So here began to be told the old story, familiar in kitchens as +parlors; but, from the higher bringing up of the two parties +concerned, conducted in this case more after the fashion of the +latter than the former. + +Elizabeth Hand was an exceptional person, and Tom had the sense to +see that at once. He paid her no coarse attentions, did not attempt +to make love to her; but he liked her, and he let her see that he +did. True, she was not pretty, and she was older than he; but that to +a boy of nineteen is rather flattering than otherwise. Also, for +there is a law even under the blind mystery of likings and fallings +in love--a certain weakness in him, that weakness which generally +accompanies the poetical nature, clung to the quiet, solid, practical +strength of hers. He liked to talk and be listened to by those +silent, admiring, gentle gray eyes; and he thought it very pleasant +when, with a motherly prudence, she warned him to be careful over his +cough, and gave him a flannel breast-plate to protect his chest +against the cold. + +When he went away Tom was so far in love that, following the free and +easy ways of his class, he attempted to give Elizabeth a kiss; but +she drew back so hotly that he begged her pardon, and slipped away +rather confounded. + +"That's an odd sort of young woman; there's something in her," said +he to himself. "I'll get a kiss, though, by-and-by." + +Meanwhile Elizabeth, having forgotten all about her dinner, sat +thinking, actually doing nothing but thinking, until within half an +hour of the time when her mistresses might be expected back. They +were to go direct to the hotel, breakfast, wait till the +newly-married couple had departed, and then come home. They would be +sure to be weary, and want their tea. + +So Elizabeth made every thing ready for them, steadily putting Tom +Cliffe out of her mind. One thing she was glad of, that talking so +much about his own affairs, he had forgotten to inquire concerning +hers, and was still quite ignorant even of her mistresses' name. He +therefore could tell no tales of the Leaf family at Stowbury. Still +she determined at once to inform Miss Hilary that he had been here, +but that, if she wished it, he should never come again. And it spoke +well for her resolve, that while resolving she was startled to find +how very sorry she should feel if Tom Cliffe never came again. + +I know I am painting this young woman with a strangely tender +conscience, a refinement of feeling, and a general moral +sensitiveness which people say is seldom or never to be found in her +rank of life. And why not? Because mistresses treat servants as +servants, and not as women; because in the sharp, hard line they +draw, at the outset, between themselves and their domestics, they +give no chance for any womanliness to be developed. And therefore +since human nature is weak, and without help from without, a long +degraded class can never rise, sweet-hearts will still come crawling +through back entries and down at area doors; mistresses will still +have to dismiss helpless and fallen, or brazen in iniquity, many a +wretched girl who once was innocent; or, if nothing actually vicious +results, may have many a good, respectable servant, who left to get +married, return, complaining that her "young man," whom she knew so +little about, has turned out a drunken scoundrel of a husband, who +drives her back to her old comfortable "place" to beg for herself and +her starving babies a morsel of bread. + +When, with a vivid blush that she could not repress, Elizabeth told +her mistress that Tom Cliffe had been to see her, the latter replied +at first carelessly, for her mind was preoccupied. Then, her +attention caught by the aforesaid blush, Miss Hilary asked. + +"How old is the lad?" + +"Nineteen." + +"That's a bad age, Elizabeth. Too old to be a pet, and rather too +young for a husband." + +"I never thought of such a thing," said Elizabeth, warmly--and +honestly, at the time. + +"Did he want to come and see you again?" + +"He said so." + +"Oh, well, if he is a steady, respectable lad there can be no +objection. I should like to see him myself next time." + +And then a sudden sharp recollection that there would likely be no +next time, in their service at least, made Miss Hilary feel quite a +hypocrite. + +"Elizabeth," said she, "we will speak about Tom Cliffe--is not that +his name?--by-and-by. Now, as soon as tea is over, my sister wants to +talk to you. When you are ready, will you come up stairs?" + +She spoke in an especially gentle tone, so that by no possibility +could Elizabeth fancy they were displeased with her. + +Now, knowing the circumstances of the family, Elizabeth's conscience +had often smitten her that she must eat a great deal, that her wages, +paid regularly month by month, must make a great hole in her +mistress's income. She was, alack! a sad expense, and she tried to +lighten her cost in every possible way. But it never struck her that +they could do without her, or that any need would arise for their +doing so. So she went into the parlor quite unsuspiciously, and found +Miss Leaf lying on the sofa, and Miss Hilary reading aloud the letter +from India. But it was laid quietly aside as she said, "Johanna, +Elizabeth is here." + +Then Johanna, rousing herself to say what must be said, but putting +it as gently and kindly as she could, told Elizabeth, what mistresses +often think it below their dignity to tell to servants, the plain +truth--namely, that circumstances obliged herself and Miss Hilary to +retrench their expenses as much as they possibly could. That they +were going to live in two little rooms at Richmond, where they would +board with the inmates of the house. + +"And so, and so--" Miss Leaf faltered. It was very hard to say it +with those eager eyes fixed upon her. + +Hilary took up the word-- "And so, Elizabeth, much as it grieves us, +we shall be obliged to part with you. We cannot any longer afford to +keep a servant." + +No answer. + +"It is not even as it was once before, when we thought you might do +better for yourself. We know, if it were possible, you would rather +stay with us, and we would rather keep you. It is like parting with +one of our own family." And Miss Hilary's voice too failed. "However, +there is no help for it; we must part." + +Elizabeth, recovered from her first bewildered grief, was on the +point of bursting out into entreaties that she might do like many +another faithful servant, live without wages, put up with any +hardships, rather than be sent away. But something in Miss Hilary's +manner told her it would be useless--worse than useless, painful: and +she would do any thing rather than give her mistress pain. When, +utterly unable to control it, she gave vent to one loud sob, the +expression of acute suffering on Miss Hilary's countenance was such +that she determined to sob no more. She felt that, for some reason or +other, the thing was inevitable; that she must take up her burden, as +her mistress had done, even though it were the last grief of +all--leaving that beloved mistress. + +"That's right, Elizabeth," said Miss Hilary, softly. "All these +changes are very bitter to us also, but we bear them. There is +nothing lasting in this world, except doing right, and being good and +faithful and helpful to one another." + +She sighed. Possibly there had been sad tidings in the letter which +she still held in her hand, clinging to it as we do to something +which, however sorely it hurts us, we would not part with for the +whole world. But there was no hopelessness or despair in her tone, +and Elizabeth caught the influence of that true courageous heart. + +"Perhaps you may be able to take me back again soon, Ma'am," said +she, looking toward Miss Leaf. "And meantime I might get a place; +Mrs. Jones has told me of several;" and she stopped, afraid lest it +might be found out how often Mrs. Jones had urged her to "better +herself," and she had indignantly refused. "Or," (a bright idea +occurred) "I wonder if Miss Selina, that is, Mrs. Ascott, would take +me in at Russell Square?" + +Hilary looked hard at her. + +"Would you really like that?" + +"Yes, I should; for I should see and hear of you. Miss Hilary, if you +please, I wish you would ask Mrs. Ascott to take me." + +And Hilary, much surprised--for she was well acquainted with +Elizabeth's sentiments toward both Mr. Ascott and the late Miss +Selina---promised. + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +And now I leave Miss Hilary for a time; leave her in, if not +happiness, great peace. Peace which, after these stormy months, was +an actual paradise of calm to both herself and Johanna. + +Their grief for Ascott had softened down. Its very hopelessness gave +it resignation. There was nothing more to be done; they had done all +they could, both to find him out and to save him from the public +disgrace which might blight any hope of reformation. Now the result +must be left in higher hands. + +Only at times fits of restless trouble would come; times when a +sudden knock at the door would make Johanna shake nervously for +minutes afterward; when Hilary walked about every where with her mind +preoccupied, and her eyes open to notice every chance passerby; nay, +she had sometimes secretly followed down a whole street some figure +which, in its light jaunty step and long fashionably-cut hair, +reminded her of Ascott. + +Otherwise they were not unhappy, she and her dearest sister. Poor as +they were, they were together, and their poverty had no sting. They +knew exactly how much they would receive monthly, and how much they +ought to spend. Though obliged to calculate every penny, still their +income and expenses were alike certain; there was no anxiety about +money matters, which of itself was an indescribable relief. Also +there was that best blessing--peace at home. Never in all her days +had Johanna known such an easy life; sitting quietly in her parlor +while Hilary was engaged in the shop below; descending to dinner, +where she took the head of the table, and the young people soon +learned to treat her with great respect and even affection; then +waiting for the happy tea in their own room, and the walk afterward, +in Richmond Park or along the Thames banks toward Twickenham. Perhaps +it was partly from the contrast to that weary year in London, but +never, in any spring, had the air seemed so balmy, or the trees so +green. They brought back to Hilary's face the youthful bloom which +she had begun to lose; and, in degree, her youthful brightness, which +had also become slightly overclouded. Again she laughed and made her +little domestic jokes, and regained her pretty ways of putting +things, so that every thing always appeared to have a cheerful, and +comical, side. + +Also--for while we are made as we are, with capacity for happiness, +and especially the happiness of love, it is sure to be thus--she had +a little private sunbeam in her own heart, which brightened outside +things. After that sad letter from India which came on Selina's +wedding day, every succeeding one grew more cheerful, more +demonstrative, nay, even affectionate; though still with that queer +Scotch pride of his, that would ask for nothing till it could ask and +have every thing, and give every thing in return--the letters were +all addressed to Johanna. + +"What an advantage it is to be an old woman!" Miss Leaf would +sometimes say, mischievously, when she received them. But more often +she said nothing, waiting in peace for events to develop themselves. +She did not think much about herself, and had no mean jealousy over +her child; she knew that a righteous and holy love only makes all +natural affections more sacred and more dear. + +And Hilary? She held her head higher and prouder; and the spring +trees looked greener, and the river ran brighter in the sunshine. Ah, +Heaven pity us all! it is a good thing to have love in one's life; it +is a good thing, if only for a time, to be actually happy. Not merely +contented, but happy! + +And so I will leave her, this little woman; and nobody need mourn +over her because she is working too hard, or pity her because she is +obliged to work; has to wear common clothes, and live in narrow +rooms, and pass on her poor weary feet the grand carriages of the +Richmond gentry, who are not a bit more well-born or well-educated +than she; who never take the least notice of her, except sometimes to +peer curious at the desk where she sits in the shop-corner, and +wonder who "that young person with the rather pretty curls" can be. +No matter, she is happy. + +How much happiness was there in the large house at Russell Square? + +The Misses Leaf could not tell; their sister never gave them an +opportunity of judging. + + "My son's my son till he gets him a wife, + But my daughter's my daughter all her life." + +And so, most frequently, is "my sister." But not in this case. It +could not be; they never expected it would. + +When on here rare visits to town Hilary called at Russell Square she +always found Mrs. Ascott handsomely dressed, dignified, and gracious. +Not in the slightest degree uncivil or unsisterly, but +gracious--perhaps a thought too gracious. Most condescendingly +anxious that she should stay to luncheon, and eat and drink the best +the house afforded, but never by any chance inviting her to stay to +dinner. Consequently, as Mr. Ascott was always absent in the city +until dinner, Hilary did not see him for months together, and her +brother-in-law was, she declared, no more to her than any other man +upon 'Change, or the man in the moon, or the Great Mogul. + +His wife spoke little about him. After a few faint, formal questions +concerning Richmond affairs, somehow her conversation always recurred +to her own: the dinners she had been at, those she was going to give; +her carriages, clothes, jewelry, and so on. She was altogether a very +great lady, and Hilary, as she avouched laughingly--it was, in this +case, better to laugh than to grieve--felt an exceedingly small +person beside her. + +Nevertheless Mrs. Ascott showed no unkindness--nay, among the various +changes that matrimony had produced in her, her temper appeared +rather to have improved than otherwise; there was now seldom any +trace of that touchy sharpness which used to be called "poor Selina's +way." And yet Hilary never quitted the house without saying to +herself, with a sigh, the old phrase, "Poor Selina!" + +Thus, in the inevitable consequences of things, her visits to Russell +Square became fewer and fewer; she kept them up as a duty, not +exacting any return, for she felt that was impossible, though still +keeping up the ghostly shadow of sisterly intimacy. Nevertheless she +knew well it was but a shadow; that the only face that looked honest, +glad welcome, or that she was honestly glad to see in her +brother-in-law's house was the under house-maid, Elizabeth Hand. + +Contrary to all expectations, Mrs. Ascott had consented to take +Elizabeth into her service. With many stipulations and warnings never +to presume on past relations, never even to mention Stowbury, on pain +of instant dismissal--still, she did take her, and Elizabeth staid. +At every one of Miss Hilary's visits, lying in wait in the bed +chamber, or on the staircase, or creeping up at the last minute to +open the hall door, was sure to appear the familiar face, beaming all +over. Little conversation passed between them--Mrs. Ascott evidently +disliked it; still Elizabeth looked well and happy, and when Miss +Hilary told her so she always silently smiled. + +But this story must tell the whole truth which lay beneath that fond +acquiescing smile. + +Elizabeth was certainly in good health, being well fed, well housed, +and leading on the whole an easy life; happy, too, when she looked at +Miss Hilary. But her migration from Mrs. Jones's lodgings to this +grand mansion had not been altogether the translation from Purgatory +to Paradise that some would have supposed. + +The author of this simple story having--unfortunately for it--never +been in domestic service, especially in the great houses of London, +does not pretend to describe the ins and outs of their "high life +below stairs;" to repeat kitchen conversations, to paint the humors +of the servants' hall--the butler and housekeeper getting tipsy +together, the cook courting the policeman, and the footman making +love successively to every house-maid and ladys'-maid. Some writers +have depicted all this, whether faithfully or not they know best; but +the present writer declines to attempt any thing of the kind. Her +business is solely with one domestic, the country girl who came +unexpectedly into this new world of London servant-life--a world +essentially its own, and a life of which the upper classes are as +ignorant as they are of what goes on in Madagascar and Otabeite. + +This fact was the first which struck the unsophisticated Elizabeth. +She, who had been brought up in a sort of feudal relationship to her +dear mistresses, was astonished to find the domestics of Russell +Square banded together into a community which, in spite of their +personal bickerings and jealousies, ended in alliance offensive and +defensive against the superior powers, whom they looked upon as their +natural enemies. Invisible enemies, certainly; for "master" they +hardly ever saw; and, excepting the ladys' maid, were mostly as +ignorant of "missis." The housekeeper was the middle link between the +two estates--the person with whom all business was transacted, and to +whom all complaints had to be made. Beyond being sometimes talked +over, generally in a quizzical, depreciatory, or condemnatory way, +the heads of the establishment were no more to their domestics than +the people who paid wages, and exacted in return certain duties, +which most of them made as small as possible, and escaped whenever +they could. + +If this be an exaggerated picture of a state of things perhaps in +degree inevitable--and yet it should not be, for it is the source of +incalculable evil, this dividing of a house against itself--if I have +in any way said what is not true, I would that some intelligent +"voice from the kitchen" would rise up and tell us what is true, and +whether it be possible on either side to find means of amending what +so sorely needs reformation. + +Elizabeth sometimes wanted Tom Cliffe to do this--to "write a book," +which he, eager young malcontent, was always threatening to do, upon +the evils of society, and especially the tyranny of the upper +classes. Tom Cliffe was the only person to whom she imparted her +troubles and perplexities: how different her life was from that she +had been used to; how among her fellow-servants there was not one who +did not seem to think and act in a manner totally opposed to every +thing she had learned from Miss Hilary. How consequently she herself +was teased, bullied, threatened, or at best "sent to Coventry," from +morning till night. + +"I am quite alone, Tom--I am, indeed," said she, almost crying, the +first Sunday night when she met him accidentally in going to church, +and, in her dreary state of mind, was exceedingly glad to see him. He +consoled her, and even went to church with her, half promising to do +the same next Sunday, and calling her "a good little Christian, who +almost inclined him to be a Christian too." + +And so, with the vague feeling that she was doing him good and +keeping him out of harm--that lad who had so much that was kindly and +nice about him--Elizabeth consented, not exactly to an appointment, +but she told him what were her "Sundays out," and the church she +usually attended, if he liked to take the chance of her being there. + +Alack! she had so few pleasures; she so seldom got even a breath of +outside air--it was not thought necessary for servants. The only hour +she was allowed out was the church-going on alternate Sunday +evenings. How pleasant it was to creep out then, and see Tom waiting +for her under the opposite trees, dressed so smart and gentlemanlike, +looking so handsome and so glad to see her--her, the poor countrified +Elizabeth, who was quizzed incessantly by her fellow-servants on her +oddness, plainness, and stupidity. + +Tom did not seem to think her stupid, for he talked to her of all his +doings and plannings, vague and wild as those of the young tailor in +"Alton Locke," yet with a romantic energy about them that strongly +interested his companion; and he read her his poetry, and addressed a +few lines to herself, beginning, + + "Dearest and best, my long familiar friend;" + +which was rather a poetical exaggeration, since he had altogether +forgotten her in the interval of their separation. But she never +guessed this; and so they both clung to the early tie, making it out +to be ten times stronger than it really was, as people do who are +glad of any excuse for being fond of one another. + +Tom really was getting fond of Elizabeth. She touched the higher half +of his nature--the spiritual and imaginative half. That he had it, +though only a working-man, and she too, though only a domestic +servant, was most true: probably many more of their class have it +than we are at all aware of. Therefore, these two being special +individuals, were attracted by each other; she by him, because he was +clever, and he by her, because she was so good. For he had an ideal, +poor Tom Cliffe! and though it had been smothered and laid to sleep +by a not too regular life, it woke up again under the kind, sincere +eyes of this plain, simple-minded, honest Elizabeth Hand. + +He knew she was plain, and so old-fashioned in her dress, that Tom, +who was particular about such things, did not always like walking +with her: but she was so interesting and true; she sympathized with +him so warmly; he found her so unfailingly and unvaryingly good to +him through all the little humors and pettishnesses that almost +always accompany a large brain, a nervous temperament, and delicate +health. Her quietness soothed him, her strength of character +supported him; he at once leaned on her, and ruled over her. + +As to Elizabeth's feelings toward Tom, they will hardly bear +analyzing; probably hardly any strong emotion will, especially one +that is not sudden but progressive. She admired him extremely, and +yet she was half sorry for him. Some things in him she did not at all +like, and tried heartily to amend. His nervous fancies, irritations, +and vagaries she was exceedingly tender over; she looked up to him, +and yet took care of him; this thought of him, and anxiety over him, +became by degrees the habit of her life. People love in so many +different ways; and perhaps that was the natural way in which a woman +like Elizabeth would love, or creep into love without knowing it, +which is either the safest or the saddest form which the passion can +assume. + +Thus things went on, till one dark, rainy Sunday night, walking round +and round the inner circle of the square, Tom expressed his feelings. +At first, in somewhat high flown and poetical phrases, then melting +into the one, eternally old and eternally new, "Do you love me?" +followed by a long, long kiss, given under shelter of the umbrella, +and in mortal fear of the approaching policeman; who, however, never +saw them, or saw them only as "pair of sweet-hearts"--too common an +occurrence on his beat to excite any attention. + +But to Elizabeth the whole thing was new, wonderful; a bliss so far +beyond any thing that had ever befallen her simple life, and so +utterly unexpected therein, that when she went to her bed that night +she cried like a child over the happiness of Tom's loving her, and +her exceeding unworthiness of the same. + +Then difficulties arose in her mind. "No followers allowed," was one +of the strict laws of the Russell Square dynasty. Like many another +law of that and of much higher dynasties it was only made to be +broken; for stray sweet-hearts were continually climbing down area +railings, or over garden walls, or hiding themselves behind kitchen +doors. Nay, to such an extent was the system carried out, each +servant being, from self-interest, a safe co-conspirator, that very +often when Mr. and Mrs. Ascott went out to dinner, and the old +housekeeper retired to bed, there were regular symposia held below +stairs--nice little supper-parties, where all the viands in the +pantry and the wines in the cellar were freely used; where every +domestic had his or her "young man" or "young woman," and the +goings-on, though not actually discreditable, were of the most lively +kind. + +To be cognizant of these, and yet to feel that, as there was no +actual wickedness going on, she was not justified in "blabbing," was +a severe and perpetual trial to Elizabeth. To join them, or bring Tom +among them as her "young man," was impossible. + +"No, Tom," she said, when he begged hard to come in one evening--for +it was raining fast, and he had a bad cough-- + +"No, Tom, I can't let you. If other folks break the laws of the +house, I won't--you must go. I can only meet you out of +doors." + +And yet to do this surreptitiously, just as if she were ashamed of +him, or as if there were something wrong in their being fond of one +another, jarred upon Elizabeth's honest nature. She did not want to +make a show of him, especially to her fellow-servants: she had the +true woman's instinct of liking to keep her treasures all to herself; +but she had also her sex's natural yearning for sympathy in the great +event of a woman's life. She would have liked to have somebody unto +whom she could say, "Tom has asked me to marry him," and who would +have answered cordially, "It's all right: he is a good fellow: you +are sure to be happy." + +Not that she doubted this: but it would have been an additional +comfort to have a mother's blessing, or a sister's, or even a +friend's, upon this strange and sweet emotion which had come into her +life. So long as it was thus kept secret there seemed a certain +incompleteness and unsanctity about even their happy love. + +Tom did not comprehend this at all. He only laughed at her for +feeling so "nesh" (that means tender, sensitive--but the word is +almost unexplainable to other than Stowbury ears) on the subject. He +liked the romance and excitement of secret courtship--men often do; +rarely women, unless there is something in them not quite right, not +entirely womanly. + +But Tom was very considerate, and though he called it "silly," and +took a little fit of crossness on the occasion, he allowed Elizabeth +to write to mother about him, and consented that on her next holiday +she should go to Richmond, in order to speak to Miss Hilary on the +same subject, and ask her also to write to Mrs. Hand, stating how +good and clever Tom was, and how exceedingly happy was Tom's +Elizabeth. + +"And won't you come and fetch me, Tom?" asked she, shyly. "I am sure +Miss Hilary would not object, nor Miss Leaf neither." + +Tom, protested he did not care two straws whether they objected or +not; he was a man of twenty, in a good trade--he had lately gone back +to the printing, and being a clever workman, earned capital wages. He +had a right to choose whom he liked, and marry when he pleased. If +Elizabeth didn't care for him, she might leave him alone. + +"Oh, Tom!" was all she answered, with a strange gentleness that no +one could have believed would ever have come into the manner of South +Sea Islander. And quitting the subject then, she afterward persuaded +him, and not for the first time, into consenting to what she thought +right. There is something rather touching in a servant's holiday. It +comes so seldom. She must count on it for so long beforehand, and +remember it for so long afterward. This present writer owns to a +strong sympathy with the holiday-makers on the grand gala-days of the +English calendar. It is a pleasure to watch the innumerable groups of +family folk, little, children, and prentice lands. + + --"Dressed in all their best, + To walk abroad with Sally." + +And the various "Sallys" and their corresponding swains can hardly +feel more regret than she when it happens to be wet weather on Easter +week or at Whitsuntide. + +Whit-Monday, the day when Tom escaped from the printing-office, and +Elizabeth got leave of absence for six hours, was as glorious a June +day as well could be. As the two young people perched themselves on +the top of the Richmond omnibus and drove through Kensington, +Hammersmith, Turnham Green, and over Kew Bridge--Tom pointing out all +the places, and giving much curious information about them--Elizabeth +thought there never was a more beautiful country, or a more lovely +summer day: she was, she truly said, "as happy as a Queen." + +Neverthless, when the omnibus stopped, she, with great self-denial, +insisted on getting rid of Tom for anytime. She thought Miss Hilary +might not quite like Tom's knowing where she lived, or what her +occupation was, lest he might gossip about it to Stowbury people; so +she determined to pay her visit by herself, and appointed to meet him +at a certain hour on Richmond Bridge, over which bridge she watched +him march sulkily, not without a natural pleasure that he should be +so much vexed at losing her company for an hour or two. But she knew +he would soon come to himself--as he did, before he had been half a +mile on the road to Hampton Court, meeting a young fellow he knew, +and going with him over that grand old palace, which furnished them +with a subject at their next debating society, where they both came +out very strong on the question of hypocritical priests and obnoxious +kings, with especial reference to Henry VIII, and Cardinal Wolsey. + +Meanwhile Elizabeth went in search of the little shop--which nobody +need expect to find at Richmond now--bearing the well-known name +"Janet Balquidder." Entering it, for there was no private door, she +saw, in the far corner above the curtained desk, the pretty curls of +her dear Miss Hilary. Elizabeth had long known that her mistress +"kept a shop," and with the notions of gentility which are just as +rife in her class as in any other, had mourned bitterly over this +fact. But when she saw how fresh and well the young lady looked, how +busily and cheerfully she seemed to work with her great books before +her, and with what a composed grace and dignity she came forward when +asked for, Elizabeth secretly confessed that not even keeping a shop +had made or could make the smallest difference in Miss Hilary. + +She herself was much more changed. + +"Why, Elizabeth, I should hardly have known you!" was the involuntary +exclamation of her late mistress. + +She certainly did look very nice; not smart--for her sober taste +preferred quiet colors--but excessively neat and well-dressed. In her +new gown of gray "coburg," her one handsome shawl, which had been +honored several times by Miss Hilary's wearing, her white straw +bonnet and white ribbons, underneath which the smooth black hair and +soft eyes showed to great advantage, she appeared, not "like a +lady"--a servant can seldom do that let her dress be ever so +fine--but like a thoroughly respectable, intelligent, and +pleasant-faced young woman. + +And her blushes came and went so fast, she was so nervous and yet so +beamingly happy, that Miss Hilary soon suspected there was more in +this visit than at first appeared. Knowing that with Elizabeth's +great shyness the mystery would never come out in public, she took an +opportunity of asking her to help her in the bedroom, and there, with +the folding-doors safely shut, discovered the whole secret. Miss +Hilary was a good deal surprised at first. She had never thought of +Elizabeth as likely to get married at all--and to Tom Cliffe. + +"Why, isn't he a mere boy; ever so much younger than you are?" + +"Three years." + +"That is a pity--a great pity: women grow old so much faster than +men." + +"I know that," said Elizabeth, somewhat sorrowfully. + +"Besides, did you not tell me he was very handsome and clever?" + +"Yes: and I'm neither the one nor the other. I have thought all that +over too, many a time; indeed I have, Miss Hilary. But Tom likes +me--or fancies he does. Do you think"--and the intense humility which +true love always has, struck into Miss Hilary's own conscious heart a +conviction of how very true this poor girl's love must be. "Do you +think he is mistaken? that his liking me--I mean in that sort of +way--is quite impossible?" + +"No, indeed, and I never said it; never thought it," was the earnest +reply. "But consider; three years younger than yourself; handsomer +and cleverer than you are--". + +Miss Hilary stopped; it seemed so cruel to say such things, and yet +she felt bound to say them. She knew her former "bower-maiden" well +enough to be convinced that if Elizabeth were not happy in marriage +she would be worse than unhappy--might grow actually bad. + +"He loves you now; you are sure of that; but are you sure that he is +a thoroughly stable and reliable character? Do you believe he will +love you always?" + +"I can't tell. Perhaps--if I deserved it," said poor Elizabeth. + +And, looking at the downcast eyes, at the thorough womanly sweetness +and tenderness which suffused the whole face, Hilary's doubts began +to melt away. She thought how sometimes men, captivated by inward +rather than outward graces, have fallen in love with plain women, or +women older than themselves, and actually kept to their attachment +through life, with a fidelity rare as beautiful. Perhaps this young +fellow, who seemed by all accounts superior to his class--having had +the sense to choose that pearl in an oyster-shell, Elizabeth +Hand--might also have the sense so appreciate her, and go on loving +her to the end of his days, Anyhow, he loved her now, and she loved +him; and it was useless reasoning any more about it. + +"Come, Elizabeth," cried her mistress, cheerfully, "I have said all +my say, and now I have only to give my good wishes. If Tom Cliffe +deserves you, I am sure you deserve him, and I should like to tell +him so." + +"Should you, Miss Hilary?" and with a visible brightening up +Elizabeth betrayed Tom's whereabouts, and her little conspiracy to +bring him here, and her hesitation lest it might be "intruding." + +"Not at all. Tell him to come at once. I am not like my sister; we +always allow 'followers.' I think a mistress stands in the relation +of a parent, for the time being; and that can not be a right or good +love which is concealed from her, as if it were a thing to be ashamed +of." + +"I think so too. And I'm not a bit ashamed of Tom, nor he of me," +said Elizabeth, so energetically that Miss Hilary smiled. + +"Very well; take him to have his tea in the kitchen, and then bring +him up stairs to speak to my sister and me." + +At that interview, which of course was rather trying, Tom acquitted +himself to every body's satisfaction. He was manly, modest, +self-possessed; did not say much--his usual talkativeness being +restrained by the circumstances of the case, and the great impression +made upon him by Miss Hilary, who, he afterward admitted to +Elizabeth, "was a real angel, and he should write a poem upon her." +But the little he did say gave the ladies a very good impression of +the intelligence and even refinement of Elizabeth's sweet-heart. And +though they were sorry to see him look so delicate, still there was a +something better than handsomeness in his handsome face, which made +them not altogether surprised at Elizabeth's being so fond of him. As +she watched the young couple down Richmond Street, in the soft summer +twilight--Elizabeth taking Tom's arm, and Tom drawing up his stooping +figure to its utmost extent, both a little ill-matched in height as +they were in some other things, but walking with that air of perfect +confidence and perfect contentedness in each other which always +betrays, to a quick eye, those who have agreed to walk through the +world together--Miss Hilary turned from the window and sighed. + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +Following Miss Hilary's earnest advice that every thing should be +fair and open, Elizabeth, on the very next day after that happy +Whit-Monday, mustered up her courage, asked permission to speak to +her mistress, and told her she was going to be married to Tom Cliffe: +not immediately, but in a year's time or so, if all went well. + +Mrs. Ascott replied sharply that it was no affair of hers, and she +could not be troubled about it. For her part she thought, if servants +knew their own advantages, they would keep a good place when they had +it, and never get married at all. And then, saying she had heard a +good character of her from the housekeeper, she offered Elizabeth the +place of upper house-maid, a young girl, a protegee of the +housekeeper's, being substituted in hers. + +"And when you have sixteen pounds a year, and somebody to do all your +hard work for you, I dare say you'll think better of it, and not be +so foolish as to go and get married." + +But Elizabeth had her own private opinion on that matter. She was but +a woman, poor thing! and two tiny rooms of her own, with Tom to care +for and look after, seemed a far happier home than that great house, +where she had not only her own work to do, but the responsibility of +teaching and taking charge of that careless, stupid, pretty Esther, +who had all the forwardness, untidiness, and unconscientiousness of a +regular London maid-servant, and was a sore trial to the staid, +steady Elizabeth. + +Tom consoled her, in his careless but affectionate way; and another +silent consolation was the "little bits of things," bought out of her +additional wages, which she began to put by in her box--sticks and +straws for the new sweet nest that was a-building: a metal teapot, +two neat glass salt-cellars, and, awful extravagance!--two real +second-hand silver spoons--Tom did so like having things nice about +him! These purchases, picked up at stray times, were solid, +substantial and useful; domestic rather than personal; and all with a +view to Tom rather than herself. She hid them with a magpie-like +closeness, for Esther and she shared the same room; but sometimes +when Esther was asleep she would peep at them with an anxious, +lingering tenderness, as if they made more of an assured reality what +even now seemed so very like a dream. + +--Except, indeed, on those Sunday nights when Tom and she went to +church together and afterward took a walk, but always parted at the +corner of the square. She never brought him in to the house, nor +spoke of him to her fellow servants. How much they guessed of her +engagement she neither knew nor cared. + +Mrs. Ascott, too, had apparently quite forgotten it. She seemed to +take as little interest in her servants' affairs as they in hers. + +Nevertheless, ignorant as the lower regions were in general of what +was passing in the upper, occasionally rumors began to reach the +kitchen that "Master had been a-blowing up Missis, rather!" And once, +after the solemn dinner, with three footmen to wait on two people, +was over, Elizabeth, passing through the hall, caught the said +domestics laughing together, and saying it was "as good as a play; +cat and dog was nothing to it." After which "the rows up stairs" +became a favorite joke in the servants' hall. + +But still Mr. Ascott went out daily after breakfast, and came home to +dinner; and Mrs. Ascott spent the morning in her private sitting +room, or "boudoir," as she called it; lunched, and drove out in her +handsome carriage, with her footman behind; dressed elegantly for +dinner, and presided at her own table with an air of magnificent +satisfaction in all things. She had perfectly accommodated herself to +her new position; and if under her satins and laces beat a solitary, +dissatisfied, or aching heart, it was nobody's business but her own. +At least, she kept up the splendid sham with a most creditable +persistency. + +But all shams are dangerous things. Be the surface ever so smooth and +green, it will crack sometimes, and a faint wreath of smoke betray +the inward volcano. The like had happened once or twice, as on the +day when the men-servants were so intensely amused. Also Elizabeth, +when putting in order her mistress's bedroom, which was about the +hour Mr. Ascott left for the city, had several times seen Mrs. Ascott +come in there suddenly, white and trembling. Once, so agitated was +she, that Elizabeth had brought her a glass of water; and instead of +being angry or treating her with the distant dignity which she had +always kept up her mistress had said, almost in the old Stowbury +tone, "Thank you, Elizabeth." + +However, Elizabeth had the wisdom to take no notice, but to slip from +the room, and keep her own counsel. + +At last one day the smouldering domestic earthquake broke out. There +was "a precious good row," the footman suspected, at the +breakfast-table; and after breakfast, Master, without waiting for the +usual attendance of that functionary, with his hat and gloves and a +Hansom cab had flung himself out at the hall door, slamming it after +him with a noise that startled the whole house. Shortly afterward +"Missis's" bell had rung violently, and she had been found lying on +the floor of her bedroom in a dead faint, her maid, a foolish little +Frenchwoman, screaming over her. + +The frightened servants gathered round in a cluster, but nobody +attempted to touch the poor lady, who lay rigid and helpless, hearing +none of the comments that were freely made upon her, or the +conjectures as to what Master had done or said that produced this +state of things. Mistress she was, and these four or five woman, her +servants, had lived in her house for months, but nobody loved her; +nobody knew any thing about her; nobody thought of doing aught for +her, till a kitchen-maid, probably out of former experience in some +domestic emergency, suggested, "Fetch Elizabeth." + +The advice was eagerly caught at, every body being so thankful to +have the responsibility shifted to some other body's shoulders; so in +five minutes Elizabeth had the room cleared, and her mistress laid +upon the bed, with nobody near except herself and the French maid. + +By-and-by Mrs. Ascott opened her eyes. + +"Who's that? What are you doing to me?" + +"Nothing, ma'am. It's only me--Elizabeth." + +At the familiar soothing voice the poor woman--a poor, wretched, +forlorn woman she looked, lying there, in spite of all her +grandeur--turned feebly round. + +"Oh, Elizabeth, I'm so ill! take care of me." And she fainted away +once more. + +It was some time before she came quite to herself, and then the first +thing she said was to bid Elizabeth bolt the door and keep every body +out. + +"The doctor, ma'am if he comes?" + +"I'll not see him. I don't want him. I know what it is. I--" + +She pulled Elizabeth closer to her, whispered something in her ear, +and then burst into a violent fit of hysterical weeping. + +Amazed, shocked, Elizabeth at first did not know what to do; then she +took her mistress's head on her shoulder, and quieted her by degrees +almost as she would a child. The sobbing ceased, and Mrs. Ascott lay +still a minute, till suddenly she clutched Elizabeth's arm. + +"Mind you don't tell. He doesn't know, and he shall not; it would +please him so. It does not please me. Sometimes I almost think I +shall hate it because it is his child." + +She spoke with a fierceness that was hardly credible either in the +dignified Mrs. Peter Ascott or the languid Miss Selina. To think of +Miss Selina expecting a baby! The idea perfectly confounded poor +Elizabeth. + +"I don't know very much about such matters," said she, deprecatingly; +"but I'm sure, ma'am, you ought to keep yourself quiet, and I +wouldn't hate the poor little baby if I were you. It may be a very +nice little thing, and turn out a great comfort to you." + +Mrs. Ascott lifted her heavy eyes to the kindly, sympathetic, womanly +face--thorough woman, for, as Elizabeth went on, her heart warmed +with the strong instinct which comes almost of itself. + +"Think, to have a tiny little creature lying here beside you; +something your very own, with its pretty face looking so innocent and +sweet at you, and its pretty fingers touching you." Here Elizabeth's +voice quite faltered over the picture she had drawn. "Oh, ma'am, I'm +sure you would be so fond of it." + +Human nature is strong. This cold, selfish woman, living her forty +years without any strong emotion, marrying without love, and reaping, +not in contrition, but angry bitterness, the certain punishment of +such a marriage, even this woman was not proof against the glorious +mystery of maternity, which should make every daughter of Eve feel +the first sure hope of her first born child to be a sort of Divine +annunciation. + +Mrs. Ascott lay listening to Elizabeth. Gradually through her shut +eyelids a few quiet tears began to flow. + +"Do you mind me talking to you this way, ma'am?" + +"No, no! Say what you like. I'm glad to have any body to speak to. +Oh, I am a very miserable woman!" + +Strange that Selina Ascott should come to betray, and to Elizabeth +Hand, of all people, that she was a "miserable woman." But +circumstances bring about unforeseen confidences; and the confidence +once given is not easily recalled. Apparently the lady did not wish +to recall it. In the solitude of her splendid house, in her total +want of all female companionship--for she refused to have her sisters +sent for--"he would only insult them, and I'll not have my family +insulted"--poor Selina clung to her old servant as the only comfort +she had. + +During the dreary months that followed, when, during the long, close +summer days, the sick lady scarcely stirred from her bedroom, and, +fretful, peevish, made the very most of what to women in general are +such patiently borne and sacred sufferings, Elizabeth was her +constant attendant. She humored all her whims, endured all her +ill-tempers, cheered her in her low spirits, and was, in fact, her +mistress's sole companion and friend. + +This position no one disputed with her. It is not every woman who +has, as Miss Leaf used to say of Elizabeth, "a genius for nursing;" +and very few patients make nursing a labor of love. The whole +household were considerably relieved by her taking a responsibility +for which she was so well fitted and so little envied. Even Mr. +Ascott, who, when his approaching honors could no longer be concealed +from him, became for the nonce a most attentive husband, and +succumbed dutifully to every fancy his wife entertained, openly +expressed his satisfaction in Elizabeth, and gave her one or two +bright golden guineas in earnest of his gratitude. + +How far she herself appreciated her new and important position; +whether her duties were done from duty, or pity, or that determined +self-devotedness which some women are always ready to carry out +toward any helpless thing that needs them, I can not say, for she +never told. Not even to Miss Hilary, who at last was permitted to +come and pay a formal visit; nor to Tom Cliffe, whom she now saw very +rarely, for her mistress, with characteristic selfishness, would +hardly let her out of her sight for half an hour. + +Tom at first was exceedingly savage at this: by degrees he got more +reconciled, and met his sweet-heart now and then for a few minutes at +the area gate or wrote her long poetical letters, which he confided +to some of her fellow-servants, who thereby got acquainted with their +secret. But it mattered little, as Elizabeth had faithfully promised +that, when her mistress's trial was over, and every thing smooth and +happy, she would marry Tom at once. So she took the jokes below +stairs with great composure; feeling, indeed, too proud and content +to perplex herself much about any thing. + +Nevertheless, her life was not easy, for Mrs. Ascott was very +difficult to manage. She resisted angrily all the personal sacrifices +entailed by impending motherhood, and its terrors and forebodings +used to come over her--poor weak woman that she was!--in a way that +required all Elizabeth's reasonings to counteract, and all her +self-control to hide the presentiment of evil, not unnatural under +the circumstances. + +Yet sometimes poor Mrs. Ascott would take fits of pathetic happiness; +when she busied herself eagerly over the preparations for the +new-comer; would make Elizabeth take out, over and over again, the +little clothes, and examine them with childish delight. Sometimes she +would gossip for hours over the blessing that was sent to her so late +in life--half-regretting that it had come so late; that she should be +almost an old woman before her little son or daughter was grown up. + +"Still, I may live to see it, you know: to have a pretty girl to take +on my arm into a ball-room, or a big fellow to send to College: the +Leafs always went to College in old times. He shall be Henry Leaf +Ascott, that I am determined on; and if it's a girl, perhaps I may +call her Johanna. My sister would like it; wouldn't she?" + +For more and more, in the strange softening of her nature, did Selina +go back to the old ties. + +"I am not older than my mother was when Hilary was born. She died, +but that was because of trouble. Women do not necessarily die in +childbirth even at forty; and in twenty years more I shall only be +sixty--not such a very old woman. Besides, mothers never are old; at +least not to their children. Don't you think so, Elizabeth?" + +And Elizabeth answered as she best could. She too, out of sympathy or +instinct, was becoming wondrous wise. + +But I am aware all this will be thought very uninteresting, except by +women and mothers. Let me hasten on. + +By degrees, as Mrs. Ascott's hour approached, a curious tranquility +and even gentleness came over her. Her fretful dislike of seeing any +face about her but Elizabeth's became less. She even endured her +husband's company for an hour of an evening; and at last humbled her +pride enough to beg him to invite her sisters to Russell Square from +Saturday to Monday, the only time when Hilary could be spared. + +"For we don't know what may happen," said she to him, rather +seriously. + +And though he answered, "Oh, nonsense!" and desired her to get such +ridiculous fancies out, of her head, still he consented, and himself +wrote to Miss Leaf, giving the formal invitation. + +The three sisters spent a happy time together, and Hilary made some +highly appreciated family jokes about the handsome Christmas box that +Selina was going to be so kind as to give them, and the small +probability that she would have much enjoyment of the Christmas +dinner to which Mr. Ascott, in the superabundance of his good +feeling, had invited his sisters-in-law. The baby, blessed innocent! +seemed to have softened down all things--as babies often do. + +Altogether, it was with great cheerfulness, affectionateness, and +hope that they took leave of Selina: she, with unwonted +consideration, insisting that the carriage should convey them all the +way to Richmond. + +"And," she said, "perhaps some of these days my son, if he is a son, +may have the pleasure of escorting his aunts home. I shall certainly +call him 'Henry Leaf,' and bring him up to be in every way a credit +to our family." + +When the ladies were away, and Mrs. Ascott had retired to bed, it was +still only nine o'clock, and a bright moonlight night. Elizabeth +thought she could steal down stairs and try to get a breath of fresh +air round the square. Her long confinement made her almost sick +sometimes for a sight of the outer world, a sight of--let me tell the +entire truth--her own faithful Tom. + +She had not seen him now for fourteen days, and though his letters +were very nice and exceedingly clever, still she craved for a look at +his face, a grasp of his hand, perhaps even a kiss, long and close +and tender, such as he would sometimes insist upon giving her, in +spite of all policemen. His love for her, demonstrative as was his +nature, had become to this still, quiet girl inexpressibly sweet, far +sweeter than she knew. + +It was a clear winter night, and the moon went climbing over the +fleecy white clouds in a way that made beauty even in Russell Square. +Elizabeth looked up at the sky, and thought how Tom would have +enjoyed it, and wished he were beside her, and was so glad to think +he would soon be beside her always, with all his humors and +weaknesses, all his little cross-selfishness, and complainings; she +could put up with all, and be happy through all, if only she had him +with her and loving her. + +His love for her, though fitful and fanciful, was yet so warm and +real that it had become a necessity of her life. As he always told +her--especially after he had had one of his little quarrels with +her--hers was to him. + +"Poor Tom, I wonder how he gets on without me! Well, it won't be for +long." + +And she wished she could have let him know she was out here, that +they might have had a chat for just ten minutes. + +Unconsciously she walked toward their usual trysting place, a large +overhanging plane-tree on the Keppel Street corner of the square. + +Surely, surely, that could not be Tom! Quite impossible, for he was +not alone. Two people, a young man and a young woman, stood at the +tryst, absorbed in conversation: evidently sweethearts, for he had +one arm round her, and he kissed her unresisted several times. + +Elizabeth gazed, fascinated, almost doubting the evidence of her own +senses. For the young men's figure was so excessively like Tom's. At +length, with the sort of feeling that makes one go steadily up to a +shadow by the roadside, some ugly spectre that we feel sure, if we +stare it out, will prove to be a mere imagination, she walked +deliberately up to and past these "sweethearts." + +They did not see her; they were far too much occupied with one +another; but she saw them, and saw at once that it was Tom, Tom's own +self, and with him her fellow-servant, Esther. + +People may write volumes on jealousy, and volumes will still remain +to be written. It is next to remorse for guilt, the sharpest, sorest, +most maddening torment that human nature can endure. + +We may sit and gaze from the boxes at our Othellos and Biancas; we +may laugh at the silly heart-burnings between Cousin Kate and Cousin +Lucy in the ball-room, or the squabbles of Mary and Sally in the +kitchen over the gardener's lad; but there the thing remains. A man +can not make love to two women, a woman can not coquet with two men, +without causing in degree that horrible agony, cruel as death, which +is at the root of half the tragedies, and the cause of half the +crimes of this world. + +The complaint comes in different forms: sometimes it is a case of +slow poisoning or of ordeal by red-hot irons, which though not fatal, +undermines the whole character, and burns ineffaceable scars into the +soul. And people take it in various ways--some fiercely, stung by a +sense of wounded self-love; others haughtily: + +"Pride's a safe robe, I'll wear it; but no rags." + +Others, again, humble, self-distrustful natures, whose only pride +came through love, have nothing left them except rags. In a moment +all their thin robes of happiness are torn off; they stand shivering, +naked and helpless before the blasts of the bitter world. + +This was Elizabeth's case. After the first instant of stunned +bewilderment and despair she took it all quite naturally, as if it +were a thing which she ought all along to have known was sure to +happen, and which was no more than she expected and deserved. + +She passed the couple, still unobserved by them, and then walked +round the other side of the square, deliberately home. + +I am not going to make a tragic heroine of this poor servant girl. +Perhaps, people may say, there is nothing tragic about the incident. +Merely a plain, quiet, old-fashioned woman, who is so foolish as to +like a handsome young swain, and to believe in him, and to be +surprised when he deserts her for a pretty girl of eighteen. All +quite after the way things go on in the world, especially in the +servant-world; and the best she can do is to get over it, or take +another sweetheart as quickly as possible. A very common story after +all, and more of a farce than a tragedy. + +But there are some farces which, if you look underneath the surface, +have a good many of the elements of tragedy. + +I shall neither paint Elizabeth tearing her own hair nor Esther's, +nor going raging about the square in moonlight in an insane fit of +jealousy. She was not given to "fits" under any circumstances, or +about any thing. All she felt went deep down into her heart, rooted +itself, and either blossomed or cankered there. + +On this night she, as I said, walked round the square to her home: +then quietly went up stairs to her garret, locked the door, and sat +down upon her bed. + +She might have sat there for an hour or more, her bonnet and shawl +still on, without stirring, without crying, altogether cold and hard +like a stone, when she fancied she heard her mistress's bell ring, +and mechanically rose up and went down stairs to listen. Nothing was +wanted, so she returned to her garret and crept to bed in the dark. + +When soon afterward Esther likewise came up to bed, Elizabeth +pretended to be asleep. Only once, taking a stealthy glance at the +pretty girl who stood combing her hair at the looking-glass, she was +conscious of a sick sense of repulsion, a pain like a knife running +thro' her, at sight of the red young lips which Tom had just been +kissing, of the light figure which he had clasped as he used to clasp +her. But she never spoke, not one word. + +Half an hour after she was roused by the nurse coming to her bedside. +Mrs. Ascott was very ill, and was calling for Elizabeth. Soon the +whole establishment was in confusion, and in the sharp struggle +between birth and death Elizabeth had no time to think of any thing +but her mistress. + +Contrary to every expectation, all ended speedily and happily; and +before he went off to the City next day the master of the house, who, +in the midst of his anxiety and felicity, had managed to secure a +good night's sleep and a good breakfast, had the pleasure of sending +off a special messenger to the Times office with the notification, +"The Lady of Peter Ascott, Esq., of a son and heir." + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +A fortnight's time rather increased than diminished the excitement +incident on the event at Russell Square. + +Never was there such a wonderful baby, and never was there such a +fuss made over it. Unprejudiced persons might have called it an ugly, +weakly little thing; indeed, at first there were such apprehensions +of its dying that it had been baptized in a great hurry, "Henry Leaf +Ascott," according to the mother's desire, which in her critical +position nobody dared to thwart. Even at the end of fourteen days the +"son and heir" was still a puling, sickly, yellow-faced baby. But to +the mother it was every thing. + +From the moment she heard its first cry Mrs. Ascott's whole nature +seemed to undergo a change. Her very eyes--those cold blue eyes of +Miss Selina's--took a depth and tenderness whenever she turned to +look at the little bundle that lay beside her. She never wearied of +touching the tiny hands and feet, and wondering at them, and +showing--to every one of the household who was favored with a sight +of it--"my baby," as if it had been a miracle of the universe. She +was so unutterably happy and proud. + +Elizabeth, too, seemed not a little proud of the baby. To her arms it +had first been committed; she had stood by at its first washing and +dressing, and had scarcely left it or her mistress since. Nurse, a +very grand personage, had been a little jealous of her at first, but +soon grew condescending, and made great use of her in the sick room, +alleging that such an exceedingly sensible young person, so quiet and +steady, was almost as good as a middle-aged married woman. Indeed, +she once asked Elizabeth if she was a widow, since she looked as if +she had "seen trouble:" and was very much surprised to learn she was +single and only twenty-three years old. + +Nobody else took any notice of her. Even Miss Hilary was so engrossed +by her excitement and delight over the baby that she only observed, +"Elizabeth, you look rather worn-out; this has been a trying time for +you." And Elizabeth had just answered, "Yes"-no more. + +During the fortnight she had seen nothing of Tom. He had written her +a short note or two, and the cook told her he had been to the kitchen +door several times asking for her, but being answered that she was +with her mistress up stairs, had gone away. + +"In the sulks, most like, though he didn't look it. He's a pleasant +spoken young man and I'm sure I wish you luck with him," said Cookie, +who, like all the other servants, was now exceedingly civil to +Elizabeth. + +Her star had risen; she was considered in the household a most +fortunate woman. It was shortly understood that nurse--majestic +nurse, had spoken so highly of her, that at the month's end the baby +was to be given entirely into her charge, with, of course, an almost +fabulous amount of wages. + +"Unless," said Mrs. Ascott, when this proposition was made, suddenly +recurring to the fact which seemed hitherto to have quite slipped +from her mind--"unless you are still willing to get married, and +think you would be happier married. In that case I won't hinder you. +But it would be such a comfort to me to keep you a little longer." + +"Thank you, ma'am," answered Elizabeth, softly, and busied herself +with walking baby up and down the room, hushing it on her shoulder. +If in the dim light tears fell on its puny face, God help her, poor +Elizabeth! + +Mrs. Ascott made such an excellent recovery that in three weeks' time +nobody was the least anxious about her, and Mr. Ascott arranged to +start on a business journey to Edinburgh; promising, however, to be +back in three days for the Christmas dinner, which was to be a grand +celebration. Miss Leaf and Miss Hilary were to appear thereat in +their wedding dresses; and Mrs. Ascott herself took the most vital +interest in Johanna's having a new cap for the occasion. Nay, she +insisted upon ordering it from her own milliner, and having it made +of the most beautiful lace--the "sweetest" old lady's cap that could +possibly be invented. + +Evidently this wonderful baby had opened all hearts, and drawn every +natural tie closer. Selina, lying on the sofa, in her graceful white +wrapper, and her neat close cap, looked so young, so pretty, and, +above all, so exceedingly gentle and motherly, that her sisters' +hearts were full to overflowing. They acknowledged that happiness, +like misery, was often brought about in a fashion totally unforeseen +and incredible. Who would have thought, for instance, on that +wretched night when Mr. Ascott came to Hilary at Kensington, or on +that dreary heartless wedding-day, that they should ever have been +sitting in Selina's room so merry and comfortable, admiring the baby, +and on the friendliest terms with baby's papa? + +"Papa" is a magical word, and let married people have fallen ever so +wide asunder, the thought, "my child's mother," "my baby's father," +must in some degree bridge the gulf between them. When Peter Ascott +was seen stooping, awkwardly enough, over his son's cradle, poking +his dumpy fingers into each tiny cheek in a half-alarmed, +half-investigating manner, as if he wondered how it had all come +about, but, on the whole, was rather pleased than otherwise--the good +angel of the household might have stood by and smiled, trusting that +the ghastly skeleton therein might in time crumble away into harmless +dust, under the sacred touch of infant fingers. + +The husband and wife took a kindly, even affectionate leave of one +another. Mrs. Ascott called him "Peter," and begged him to take care +of himself, and wrap up well that cold night. And when he was gone, +and her sisters also, she lay on her sofa with her eyes open, +thinking. What sort of thoughts they were, whether repentant or +hopeful, solemn or tender, whether they might have passed away and +been forgotten, or how far they might have influenced her life to +come, none knew, and none ever did know. + +When there came a knock at the door, and a message for Elizabeth, +Mrs. Ascott suddenly overheard it and turned round. + +"Who is wanting you? Tom Cliffe? Isn't that the young man you are to +be married to? Go down to him at once. And stay, Elizabeth, as it's +such a bitter night, take him for half an hour into the housekeeper's +room. Send her up stairs, and tell her I wished it, though I don't +allow 'followers.' " + +"Thank you, ma'am," said Elizabeth once more, and obeyed. She must +speak to Tom some time, it might as well be done to-night as not. +Without pausing to think, she went down with dull heavy steps to the +housekeeper's room. + +Tom stood there alone. He looked so exactly his own old self, he came +forward to meet her so completely in his old familiar way, that for +the instant she thought she must be under some dreadful delusion; +that the moonlight night in the square must have been all a dream; +Esther, still the silly little Esther, whom Tom had often heard of +and laughed at; and Tom, her own Tom, who loved nobody but her. + +"Elizabeth, what an age it is since I've had a sight of you!" + +But though the manner was warm as ever, + + "In his tone + A something smote her, as if Duty tried + To mock the voice of Love, how long since flown," + +and quiet as she stood, Elizabeth shivered in his arms. + +"Why, what's the matter? Aren't you glad to see me? Give me another +kiss, my girl, do!" + +He took it; and she crept away from him and sat down. + +"Tom, I've got something to say to you, and I'd better say it at +once." + +"To be sure. 'Tisn't any bad news from home, is it? Or"--looking +uneasily at her--"I haven't vexed you, have I?" + +"Vexed me," she repeated, thinking what a small foolish word it was +to express what had happened, and what she had been suffering. "No, +Tom, not vexed me exactly. But I want to ask you a question. Who was +it that you stood talking with, under our tree in the square, between +nine and ten o'clock, this night three weeks ago?" + +Though there was no anger in the voice it was so serious and +deliberate that it made Tom start. + +"Three weeks ago; how can I possibly tell?" + +"Yes, you can; for it was a fine moonlight night, and you stood there +a long time." + +"Under the tree, talking to somebody? What nonsense! Perhaps it +wasn't me at all." + +"It was, for I saw you." + +"The devil you did!" muttered Tom. + +"Don't be angry, only tell me the plain truth. The young woman that +was with you was our Esther here, wasn't she?" + +For a moment Tom looked altogether confounded. Then he tried to +recover himself, and said crossly, "Well, and if it was, where's the +harm? Can't a man be civil to a pretty girl without being called over +the coals in this way?" + +Elizabeth made no answer, at least not immediately. At last she said, +in a very gentle, subdued voice, + +"Tom, are you fond of Esther? You would not kiss her if you were not +fond of her. Do you like her as--as you used to like me?" + +And she looked right up into his eyes. Hers had no reproach in them, +only a piteous entreaty, the last clinging to a hope which she knew +to be false. + +"Like Esther? Of course I do? She's a nice sort of girl, and we're +very good friends." + +"Tom, a man can't be 'friends,' in that sort of way, with a pretty +girl of eighteen, when he is going to be married to somebody else. At +least, in my mind, he ought not." + +Tom laughed in a confused manner. "I say, you're jealous, and you'd +better get over it." + +Was she jealous? was it all fancy, folly? Did Tom stand there, true +as steel, without a feeling in his heart that she did not share, +without a hope in which she was not united, holding her, and +preferring her, with that individuality and unity of love which true +love ever gives and exacts, as it has a right to exact? + +Not that poor Elizabeth reasoned in this way, but she felt the thing +by instinct without reasoning. + +"Tom," she said, "tell me outright, just as if I was somebody else, +and had never belonged to you at all, do you love Esther Martin." + +Truthful people enforce truth. Tom might be fickle, but he was not +deceitful; he could not look into Elizabeth's eyes and tell her a +deliberate lie; somehow he dared not. + +"Well, then--since you will have it out of me--I think I do." + +So Elizabeth's "ship went down." It might have been a very frail +vessel, that nobody in their right senses would have trusted any +treasure with, still she did; and it was all she had, and it went +down to the bottom like a stone. + +It is astonishing how soon the sea closes over this sort of wreck; +and how quietly people take--when they must take, and there is no +more disbelieving it--the truth which they would have given their +lives to prove was an impossible lie. + +For some minutes Tom stood facing the fire, and Elizabeth sat on her +chair opposite without speaking. Then she took off her brooch, the +only love-token he had given her, and put it into his hand. + +"What's this for?" asked he, suddenly. + +"You know. You'd better give it to Esther. It's Esther, not me, you +must marry now." + +And the thought of Esther, giddy, flirting, useless Esther, as Tom's +wife, was almost more than she could bear. The sting of it put even +into her crushed humility a certain honest self-assertion. + +"I'm not going to blame you, Tom; but I think I'm as good as she. I'm +not pretty, I know, nor lively, nor young, at least I'm old for my +age; but I was worth something. You should not have served me so." + +Tom said, the usual excuse, that he "couldn't help it." And suddenly +turning round, he begged her to forgive him, and not forsake him. + +She forsake Tom! Elizabeth almost smiled. + +"I do forgive you: I'm not a bit angry with you. If I ever was I have +got over it." + +"That's right. You're a dear soul. Do you think that I don't like +you, Elizabeth?" + +"Oh yes," she said, sadly, "I dare say you do, a little, in spite of +Esther Martin. But that's not my way of liking, and I couldn't stand +it." + +"What couldn't you stand?" + +"Your kissing me to-day, and another girl to-morrow: your telling me +I was every thing to you one week, and saying exactly the same thing +to another girl the next. It would be hard enough to bear if we were +only friends, but as sweet-hearts, as husband and wife, it would be +impossible. No Tom, I tell you the truth, I could not stand it." + +She spoke strongly, unhesitatingly, and for an instant there flowed +out of her soft eyes that wild fierce spark, latent even in these +quiet humble natures, which is dangerous to meddle with. + +Tom did not attempt it. He felt all was over. Whether he had lost or +gained: whether he was glad or sorry, he hardly knew. + +"I'm not going to take this back, any how," he said, "fiddling" with +the brooch; and then going up to her, he attempted, with trembling +hands, to refasten it in her collar. + +The familiar action, his contrite look, were too much. People who +have once loved one another, though the love is dead (for love can +die), are not able to bury it all at once, or if they do, its pale +ghost will still come knocking at the door of their hearts, "Let me +in, let me in!" + +Elizabeth ought, I know, in proper feminine dignity, to have bade Tom +farewell without a glance or a touch. But she did not. When he had +fastened her brooch she looked up in his familiar face a sorrowful, +wistful, hungering look, and then clung about his neck: + +"O Tom, Tom, I was so fond of you!" + +And Tom mingled his tears with hers, and kissed her many times, and +even felt his old affection returning, making him half oblivious of +Esther; but mercifully--for love rebuilt upon lost faith is like a +house founded upon sands--the door opened, and Esther herself came +in. + +Laughing, smirking, pretty Esther, who, thoughtless as she was, had +yet the sense to draw back when she saw them. + +"Come here, Esther!" Elizabeth called, imperatively; and she came. + +"Esther, I've given up Tom; you may take him if he wants you. Make +him a good wife, and I'll forgive you. If not--" + +She could not say another word. She shut the door upon them, and +crept up stairs, conscious only of one thought--if she only could get +away from them, and never see either of their faces any more! + +And in this fate was kind to her, though in that awful way in which +fate--say rather Providence--often works; cutting, with one sharp +blow, some knot that our poor, feeble, mortal fingers have been long +laboring at in vain, or making that which seemed impossible to do the +most natural, easy, and only thing to be done. + +How strangely often in human life "one woe doth tread upon the +other's heel!" How continually, while one of those small private +tragedies that I have spoken of is being enacted within, the actors +are called upon to meet some other tragedy from without, so that +external energy counteracts inward emotion, and holy sympathy with +another's sufferings stifles all personal pain. That truth about +sorrows coming "in battalions" may have a divine meaning in it--may +be one of those mysterious laws which guide the universe--laws that +we can only trace in fragments, and guess at the rest, believing, in +deep humility, that one day we shall "know even as we are known." + +Therefore I ask no pity for Elizabeth, because ere she had time to +collect herself, and realize in her poor confused mind that she had +indeed said good by to Tom, given him up and parted from him forever, +she was summoned to her mistress's room, there to hold a colloquy +outside the door with the seriously-perplexed nurse. + +One of those sudden changes had come which sometimes, after all seems +safe, strike terror into a rejoicing household, and end by carrying +away, remorseless, the young wife from her scarcely tasted bliss, the +mother of many children from her close circle of happy duties and +yearning loves. + +Mrs. Ascott was ill. Either she had taken cold or been too much +excited, or, in the overconfidence of her recovery, some slight +neglect had occurred--some trifle which nobody thinks of till +afterward, and which yet proves the fatal cause, "the little pin" +that + + "Bores through the castle wall" + +of mortal hope, and King Death enters in all his awful state. + +Nobody knew it or dreaded it; for though Mrs. Ascott was certainly +ill, she was not at first very ill; and there being no telegraphs in +those days no one thought of sending for either her husband or her +sisters. But that very hour, when Elizabeth went up to her mistress, +and saw the flush on her cheek and the rest-less expression of her +eye, King Death had secretly crept in at the door of the mansion in +Russell Square. + +The patient was carefully removed back into her bed. She said little, +except once, looking up uneasily-- + +"I don't feel quite myself, Elizabeth." + +And when her servant soothed her in the long-familiar way, telling +her she would be better in the morning, she smiled contentedly, and +turned to go to sleep. + +Nevertheless, Elizabeth did not go to her bed, but sat behind the +curtain, motionless, for an hour or more. + +Toward the middle of the night, when her baby was brought to her, and +the child instinctively refused its natural food, and began screaming +violently, Mrs. Ascott's troubled look returned. + +"What is the matter? What are you doing, nurse? I won't be parted +from my baby--I won't, I say!" + +And when, to sooth her, the little thing was again put into her arms, +and again turned from her, a frightened expression came into the +mother's face. + +"Am I going to be ill?--is baby--" + +She stopped; and as nurse determinately carried it away, she +attempted no resistance, only followed it across the room with eager +eyes. It was the last glimmer of reason there. From that time her, +mind began to wander, and before morning she was slightly delirious. +Still nobody apprehended danger. Nobody really knew any thing about +the matter except nurse, and she, with a selfish fear of being blamed +for carelessness, resisted sending for the doctor till his usual hour +of calling. In that large house, as in many other large houses, every +body's business was nobody's business, and a member of the family, +even the mistress, might easily be sick or dying in some room +therein, while all things else went on just as usual, and no one was +any the wiser. + +About noon even Elizabeth's ignorance was roused up to the conviction +that something was very wrong with Mrs. Ascott, and that nurse's +skill could not counteract it. On her own responsibility she sent, or +rather she went to fetch the doctor. He came; and his fiat threw the +whole household into consternation. + +Now they knew that the poor lady whose happiness had touched the very +stoniest hearts in the establishment hovered upon the brink of the +grave. Now all the women-servants, down to the little kitchen-maid +with her dirty apron at her eyes, crept up stairs, one after the +other, to the door of what had been such a silent, mysterious room, +and listened, unhindered, to the ravings that issued thence. "Poor +Missis," and the "poor little baby," were spoken of softly at the +kitchen dinner table, and confidentially sympathized over with +inquiring tradespeople at the area gate. A sense of awe and suspense +stole over the whole house, gathering thicker hour by hour of that +dark December day. + +When her mistress was first pronounced "in danger," Elizabeth, aware +that there was no one to act but herself, had taken a brief +opportunity to slip from the room and write two letters, one to her +master in Edinburgh, and the other to Miss Hilary. The first she gave +to the footman to post; the second she charged him to send by special +messenger to Richmond. But he, being lazily inclined, or else +thinking that, as the order was only given by Elizabeth, it was of +comparatively little moment, posted them both. So vainly did the poor +girl watch and wait; neither Miss Leaf nor Miss Hilary came. + +By night Mrs. Ascott's delirium began to subside, but her strength +was ebbing fast. Two physicians--three--stood by the unconscious +woman, and pronounced that all hope was gone, if, indeed, the case +had not been hopeless from the beginning. + +"Where is her husband? Has she no relations--no mother or sisters?" +asked the fashionable physician, Sir ---- ----, touched by the slight +or this poor lady dying alone, with only a nurse and a servant about +her. "If she has, they ought to be sent for immediately." + +Elizabeth ran down stairs, and rousing the old butler from his bed, +prevailed on him to start immediately in the carriage to bring back +Miss Leaf and Miss Hilary. It would be midnight before he reached +Richmond; still it must be done. + +"I'll do it, my girl," said he, kindly; "and I'll tell them as gently +as I can. Never fear." + +When Elizabeth returned to her mistress's room the doctors were all +gone, and nurse, standing at the foot of Mrs. Ascott's bed, was +watching her with the serious look which even a hireling or a +stranger wears in the presence of that sight which, however familiar, +never grows less awful--a fellow creature slowly passing from this +life into the life unknown. Elizabeth crept up to the other side. The +change, indescribable yet unmistakable, which comes over a human face +when the warrant for its dissolution has gone forth, struck her at +once. Never yet had Elizabeth seen death. Her father's she did not +remember, and among her few friends and connections none other had +occurred. At twenty-three years of age she was still ignorant of that +solemn experience which every woman must go through some time, often +many times during her life. For it is to women that all look in their +extreme hour. Very few men, even the tenderest hearted, are able to +watch by the last struggle and close the eyes of the dying. + +For the moment, as she glanced round the darkened room, and then at +the still figure on the bed, Elizabeth's courage failed. Strong love +might have overcome this fear--the natural recoil of youth and life +from coming into contact with death and mortality; but love was not +exactly the bond between her and Mrs. Ascott. It was rather duty, +pity, the tenderness that would have sprung up in her heart toward +any body she had watched and tended so long. + +"If she should die, die in the night, before Miss Hilary comes!" +thought the poor girl, and glanced once more around the shadowy room, +where she was now left quite alone. For nurse, thinking with true +worldly wisdom of the preservation of the "son and heir," which was +decidedly the most important question now, had stolen away, and was +busy in the next room, seeing various young women whom the doctors +had sent, one of whom was to supply to the infant the place of the +poor mother whom it would never know. There was nobody left but +herself to watch this dying mother, so Elizabeth took her lot upon +her, smothered down her fears, and sat by the bedside waiting for the +least expression of returning reason in the sunken face, which was +very quiet now. Consciousness did return at last, as the doctors had +said it would. Mrs. Ascott opened her eyes; they wandered from side +to side, and then she said, feebly, "Elizabeth, where's my baby?" + +What Elizabeth answered she never could remember; perhaps nothing, or +her agitation betrayed her, for Mrs. Ascott said again, "Elizabeth, +am I going to--to leave my baby?" + +Some people might have considered it best to reply with a lie--the +frightened, cowardly lie that is so often told at death-beds to the +soul passing direct to its God. But this girl could not and dared +not. + +Leaning over her mistress, she whispered as softly as she could, +choking down the tears that might have disturbed the peace which, +mercifully, seemed to have come with dying, + +"Yes, you are going very soon--to God. He will watch over baby, and +give him back to you again some day quite safe." + +"Will He?" + +The tone was submissive, half-inquiring; like that of a child +learning something it had never learned before--as Selina was now +learning. Perhaps even those three short weeks of motherhood had +power so to raise her whole nature that she now gained the composure +with which even the weakest soul can sometimes meet death, and had +grown not unworthy of the dignity of a Christian's dying. + +Suddenly she shivered. "I am afraid; I never thought of--this. Will +nobody come and speak to me?" + +Oh, how Elizabeth longed for Miss Hilary, for any body, who would +have known what to say to the dying woman; who perhaps, as her look +and words implied, till this hour had never thought of dying. Once it +crossed the servant's mind to send for some clergyman; but she knew +none, and was aware that Mrs. Ascott did not either. She had no +superstitious feeling that any clergyman would do; just to give a +sort of spiritual extreme unction to the departing soul. Her own +religious faith was of such an intensely personal silent kind, that +she did not believe in any good to be derived from a strange +gentleman coming and praying by the bedside of a stranger, repeating +set sayings with a set countenance, and going away again. And yet +with that instinct which comes to almost every human soul, fast +departing, Mrs. Ascott's white lips whispered, "Pray." + +Elizabeth had no words, except those which Miss Leaf used to say +night after night in the little parlor at Stowbury. She knelt down, +and in a trembling voice repeated in her mistress's ear--"Our Father +which art in heaven"--to the end. + +After it Mrs. Ascott lay very quiet. At length she said, +"Please--bring--my--baby." It had been from the first, and was to the +last, "my" baby. The small face was laid close to hers that she might +kiss it. + +"He looks well; he does not miss me much yet, poor little fellow!" +And the strong natural agony came upon her, conquering even the +weakness of her last hour. "Oh, it's hard, hard! Will nobody teach my +baby to remember me?" + +And then lifting herself up on her elbow she caught hold of nurse. + +"Tell Mr. Ascott that Elizabeth is to take care of baby. Promise, +Elizabeth. Johanna is old--Hilary may be married; you will take care +of my baby?" + +"I will--as long as I live," said Elizabeth Hand. + +She took the child in her arms, and for almost another hour stood +beside the bed thus, until nurse whispered, "Carry it away; its +mother doesn't know it now." + +But she did; for she feebly moved her fingers as if in search of +something. Baby was still asleep, but Elizabeth contrived, by +kneeling down close to the bed, to put the tiny hand under those cold +fingers; they closed immediately upon it, and so remained till the +last. When Miss Leaf and Miss Hilary came in, Elizabeth was still +kneeling there, trying softly to take the little hand away; for the +baby had wakened and began its piteous wail. But it did not disturb +the mother now. + +"Poor Selina" was no more. Nothing of her was left to her child +except the name of a mother. It may have been better so. + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + + "IN MEMORY OF + SELINA, + THE BELOVED WIFE OF PETER ASCOTT, ESQ., + OF RUSSELL SQUARE, LONDON, + AND DAUGHTER OF + THE LATE HENRY LEAF, ESQ., + OF THIS TOWN. + DIED DECEMBER 24, 1839. + AGED 41 YEARS." + +Such was the inscription which now, for six months, had met the eyes +of the inhabitants of Stowbury, on a large, dazzlingly white marble +monument, the first that was placed in the Church-yard of the New +Church. What motive induced Mr. Ascott to inter his wife +here--whether it was a natural wish to lay her, and some day lay +beside her, in their native earth; or the less creditable desire of +showing how rich he had become, and of joining his once humble name, +even on a tombstone, with one of the oldest names in the annals of +Stowbury--nobody could find out. Probably nobody cared. + +The Misses Leaf were content that he should do as he pleased in the +matter: he had shown strong but not exaggerated grief at his loss; if +any remorse mingled therewith, Selina's sisters happily did not know +it. Nobody ever did know the full history of things except Elizabeth, +and she kept it to herself. So the family skeleton was buried quietly +in Mrs. Ascott's grave. + +Peter Ascott showed, in his coarse fashion, much sympathy and +consideration for his wife's sisters. He had them staying in the +house till a week after the funeral was over, and provided them with +the deepest and handsomest mourning. He even, in a formal way took +counsel with them as to the carrying out of Mrs. Ascott's wishes, and +the retaining of Elizabeth in charge of the son and heir, which was +accordingly settled. And then they went back to their old life at +Richmond, and the widower returned to his solitary bachelor ways. He +looked as usual; went to and from the City as usual; and his brief +married life seemed to have passed away from him like a dream. + +Not altogether a dream. Gradually he began to awake to the +consciousness of an occasional child's cry in the house--that large, +silent, dreary house, where he was once more the sole, solitary +master. Sometimes, when he came in from church of Sundays, he would +mount another flight of stairs, walk into the nursery at the top of +the house, and stare with distant curiosity at the little creature in +Elizabeth's arms, pronounce it a "fine child, and did her great +credit!" and then walk down again. He never seemed to consider it as +his child, this poor old bachelor of so many years' standing; he had +outgrown apparently all sense of the affections or the duties of a +father. Whether they ever would come into him; whether, after +babyhood was passed, he would begin to take an interest in the little +creature who throve and blossomed into beauty--which, as if watched +by guardian angles, dead mothers' children often seem to do--was a +source of earnest speculation to Elizabeth. + +In the mean time he treated both her and the baby with extreme +consideration, allowed her to do just as she liked, and gave her +indefinite sums of money to expend upon the nursery. + +When summer came, and the doctor ordered change of air, Mr. Ascott +consented to her suggestion of taking a lodging for herself and baby +near baby's aunts at Richmond; only desiring that the lodging should +be as handsome as could be secured, and that every other Sunday she +should bring up his son to spend the day at Russell Square. + +And so, during the long summer months, the motherless child, in its +deep mourning--which looks so pathetic on a very young baby--might be +seen carried about in Elizabeth's arms every where. When, after the +first six weeks, the wet nurse left--in fact, two or three nurses +successively were abolished--she took little Henry solely under her +own charge. She had comparatively small experience, but she had +common sense, and the strong motherly instinct which comes by nature +to some women. Besides, her whole soul was wrapped up in this little +child. + +From the hour when, even with her mistress dying before her eyes, +Elizabeth had felt a strange thrill of comfort in the new duty which +had come into her blank life, she took to this duty as women only can +whose life has become a blank. She received the child as a blessing +sent direct from God; by unconscious hands--for Mrs. Ascott knew +nothing of what happened; something that would heal her wounded +heart, and make her forget Tom. + +And so it did. Women and mothers well know how engrossing is the care +of an infant; how each minute of the day is filled up with something +to be done or thought of; so that "fretting" about extraneous things +becomes quite impossible. How gradually the fresh life growing up and +expanding puts the worn out or blighted life into the back ground, +and all the hopes and fancies cling around the small, beautiful +present, the ever developing, the ever marvelous mystery of a young +child's existence! Why it should be so, we can only guess; but that +it is so, many a wretched wife, many a widowed mother, many a broken +hearted, forlorn aunt, has thankfully proved. + +Elizabeth proved it likewise. She did not exactly lose all memory of +her trouble, but it seemed lighter; it was swallowed up in this +second passion of adopted motherhood. And so she sank, quietly and at +once, into the condition of a middle aged woman, whose life's +story--and her sort of women have but one--was a mere episode, told +and ended. + +For Esther had left and been married to Tom Cliffe within a few +week's of Mrs. Ascott's funeral. Of course, the household knew every +thing; but nobody condoled with Elizabeth. There was a certain +stand-off-ishness about her which made them hold their tongues. They +treated her with much respect, as her new position demanded. She took +this, as she took every thing, with the grave quietness which was her +fashion from her youth up; assumed her place as a confidential upper +servant; dressed well but soberly, like a woman of forty, and was +called "Mrs. Hand." + +The only trace her "disappointment" left upon her was a slightly +bitter way of speaking about men in general, and a dislike to any +chatter about love affairs and matrimony. Her own story she was never +known to refer to in the most distant way, except once. + +Miss Hilary--who, of course, had heard all, but delicately kept +silence--one night, when little Henry was not well, remained in the +lodgings on Richmond Hill, and slept in the nursery, Elizabeth making +up for herself a bed on the floor close beside baby and cradle. In +the dead of night, the two women, mistress and maid, by some chance, +said a few things to one another which never might have been said in +the daylight, and which, by tacit consent, were never afterward +referred to by either, any more than if they had been spoken in a +dream. + +Elizabeth told briefly, though not without emotion, all that had +happened between herself and Tom, and how he was married to Esther +Martin. And then both women went back, in a moralizing way, to the +days when they had both been "young" at Stowbury, and how different +life was from what they then thought and looked forward to--Miss +Hilary and her "bower maiden." + +"Yes," answered the former with a sigh, "things are indeed not as +people fancy when they are girls. We dream, and dream, and think we +see very far into the future, which nobody sees but God. I often +wonder how my life will end." + +Elizabeth said, after a pause, "I always felt sure you would be +married, Miss Hilary. There was one person--Is he alive still? Is he +ever coming home?" + +"I don't know." + +"I am sure he was very fond of you. And he looked like a good man." + +"He was the best man I ever knew." + +This was all Miss Hilary said, and she said it softly and mournfully. +She might never have said it at all; but it dropped from her unawares +in the deep feeling of the moment, when her heart was tender over +Elizabeth's own sad, simply told story. Also because of a sudden and +great darkness which had come over her own. + +Literally, she did not now know whether Robert Lyon were alive or +dead. Two months ago his letters had suddenly ceased, without any +explanation, his last being exactly the same as the others--as frank, +as warmly affectionate, as cheerful and brave. + +One solution to this was his possible coming home. But she did not, +after careful reasoning on the subject, believe that likely. She knew +exactly his business relations with his employers; that there was a +fixed time for his return to England, which nothing except the very +strongest necessity could alter. Even in the chance of his health +breaking, so as to incapacitate him for work, he should, he always +said, have to go to the hills, rather than take the voyage home +prematurely. And in that case he certainly would have informed his +friends of his movements. There was nothing erratic, or careless, or +eccentric about Robert Lyon; he was a practical, business-like +Scotchman--far too cautious and too regular in all his habits to be +guilty of those accidental negligences by which wanderers abroad +sometimes cause such cruel anxieties to friends at home. + +For the same reason, the other terrible possibility--his death--was +not likely to have happened without their hearing of it. Hilary felt +sure, with the strong confidence of love, that he would have taken +every means to leave her some last word--some farewell token--which +would reach hereafter he was gone, and comfort her with the assurance +of what, living, he had never plainly told. Sometimes, when a wild +terror of his death seized her, this settled conviction drove it back +again. He must be living, or she would have heard. + +There was another interpretation of the silence, which many would +have considered the most probable of all--he might be married. Not +deliberately, but suddenly; drawn into it by some of those impelling +trains of circumstance which are the cause of so many marriages, +especially with men; or, impelled by one of those violent passions +which occasionally seize on an exceedingly good man, fascinating him +against his conscience, reason, and will, until he wakes up to find +himself fettered and ruined for life. Such things do happen, +strangely, pitifully often. The like might have happened to Robert +Lyon. + +Hilary did not actually believe it, but still her common sense told +her that it was possible. She was not an inexperienced girl now; she +looked on the world with the eyes of a woman of thirty; and though, +thank Heaven! the romance had never gone out of her--the faith, and +trust, and tender love--still it had sobered down a little. She knew +it was quite within the bounds of possibility that a young man, +separated from her for seven years, thrown into all kinds of +circumstances and among all sorts of people, should have changed very +much in himself, and, consequently, toward her. That, without +absolute faithlessness, he might suddenly have seen some other woman +he liked better, and have married at once. Or, if he came back +unmarried--she had taught herself to look this probability also +steadily in the face--he might find the reality of her--Hilary +Leaf--different from his remembrance of her; and so, without actual +falseness to the old true love, might not love her any more. + +These fears made her resolutely oppose Johanna's wish to write to the +house of business at Liverpool, and ask what had become of Mr. Lyon. +It seemed like seeking after him, trying to hold him by the slender +chain which he had never attempted to make any stronger, and which, +already, he might have broken, or desired to break. + +She could not do it. Something forbade her; that something in the +inmost depths of a woman's nature which makes her feel her own value, +and exact that she shall be sought; that, if her love be worth +having, it is worth seeking; that, however dear a man may be to her, +she refuses to drop into his mouth like an overripe peach from a +garden wall. In her sharpest agony of anxiety concerning him, Hilary +felt that she could not, on her part, take any step that seemed to +compel love--or even friendship--from Robert Lyon. It was not pride, +she could hardly be called a proud woman; it was an innate sense of +the dignity of that love which, as a free gift, is precious as "much +fine gold." yet becomes the merest dross, utterly and insulting +poor--when paid as a debt of honor, or offered as a benevolent +largess. + +And so, though oftentimes her heart felt breaking, Hilary labored on; +sat the long day patiently at her desk; interested herself in the +young people over whom she ruled; became Miss Balquidder's right hand +in all sorts of schemes which that good woman was forever carrying +out for the benefit of her fellow-creatures; and at leisure times +occupied herself with Johanna, or with Elizabeth and the baby, trying +to think it was a very beautiful and happy world, with love still in +it, and a God of love ruling over it--only, only-- + +Women are very humble in their cruelest pride. Many a day she felt as +if she could have crawled a hundred miles in the dust--like some +Catholic pilgrim--just to get one sight of Robert Lyon. + +Autumn came--lovely and lingering late. It was November, and yet the +air felt mild as May, and the sunshine had that peculiar genial +brightness which autumnal sunshine alone possesses; even as, perhaps, +late happiness has in it a holy calm and sweetness which no youthful +ecstasy can ever boast. + +The day happened to be Hilary's birthday. She had taken a holiday, +which she, Johanna, Elizabeth, and the baby, had spent in Richmond +Park, watching the rabbits darting about under the brown fern, and +the deer grazing contentedly hard by. They had sat a long time under +one of the oak trees with which the Park abounds, listening for the +sudden drop, drop of an occasional acorn among the fallen leaves; or +making merry with the child, as a healthy, innocent, playful child +always can make good women merry. + +Still, Master Henry was not a remarkable specimen of infanthood, and +had never occupied more than his proper nepotal corner in Hilary's +heart. She left him chiefly to Elizabeth, and to his aunt Johanna, in +whom the grandmotherly character had blossomed out in full +perfection. And when these two became engrossed in his infant +majesty. Hilary sat a little apart, unconsciously folding her hands +and fixing her eyes on vacancy; becoming fearfully alive to the sharp +truth, that of all griefs, a strong love unreturned or unfulfilled is +the grief which most blights a woman's life. Say, rather, any human +life; but it is worst to a woman, because she must necessarily endure +passively. So enduring, it is very difficult to recognize the good +hand of God therein. Why should He ordain longings, neither selfish +nor unholy, which yet are never granted; tenderness which expends +itself in vain; sacrifices which are wholly unheeded; and sufferings +which seem quite thrown away? That is, if we dared allege of any +thing in the moral or in the material world, where so much +loveliness, so much love, appear continually wasted, that it is +really "thrown away." We never know through what divine mysteries of +compensation the Great Father of the universe may be carrying out his +sublime plan; and those three words, "God is love," ought to contain, +to every doubting soul, the solution of all things. + +As Hilary rose from under the tree there was a shadow on her sweet +face, a listless weariness in her movements, which caught Johanna's +attention. Johanna had been very good to her child. When, do what she +would, Hilary could not keep down fits of occasional dullness or +impatience, it was touching to see how this woman of over sixty years +slipped from her due pedestal of honor and dignity, to be patient +with her younger sister's unspoken bitterness and incommunicable +care. + +She now, seeing how restless Hilary was, rose when she rose, put her +arm in hers, and accompanied her, speaking or silent, with quick +steps or slow, as she chose, across the beautiful park, than which, +perhaps, all England can not furnish a scene more thoroughly sylvan, +thoroughly English. They rested on that high ground near the gate of +Pembroke Lodge, where the valley of the Thames lies spread out like a +map, stretching miles and miles away in luxuriant greenery. + +"How beautiful! I wonder what a foreigner would think of this view? +Or any one who had been long abroad? How inexpressibly sweet and +home-like it would seem to him!" + +Hilary turned sharply away, and Johanna saw at once what her words +had implied. She felt so sorry, so vexed with herself; but it was +best to leave it alone. So they made their way homeward, speaking of +something else; and then that happened which Johanna had been almost +daily expecting would happen, though she dared not communicate her +hopes to Hilary, lest they might prove fallacious. + +The two figures, both in deep mourning, might have attracted any +one's attention: they caught that of a gentleman, who was walking +quickly and looking about him, as if in search of something. He +passed them at a little distance, then repassed, then turned, holding +out both his hands. + +"Miss Leaf; I was sure it was you." + +Only the voice; every thing else about him was so changed that Hilary +herself would certainly have passed him in the street, that brown, +foreign looking, middle aged man, nor recognized him as Robert Lyon. +But for all that it was himself; it was Robert Lyon. + +Nobody screamed, nobody fainted. People seldom do that in real life, +even when a friend turns up suddenly from the other end of the world. +They only hold out a warm hand, and look silently in one another's +faces, and try to believe that all is real, as these did. + +Robert Lyon shook hands with both ladies, one after the other, Hilary +last, then placed himself between them. + +"Miss Leaf, will you take my arm?" + +The tone, the manner, were so exactly like himself, that in a moment +all these intervening years seemed crushed into an atom of time. +Hilary felt certain, morally and absolutely certain, that, in spite +of all outward change, he was the same Robert Lyon who had bade them +all good-by that Sunday night in the parlor at Stowbury. The same, +even in his love for herself, though he had simply drawn her little +hand under his arm, and never spoken a single word. + +Hilary Leaf, down, secretly, on your heart's lowest knees, and thank +God! Repent of all your bitterness, doubts, and pains; be joyful, be +joyful! But, oh, remember to be so humble withal. + +She was. As she walked silently along by Robert Lyon's side, she +pulled down her veil to hide the sweetest, most contrite, most +child-like tears. What did she deserve, more than her neighbors, that +she should be so very, very happy? And when, a good distance across +the park, she saw the dark, solitary figure of Elizabeth carrying +baby, she quietly guided her companions into a different path, so as +to avoid meeting, lest the sight of her happiness might in any way, +hurt poor Elizabeth. + +"I only landed last night at Southampton," Mr. Lyon explained to Miss +Leaf, after the fashion people have, at such meetings, of falling +upon the most practical and uninteresting details. "I came by the +Overland Mail. It was a sudden journey, I had scarcely more than a +few hours' notice. The cause of it was some very unpleasant +defalcations in our firm." + +Under any other circumstances Hilary might have smiled; maybe she did +smile, and tease him many a time afterward, because the first thing +he could find to talk about, after seven years' absence, was +"defalcations in our firm. But now she listened gravely, and +by-and-by took her part in the unimportant conversation which always +occurs after such a meeting as this. + +"Were you going home, Miss Leaf? They told me at your house you were +expected to dinner. May I come with you? for I have only a few hours +to stay. To-night I must go on to Liverpool." + +"But we shall hope soon to see you again?" + +"I hope so. And I trust, Miss Leaf, that I do not intrude to-day." + +He said this with his Scotch shyness, or pride, or whatever it was; +so like his old self, that it made somebody smile! But somebody loved +it. Somebody lifted up to his face eyes of silent welcome; sweet, +soft, brown eyes, where never, since he knew them, had he seen one +cloud of anger darken, one shadow of unkindness rise. + +"This is something worth coming home to," he said in a low voice, and +not over lucidly. Ay, it was. + +"I am by no means disinterested in the matter of dinner, Miss Leaf; +for I have no doubt of finding good English roast beef and plum +pudding on your sister's birth day.--Happy returns of the day, Miss +Hilary." + +She was so touched by his remembering this, that, to hide it, she put +on a spice of her old mischievousness, and asked him if he was aware +how old she was? + +"Yes; you are thirty; I have known you for fifteen years." + +"It is a long time," said Johanna, thoughtfully. + +Johanna would not have been human had she not been a little +thoughtful and silent on the way home, and had she not many times, +out of the corners of her eyes, sharply investigated Mr. Robert Lyon. + +He was much altered; there was no doubt of that. Seven years of +Indian life would change any body; take the youthfulness out of any +body. It was so with Robert Lyon. When coming into the parlor he +removed his hat, many a white thread was visible in his hair, and +besides the spare, dried-up look which is always noticeable in people +who have lived long in hot climates, there was an "old" expression in +his face, indicating many a worldly battle fought and won, but not +without leaving scars behind. Even Hilary, as she sat opposite to +him, at table, could not but feel that he was no longer a young man +either in appearance or reality. We ourselves grow old, or older, +without knowing it, but when we suddenly come upon the same fact in +another it startles us. Hilary had scarcely recognized how far she +herself had left her girlish days behind till she saw Robert Lyon. + +"You think me very much changed?" said he, guessing by his curiously +swift intuition of old what she was thinking of. + +"Yes, a good deal changed," she answered truthfully; at which he was +silent. + +He could not read--perhaps no man's heart could--all the emotion that +swelled in hers as she looked at him, the love of her youth, no +longer young. How the ghostly likeness of the former face gleamed out +under the hard worn lines of the face that now was touching her with +ineffable tenderness. Also, with solemn content came a sense of the +entire indestructibleness of that love which through all decay or +alteration traces the ideal image still, clings to it, and cherishes +it with a tenacity that laughs to scorn the grim dread of "growing +old." + +In his premature and not specially comely middle age, in his gray +hairs, in the painful, anxious, half melancholy expression which +occasionally flitted across his features, as if life had gone hard +with him, Robert Lyon was a thousand times dearer to her than when +the world was all before them both in the early days at Stowbury. + +There is a great deal of a sentimental nonsense talked about people +having been "young together." Not necessarily is that a bond. Many a +tie formed in youth dwindles away and breaks off naturally in maturer +years. Characters alter, circumstances divide. No one will dare to +allege that there may not be loves and friendships formed in middle +life as dear, as close, as firm as any of those of youth; perhaps, +with some temperaments, infinitely more so. But when the two go +together, when the calm election of maturity confirms the early +instinct, and the lives have been parallel, as it were, for many +years, there can be no bond like that of those who say as these two +did, "We were young together." + +He said so when, after dinner, he came and stood by the window where +Hilary was sitting sewing. Johanna had just gone out of the room; +whether intentionally or not, this history can not avouch. Let us +give her the benefit of the doubt; she was a generous woman. + +During the three hours that Mr. Lyon had been with her, Hilary's +first agitation had subsided. That exceeding sense of rest which she +had always felt beside him--the sure index of people who, besides +loving, are meant to guide and help and bless one another--returned +as strong as ever. That deep affection which should underlie all love +revived and clung to him with a chidlike confidence strengthening at +every word he said, every familiar look and way. + +He was by no means so composed as she was, especially now when coming +up to her side and watching her hands moving for a minute or so, he +asked her to tell him, a little more explicitly, of what had happened +to her since they parted. + +"Things are rather different from what I thought;" and he glanced +with a troubled air round the neat but very humbly furnished parlor. +"And about the shop?" + +"Johanna told you." + +"Yes; but her letters have been so few, so short--not that I could +expect more. Still--now, if you will trust me--tell me all." + +Hilary turned to him, her friend for fifteen years. He was that if he +was nothing more. And he had been very true; he deserved to be +trusted. She told him, in brief, the history of the last year or two, +and then added: + +"But after all it is hardly worth the telling, because, you see, we +are very comfortable now. Poor Ascott, we suppose, must be in +Australia. I earn enough to keep Johanna and myself, and Miss +Balquidder is a good friend to us. We have repaid her, and owe nobody +any thing. Still, we have suffered a great deal. Two years ago; oh! +it was a dreadful time." + +She was hardly aware of it, but her candid tell-tale face betrayed +more even than her words. It cut Robert Lyon to the heart. + +"You suffered, and I never knew it." + +"I never meant you to know." + +"Why not?" He walked the room in great excitement. "I ought to have +been told; it was cruel not to tell me. Suppose you had sunk under +it; suppose you had died, or been driven to do what many a woman does +for the sake of mere bread and a home--what your poor sister +did--married. But I beg your pardon." + +For Hilary had started up with her face all aglow. + +"No," she cried; "no poverty would have sunk me as low as that. I +might have starved, but I should never have married." + +Robert Lyon looked at her, evidently uncomprehending, then said +humbly, though rather formally, + +"I beg your pardon once more. I had no right to allude to any thing +of the kind." + +Hilary replied not. It seemed as if now, close together, they were +further apart than when the Indian seas rolled between them. + +Mr. Lyon's brown cheek turned paler and paler; he pressed his lips +hard together; they moved once or twice, but still he did not utter a +word. At last, with a sort of desperate courage, and in a tone that +Hilary had never heard from him in her life before, he said: + +"Yes, I believe I have a right, the right that every man has when his +whole happiness depends upon it, to ask you one question. You know +every thing concerning me; you always have known; I meant that you +should--I have taken the utmost care that you should. There is not a +bit of my life that has not been as open to you as if--as if--. But I +know nothing whatever concerning you." + +"What do you wish to know?" she faltered. + +"Seven years is a long time. Are you free? I mean, are you engaged to +be married?" + +"No." + +"Thank God!" + +He dropped his head down between his hands and did not speak for a +long time. + +And then with difficulty--for it was always hard to him to speak +out--he told her, at least he somehow made her understand, how he had +loved her. No light fancy of sentimental youth, captivated by every +fresh face it sees, putting upon each one the coloring of his own +imagination, and adorning not what is, but what itself creates; no +sudden, selfish, sensuous passion, caring only to attain its object, +irrespective of reason, right, or conscience; but the strong deep +love of a just man, deliberately choosing one woman as the best woman +out of all the world, and setting himself resolutely to win her. +Battling for her sake with all hard fortune; keeping, for her sake, +his heart pure from all the temptations of the world; never losing +sight of her; watching over her so far as he could, consistently with +the sense of honor (or masculine pride--which was it? but Hilary +forgave it, any how) which made him resolutely compel himself to +silence; holding her perfectly free, while he held himself bound. +Bound by a faithfulness perfect as that of the knights of old--asking +nothing, and yet giving all. + +Such was his love--this brave, plain spoken, single hearted Scotsman. +Would that there were more such men and more such love in the world! +Few women could have resisted it, certainly not Hilary, especially +with a little secret of her own lying perdu at the bottom of her +heart; that "sleeping angel" whence half her strength and courage had +come; the noble, faithful, generous love of a good woman for a good +man. But this secret Robert Lyon had evidently never guessed, or +deemed himself wholly unworthy of such a possession. + +He took her hand at last, and held it firmly. + +"And now that you know all, do you think in time--I'll not hurry +you--but in time, do you think I could make you love me?" + +She looked up in his face with her honest eyes. Smiling as they were, +there was pathos in them; the sadness left by those long years of +hidden suffering, now forever ended. + +"I have loved you all my life," said Hilary. + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +Let us linger a little over this chapter of happy love: so sweet, so +rare a thing. Aye, most rare: though hundreds continually meet, love, +or fancy they do, engage themselves, and marry; and hundreds more go +through the same proceeding, with the slight difference of the love +omitted--Hamlet, with the part of Hamlet left out. But the real love, +steady and true: tried in the balance, and not found wanting: tested +by time, silence, separation; by good and ill fortune; by the natural +and inevitable change which years make in every character--this is +the rarest thing to be found on earth, and the most precious. + +I do not say that all love is worthless which is not exactly this +sort of love. There have been people who have succumbed instantly and +permanently to some mysterious attraction, higher than all reasoning; +the same which made Hilary "take an interest" in Robert Lyon's face +at church, and made him, he afterward confessed, the very first time +he gave Ascott a lesson in the parlor at Stowbury, say to himself, +"If I did marry, I think I should like such a wife as that brown-eyed +bit lassie." And there have been other people, who choosing their +partners from accidental circumstances, or from mean worldly motives, +have found Providence kinder to them than they deserved, and settled +down into happy, affectionate husbands and wives. + +But none of these loves can possibly have the sweetness, the +completeness of such a love as that between Hilary Leaf and Robert +Lyon. + +There was nothing very romantic about it. From the moment when +Johanna entered the parlor, found them standing hand-in-hand at the +fireside, and Hilary came forward and kissed her, and after a slight +hesitation Robert did the same, the affair proceeded in most millpond +fashion: + + "Unruffled by those cataracts and breaks, + That humor interposed too often makes.': + +There were no lovers' quarrels; Robert Lyon had chosen that best +blessing next to a good woman, a sweet tempered woman; and there was +no reason why they should quarrel more as lovers than they had done +as friends. And, let it be said to the eternal honor of both, now, no +more than in their friendship days, was there any of that hungry +engrossment of each other's society, which is only another form of +selfishness, and by which lovers so often make their own happy +courting time a season of never-to-be-forgotten bitterness to every +body connected with them. + +Johanna suffered a little: all people do when the new rights clash +with the old ones; but she rarely betrayed it. She was exceedingly +good: she saw her child happy, and she loved Robert Lyon dearly. He +was very mindful of her, very tender; and as Hilary still persisted +in doing her daily duty in the shop, he spent more of his time with +the elder sister than he did with the younger, and sometimes declared +solemnly that if Hilary did not treat him well he intended to make an +offer to Johanna! + +Oh, the innumerable little jokes of those happy days! Oh, the long, +quiet walks by the river side, through the park, across Ham +Common--any where--it did not matter; the whole world looked lovely, +even on the dullest winter day! Oh, the endless talks; the renewed +mingling of two lives, which, though divided, had never been really +apart, for neither had any thing to conceal; neither had ever loved +any but the other. + +Robert Lyon was, as I have said, a good deal changed, outwardly and +inwardly. He had mixed much in society, taken an excellent position +therein, and this had given him not only a more polished manner, but +an air of decision and command, as of one used to be obeyed. There +could not be the slightest doubt, as Johanna once laughingly told +him, that he would always be "master in his own house." + +But he was very gentle with his "little woman" as he called her. He +would sit for hours at the "ingle-neuk"--how he did luxuriate in the +English fires!--with Hilary on a footstool beside him, her arm +resting on his knee, or her hand fast clasped in his. And sometimes, +when Johanna went out of the room, he would stoop and gather her +close to his heart. But I shall tell no tales; the world has no +business with these sort of things. + +Hilary was very shy of parading her happiness; she disliked any +demonstrations thereof, even before Johanna. And when Miss +Balquidder, who had, of course, been told of the engagement, came +down one day expressly to see her "fortunate fellow countryman," this +Machiavellian little woman actually persuaded her lover to have an +important engagement in London! She could not bear him to be "looked +at." + +"Ah, well, you must leave me, and I will miss you terribly, my deal," +said the old Scotch woman. But it's an ill wind that blows nobody +good, and I have another young lady quite ready to step into your +shoes. When shall you be married?" + +"I don't know--hush: we'll talk another time," said Hilary, glancing +at Johanna. + +Miss Balquidder took the hint and was silent. + +That important question was indeed beginning to weigh heavily on +Hilary's mind. She was fully aware of what Mr. Lyon wished, and +indeed, expected; that when, the business of the firm being settled, +in six months hence he returned to India, he should not return alone. +When he said this, she had never dared to answer, hardly even to +think. She let the peaceful present float on, day by day, without +recognizing such a thing as the future. + +But this could not be always. It came to an end one January +afternoon, when he had returned from a second absence in Liverpool. +They were walking up Richmond Hill. The sun had set frostily and red +over the silver curve of the Thames, and Venus, large and bright, was +shining like a great eye in the western sky. Hilary long remembered +exactly how every thing looked, even to the very tree they stood +under, when Robert Lyon asked her to fix definitely the day that she +would marry him. Would she consent--there seemed no special reason to +the contrary--that it should be immediately? Or would she like to +remain with Johanna as she was, till just before they sailed? He +wished to be as good as possible to Johanna--still. + +And something in his manner impressed Hilary more than ever before +with the conviction of all she was to him; likewise, all he was to +her. More, much more than even a few short weeks since. Then, intense +as it was, the love had a dream like unreality; now it was close, +home-like, familiar. Instinctively she clung to his arm; she had +become so used to being Robert's darling now. She shivered as she +thought of the wide seas rolling between them; of the time when she +should look for him at the daily meal and daily fireside, and find +him no more. + +"Robert, I want to talk to you about Johanna." + +"I guess what it is," said he, smiling; "you would like her to go out +to India with us. Certainly, if she chooses. I hope you did not +suppose I should object." + +"No; but it is not that. She would not live six months in a hot +climate; the doctor tells me so." + +"You consulted him?" + +"Yes, confidentially, without her knowing it. But I thought it right. +I wanted to make quite sure before--before-- Oh, Robert--." + +The grief of her tone caused him to suspect what was coming, He +started. + +"You don't mean that? Oh no, you can not! My little woman, my own +little woman--she could not be so unkind." + +Hilary turned sick at heart. The dim landscape, the bright sky, +seemed to mingle and dance before her, and Venus to stare at her with +a piercing, threatening, baleful lustre. + +"Robert, let me sit down on the bench, and sit you beside me. It is +too dark for people to notice us, and we shall not be very cold." + +"No, my darling;" and he slipped his plaid round her shoulders, and +his arm with it. + +She looked up pitifully. "Don't be vexed with me, Robert, dear; I +have thought it all over; weighed it on every side; nights and nights +I have been awake pondering what was right to do. And it always comes +to the same thing." + +"What?" + +"It's the old story," she answered with a feeble smile. "'I canna +leave my minnie.' There is nobody in the world to take care of +Johanna but me, not even Elizabeth, who is engrossed in little Henry. +If I left her, I am sure it would kill her. And she can not come with +me. Dear!" (the only fond name she ever called him) "for these three +years--you say it need only be three years--you will have to go back +to India alone." + +Robert Lyon was a very good man; but he was only a man, not an angle; +and though he made comparatively little show of it, he was a man very +deeply in love. With that jealous tenacity over his treasure, hardly +blamable, since the love is worth little which does not wish to have +its object "all to itself," he had, I am afraid, contemplated not +without pleasure the carrying off of Hilary to his Indian home; and +it had cost him something to propose that Johanna should go too. He +was very fond of Johanna; still-- + +If I tell what followed will it forever lower Robert Lyon in the +estimation of all readers? He said, coldly, "As you please, Hilary;" +rose up, and never spoke another word till they reached home. + +It was the first dull tea table they had ever known; the first time +Hilary had ever looked at that dear face, and seen an expression +there which made her look away again. He did not sulk; he was too +gentlemanly for that; he even exerted himself to make the meal pass +pleasantly as usual; but he was evidently deeply wounded; nay, more, +displeased. The strong, stern man's nature within him had rebelled; +the sweetness had gone out of his face, and something had come into +it which the very best of men have sometimes: alas for the woman who +cannot understand and put up with it! + +I am not going to preach the doctrine of tyrants and slaves; but when +two walk together they must be agreed, or if by any chance they are +not agreed, one must yield. It may not always be the weaker, or in +weakness may lie the chiefest strength; but it must be one or other +of the two who has to be the first to give way; and, save in very +exceptional cases, it is, and it ought to be, the woman. God's law +and nature's which is also God's, ordains this; instinct teaches it; +Christianity enforces it. + +Will it inflict a death blow upon any admiration she may have +excited, this brave little Hilary, who fought through the world by +herself; who did not shrink from traversing London streets alone at +seemly and unseemly hours; from going into sponging houses and +debtor's prisons; from earning her own livelihood, even in a shop--if +I confess that Robert Lyon, being angry with her, justly or unjustly, +and she, looking upon him as her future husband, her "lord and +master" if you will, whom she would one day promise, and intended, +literally "to obey"--she thought it her duty, not only her pleasure +but her duty, to be the first to make reconciliation between them? +ay, and at every sacrifice, except that of principle. + +And I am afraid, in spite of all that "strong-minded" women may +preach to the contrary, that all good women will have to do this to +all men who stand in any close relation toward them, whether fathers, +husbands, brothers, or lovers, if they wish to preserve peace, and +love, and holy domestic influence; and that so it must be to the end +of time. + +Miss Leaf might have discovered that something was amiss; but she was +too wise to take any notice, and being more than usually feeble that +day, immediately after tea she went to lie down. When Hilary followed +her, arranged her pillows, and covered her up, Johanna drew her +child's face close to her and whispered, + +"That will do, love. Don't stay with me. I would not keep you from +Robert on any account." + +Hilary all but broke down; and yet the words made her stronger +firmer; set more clearly before her the solemn duty which young folks +in love are so apt to forget, that there can be no blessing on the +new tie, if for any thing short of inevitable necessity they let go +one link of the old. + +Yet, Robert-- It was such a new and dreadful feeling to be standing +outside the door and shrink from going in to him; to see him rise up +formally, saying, "Perhaps he had better leave;" and have to answer +with equal formality, "Not unless you are obliged;" and for him then, +with a shallow pretence of being at ease, to take up a book and offer +to read aloud to her while she worked. He--who used always to set his +face strongly against all sewing of evenings--because it deprived him +temporarily of the sweet eyes, and the little soft hand. Oh, it was +hard, hard! + +Nevertheless, she sat still and tried to listen; but the words went +in at one ear and out at the other; she retained nothing. By-and-by +her throat began to swell, and she could not see her needle and +thread. Yet still he went on reading. It was only when, by some +blessed chance, turning to reach a paper cutter, he caught sight of +her, that he closed the book and looked discomposed; not softened, +only discomposed. + +Who shall be first to speak? Who shall catch the passing angel's +wing? One minute, and it may have passed over. I am not apologizing +for Hilary the least in the world. I do not know even if she +considered whether it was her place or Robert's to make the first +advance. Indeed, I fear she did not consider it at all, but just +acted upon impulse, because it was so cruel, so heart breaking, to be +at variance with him. But if she had considered it I doubt not she +would have done from duty exactly what she did by instinct--crept up +to him as he sat at the fireside, and laid her little hand on his. + +"Robert, what makes you so angry with me still?" + +"Not angry; I have no right to be." + +"Yes, you would have if I had really done wrong. Have I?" + +"You must judge for yourself. For me--I thought you loved me better +than I find you do, and I made a mistake; that is all." + +Ay, he had made a mistake, but it was not that one. It was the other +mistake that men continually make about women; they can not +understand that love is not worth having, that it is not love at all, +but merely a selfish carrying out of selfish desires, if it blinds us +to any other duty, or blunts in us any other sacred tenderness. They +can not see how she who is false in one relation may be false in +another; and that, true as human nature's truth, ay, and often +fulfilling itself, is Brabantio's ominous warning to Othello-- + + "Look to her, Moor! have a good eye to see; + She has deceived her father, and may thee." + +Perhaps as soon as he had said the bitter word Mr. Lyon was sorry, +any how, the soft answer which followed it thrilled through every +nerve of the strong willed man--a man not easily made angry, but when +he was, very hard to move. + +"Robert, will you listen to me for two minutes?" + +"For as long as you like, only you must not expect me to agree with +you. You can not suppose I shall say it is right for you to forsake +me." + +"I forsake you? Oh, Robert!" + +Words are not always the wisest arguments. His "little woman" crept +closer, and laid her head on his breast: he clasped convulsively. + +"Oh, Hilary, how could you wound me so?" + +And in lieu of the discussion, a long silence brooded over the +fireside--the silence of exceeding love. + +"Now, Robert, may I talk to you?" + +"Yes. Preach away, my little conscience." + +"It shall not be preaching, and it is not altogether for conscience," +said she smiling. "You would not like me to tell you I did not love +Johanna?" + +"Certainly not. I love her very much myself, only I prefer you, as is +natural. Apparently you do not prefer me, which may also be natural." + +"Robert!" + +There are times when a laugh is better than a reproach; and something +else, which need not be more particularly explained, is safer than +either. It is possible Hilary tried the experiment, and then resumed +her "say." + +"Now, Robert put yourself in my place, and try to think for me. I +have been Johanna's child for thirty years; she is entirely dependent +upon me. Her health is feeble; every year of her life is at least +doubtful. If she lost me I think she would never live out the next +three years. You would not like that?" + +"No." + +"In all divided duties like this somebody must suffer; the question +is, which can suffer best? She is old and frail, we are young; she is +alone, we are two; she never had any happiness in her life, except, +perhaps me; and we--oh how happy we are! I think, Robert, it would be +better for us to suffer than poor Johanna." + +"You little Jesuit," he said: but the higher nature of the man was +roused; he was no longer angry. + +"It is only for a short time, remember--only three years." + +"And how can I do without you for three years?" + +"Yes, Robert, you can." And she put her arms round his neck, and +looked at him, eye to eye. "You know I am your very own, a piece of +yourself, as it were; that when I let you go it is like tearing +myself from myself; yet I can bear it, rather than do, or let you do, +in the smallest degree, a thing which is not right." + +Robert Lyon was not a man of many words; but he had the rare faculty +of seeing a case clearly, without reference to himself, and of +putting it clearly also, when necessary. + +"It seems to me, Hilary, that this is hardly a matter of abstract +right or wrong, or a good deal might be argued on my side of the +subject. It is more a case of personal conscience. The two are not +always identical, though they look so at first; but they both come to +the same result." + +"And that is--" + +"If my little woman thinks it right to act as she does, I also think +it right to let her. And let this be the law of our married life, if +we ever are married," and he sighed, "that when we differ each should +respect the other's conscience, and do right in the truest sense, by +allowing the other to do the same." + +"Oh, Robert! how good you are." + +So these two, an hour after, met Johanna with cheerful faces; and she +never knew how much both had sacrificed for her sake. Once only, when +she was for a few minutes absent from the parlor, did Robert Lyon +renew the subject, to suggest a medium course. + +But Hilary resolutely refused. Not that she doubted him--she doubted +herself. She knew quite well by the pang that darted through her like +a shaft of ice, as she felt his warm arm round her, and thought of +the time when she would feel it no more, that, after she had been +Robert Lyon's happy wife for three months, to let him go to India +without her would be simply and utterly impossible. + +Fast fled the months; they dwindled into weeks, and then into days. I +shall not enlarge upon this time. Now, when the ends of the world +have been drawn together, and every family has one or more relatives +abroad, a grief like Hilary's has become so common that nearly every +one can, in degree, understand it. How bitter such partings are, how +much they take out of the brief span of mortal life, and, therefore, +how far they are justifiable, for any thing short of absolute +necessity, Heaven knows. + +In this case it was an absolutely necessity. Robert Lyon's position +in "our firm," with which he identified himself with the natural +pride of a man who has diligently worked his way up to fortune, was +such that he could not, without sacrificing his future prospects, and +likewise what he felt to be a point of honor, refuse to go back to +Bombay until such time as his senior partner's son, the young fellow +whom he had "coached" in Hindostanee, and nursed through a fever +years ago, could conveniently take his place abroad. + +"Of course," he said, explaining this to Hilary and her sister, +"accidental circumstances might occur to cause my return home before +the three years were out, but the act must be none of mine; I must do +my duty." + +"Yes, you must," answered Hilary, with a gleam lighting up her eyes. +She loved so in him this one great principle of his life--the +back-bone of it, as it were--duty before all things. + +Johanna asked no questions. Once she had inquired, with a tremulous, +hardly concealed alarm, whether Robert wished to take Hilary back +with him, and Hilary had kissed her, smilingly, saying, "No, that was +impossible." Afterward the subject was never revived. + +And so these two lovers, both stern in what they thought their duty, +went on silently together to the last day of parting. + +It was almost as quiet a day as that never-to-be-forgotten Sunday at +Stowbury. They went a long walk together, in the course of which Mr. +Lyon forced her to agree to what hitherto she had steadfastly +resisted, that she and Johanna should accept from him enough, in +addition to their own fifty pounds a year, to enable them to live +comfortably without her working any more. + +"Are you ashamed of my working?" she asked, with something between a +tear and a smile. "Sometimes I used to be afraid you would think the +less of me because circumstances made me an independent woman, +earning my own bread. Do you?" + +"My darling, no. I am proud of her. But she must never work any more. +Johanna says right; it is a man's place, and not a woman's. I will +not allow it." + +When he spoke in that tone Hilary always submitted. + +He told her another thing while arranging with her all the business +part of their concerns, and to reconcile her to this partial +dependence upon him, which, he urged, was only forestalling his +rights; that before he first quitted England, seven years ago, he had +made his will, leaving her, if still unmarried, his sole heir and +legatee, indeed in exactly the position that she would have been had +she been his wife. + +"This will exists still; so that in any case you are safe. No further +poverty can ever befall my Hilary." + +His--his own--Robert Lyon's own. Her sense of this was so strong that +it took away the sharpness of the parting, made her feel, up to the +very last minute, when she clung to him--was pressed close to +him--heart to heart and lip to lip--for a space that seemed half a +life-time of mixed anguish and joy--that he was not really going; +that somehow or other, next day or next week he would be back again, +as in his frequent re-appearances, exactly as before. + +When he was really gone--when, as she sat with her tearless eyes +fixed on the closed door--Johanna softly touched her, saying, "My +child" then Hilary learned it all. + +The next twenty-four hours will hardly bear being written about. Most +people know what it is to miss the face out of the house--the life +out of the heart. To come and go, to eat and drink, to lie down and +rise, and find all thing the same, and gradually to recognize that it +must be the same, indefinitely, perhaps always. To be met continually +by small trifles--a dropped glove, a book, a scrap of handwriting +that yesterday would have been thrown into the fire, but to-day is +picked up and kept as a relic; and at times, bursting through the +quietness which must be gained, or at least assumed, the cruel +craving for one word more--one kiss more--for only one five minutes +of the eternally ended yesterday! + +All this hundreds have gone through; so did Hilary. She said +afterward it was good for her that she did; it would make her feel +for others in a way she had never felt before. Also, because it +taught her that such a heart-break can be borne and lived through +when help is sought where only real help can be found; and where, +when reason fails, and those who, striving to do right irrespective +of the consequences, cry out against their torments and wonder why +they should be made so to suffer, childlike faith comes to their +rescue. For, let us have all the philosophy at our fingers' ends, +what are we but children? We know not what a day may bring forth. All +wisdom resolves itself into the simple hymn which we learned when we +were young: + + "Deep in unfathomable mines + Of never-failing skill. + He treasures up His vast designs, + And works His sovereign will. + + "Blind unbelief is sure to err. + And scan His work in vain: + God is His own interpreter. + And He will make it plain." + +The night after Robert Lyon left, Hilary and Johanna were sitting +together in their parlor. Hilary had been writing a long letter to +Miss Balquidder, explaining that she would now give up in favor of +the other young lady, or any other of the many to whom it would be a +blessing, her position in the shop; but that she hoped still to help +her--Miss Balquidder--in any way she could point out that would be +useful to others. She wished, in her humble way, as a sort of thank +offering from one who had passed through the waves and been landed +safe ashore, to help those who were still struggling, as she herself +had struggled once. She desired, as far as in her lay, to be Miss +Balquidder's "right hand" till Mr. Lyon came home. + +This letter she read aloud to Johanna, whose failing eye sight +refused all candle light occupation, and then came and sat beside her +in silence. She felt terribly worn and weary, but she was very quiet +now. + +"We must go to bed early," was all she said. + +"Yes, my child." + +And Johanna smoothed her hair in the old, fond way, making no attempt +to console her, but only to love her--always the safest consolation. +And Hilary was thankful that never, even in her sharpest agonies of +grief, had she betrayed that secret which would have made her +sister's life miserable, have blotted out the thirty years of +motherly love, and caused the other love to rise up like a cloud +between her and it, never to be lifted until Johanna sank into the +possibly not far-off grave. + +"No, no," she thought to herself, as she looked on that frail, old +face, which even the secondary, grief of this last week seemed to +have made frailer and older. "No, it is better as it is; I believe I +did right. The end will show." + +The end was nearer than she thought. So, sometimes--not often, lest +self-sacrifice should become a less holy thing than it is--Providence +accepts the will for the act, and makes the latter needless. + +There was a sudden knock at the hall door. "It is the young people +coming in to supper." + +"It's not," said Hilary, starting up--"it's not their knock. It is--" + +She never finished the sentence, for she was sobbing in Robert Lyon's +arms. + +"What does it all mean?" cried the bewildered Johanna, of whom, I +must confess, for once nobody took the least notice. + +It meant that, by one of these strange accidents, as we call them, +which in a moment alter the whole current of things, the senior +partner had suddenly died, and his son, not being qualified to take +his place in the Liverpool house, had to go out to India instead of +Robert Lyon, who would now remain permanently, as the third senior +partner, in England. + +This news had met him at Southampton. He had gone thence direct to +Liverpool, arranged affairs so far as was possible, and returned, +traveling without an hour's intermission, to tell his own tidings, as +was best--or as he thought it was. + +Perhaps at the core of his heart lurked the desire to come suddenly +back, as, it is said, if the absent or the dead should come, they +would find all things changed; the place filled up in home and +hearth--no face of welcome--no heart leaping to heart in the ecstasy +of reunion. + +Well, if Robert Lyon had any misgivings--and being a man, and in +love, perhaps he had--they were ended now. + +"Is she glad to see me?" was all he could find to say when, Johanna +having considerately vanished, he might have talked as much as he +pleased. + +Hilary's only answer was a little, low laugh of inexpressible +content. + +He lifted up between his bands the sweet face, neither so young nor +so pretty as it had been, but oh! so sweet, with the sweetness that +long outlives beauty--a face that a man might look on all his life +time and never tire of--so infinitely loving, so infinitely true! And +he knew it was his wife's face, to shine upon him day by day, and +year by year, till it faded into old age--beautiful and beloved even +then. All the strong nature of the man gave way; he wept almost like +a child in his "little woman's" arms. + +Let us leave them there, by that peaceful fireside--these two, who +are to sit by one fire-side as long as they live. Of their further +fortune we know nothing--nor do they themselves--except the one fact, +in itself joy enough for any mortal cup to hold, that it will be +shared together. Two at the hearth, two abroad; two to labor, two to +rejoice; or, if so it must be, two to weep, and two to comfort one +another; the man to be the head of the woman, and the woman the heart +of the man. This is the ordination of God; this is the perfect life; +none the less perfect that so many fall short of it. + +So let us bid them good-by: Robert Lyon and Hilary Leaf, "Good-by; +God be with ye!" for we shall see them no more. + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +Elizabeth stood at the nursery window, pointing out to little Henry +how the lilacs and laburnums were coming into flower in the square +below, and speculating with him whether the tribe of sparrows which +they had fed all the winter from the mignonette boxes on the window +sill would be building nests in the tall trees of Russell Square; for +she wished, with her great aversion to London, to make her nursling +as far as possible "a country child." + +Master Henry Leaf Ascott was by no means little now. He would run +about on his tottering fat legs, and he could say, "Mammy Lizzie," +also, "Pa-pa," as had been carefully taught him by his conscientious +nurse. At which papa had been at first excessively surprised, then +gratified, and had at last taken kindly to the appellation as a +matter of course. + +It inaugurated a new era in Peter Ascott's life. At first twice a +week, and then every day, he sent up for "Master Ascott" to keep him +company at dessert; he then changed his dinner hour from half past +six to five, because Elizabeth, with her stern sacrifice of every +thing to the child's good, had suggested to him, humbly but firmly, +that late hours kept little Henry too long out of his bed. He gave up +his bottle of port and his after-dinner sleep, and took to making +water-lilies and caterpillars out of oranges and boats out of walnut +shells, for his boy's special edification. Sometimes when, at half +past six, Elizabeth, punctual as clock-work, knocked at the dining +room door, she heard father and son laughing together in a most +jovial manner, though the decanters were in their places and the wine +glasses untouched. + +And even after the child disappeared, the butler declared that master +usually took quietly to his newspaper, or rang for his tea, or +perhaps dozed harmlessly in his chair till bedtime. + +I do not allege that Peter Ascott was miraculously changed; people do +not change, especially at his age; externally he was still the same +pompous, overbearing, coarse man, with whom, no doubt, his son would +have a tolerably sore bargain in years to come. But still the child +had touched a soft corner in his heart, the one soft corner which in +his youth had yielded to the beauty of Miss Selina Leaf; and the old +fellow was a better fellow than he had once been. Probably, with +care, he might be for the rest of his life at least manageable. + +Elizabeth hoped so for his boy's sake, and little as she liked him, +she tried to conquer her antipathy as much as she could. She always +ways took care to treat him with extreme respect, and to bring up +little Henry to do the same. And, as often happens, Mr. Ascott began +gradually to comport himself in a manner deserving of respect. He +ceased his oaths and his coarse language; seldom flew into a passion; +and last, not least, the butler avouched that master hardly ever went +to bed "muzzy" now. Toward all his domestics, and especially his +son's nurse, he behaved himself more like a master and less like a +tyrant; so that the establishment at Russell Square went on in a way +more peaceful than had ever been known before. + +There was no talk of his giving it a new mistress; he seemed to have +had enough of matrimony. Of his late wife he never spoke; whether he +loved her or not, whether he had regretted her or not, the love and +regret were now alike ended. + +Poor Selina! It was Elizabeth only, who, with a sacred sense of duty, +occasionally talked to little Henry about "mamma up there"--pointing +to the blank bit of blue sky over the trees of Russell Square, and +hoped in time to make him understand something about her, and how she +had loved him, her "baby." This love, the only beautiful emotion her +life had known, was the one fragment that remained of it after her +death; the one remembrance she left to her child. + +Little Henry was not in the least like her, nor yet like his father. +He took after some forgotten type, some past generation of either +family, which reappeared in this as something new. To Elizabeth he +was a perfect revelation of beauty and infantile fascination. He +filled up every corner of her heart. She grew fat and flourishing, +even cheerful; so cheerful that she bore with equanimity the parting +with her dear Miss Hilary, who went away in glory and happiness as +Mrs. Robert Lyon, to live in Liverpool, and Miss Leaf with her. Thus +both Elizabeth's youthful dreams ended in nothing, and it was more +than probable that for the future their lives and hers being so +widely apart, she would see very little of her beloved mistresses any +more. But they had done their work in her and for her; and it had +borne fruit a hundred fold, and would still. + +"I know you will take care of this child--he is the hope of the +family," said Miss Leaf, when she was giving her last kiss to little +Henry. "I could not bear to leave him, if I were not leaving him with +you." + +And Elizabeth had taken her charge proudly in her arms, knowing she +was trusted, and in vowing to be worthy of that trust. + +Another dream was likewise ended; so completely that she sometimes +wondered if it was ever real, whether she had ever been a happy girl, +looking forward as girls do to wifehood and motherhood; or whether +she had not been always the staid middle aged person she was now, +whom nobody ever suspected of any such things. + +She had been once back to her old home, to settle her mother +comfortably upon a weekly allowance, to 'prentice her little brother, +to see one sister married, and the other sent off to Liverpool, to be +servant to Mrs. Lyon. While at Stowbury, she had heard by chance of +Tom Cliffe's passing through the town as a Chartist lecturer, or +something of the sort, with his pretty, showy London wife, who, when +he brought her there, had looked down rather contemptuously upon the +street where Tom was born. + +This was all Elizabeth knew about them. They, too, had passed from +her life as phases of keen joy and keener sorrow do pass, like a +dream and the shadows of a dream. It may be, life itself will seem at +the end to be nothing more. + +But Elizabeth Hand's love story was not so to end. + +One morning, the same morning when she had been pointing out the +lilacs to little Henry, and now came in from the square with a branch +of them in her hand, the postman gave her a letter; the handwriting +of which made her start as if it had been a visitation from the dead. + +"Mammy Lizzie, mammy Lizzie!" cried little Henry, plucking at her +gown, but for once his nurse did not notice him. She stood on the +door-step, trembling violently; at length she put the letter into her +pocket, lifted the child, and got up stairs somehow. When she had +settled her charge to his mid-day sleep, then, and not till then, did +she take out and read the few lines, which, though written on shabby +paper, and with more than one blot, were so like--yet so terribly +unlike--Tom's calligraphy of old: + +"DEAR ELIZABETH,--I have no right to ask any kindness of you; but if +you would like to see an old friend alive, I wish you would come and +see me. I have been long of asking you, lest you might fancy I wanted +to get something out of you; for I'm as poor as a rat; and once +lately I saw you, looking so well and well-to-do. But it was the same +kind old face, and I should like to get one kind look from it before +I go where I sha'n't want any kindness from any body. However, do +just as you choose. + +"Yours affectionately, +T. CLIFFE. + +"Underneath is my address." + +It was in one of those wretched nooks in Westminster, now swept away +by Victoria Street and other improvements. Elizabeth happened to have +read about it in one of the many charitable pamphlets, reports, etc., +which were sent continually to the wealthy Mr. Ascott, and which he +sent down stairs to light fires with. What must not poor Tom have +sunk to before he had come to live there? His letter was like a cry +out of the depths, and the voice was that of her youth, her first +love. + +Is any woman ever deaf to that? The love may have died a natural +death; many first loves do: a riper, completer, happier love may have +come in its place; but there must be something unnatural about the +woman and man likewise, who can ever quite forget it--the dew of +their youth--the beauty of their dawn. + +"Poor Tom, poor Tom!" sighed Elizabeth, "my own poor Tom!" + +She forgot Esther; either from Tom's not mentioning her, or in the +strong return to old times which his letter produced; forgot her for +the time being as completely as if she had never existed. Even when +the recollection came it made little difference. The sharp jealousy, +the dislike and contempt had all calmed down: she thought she could +now see Tom's wife as any other woman. Especially if, as the letter +indicated, they were so very poor and miserable. + +Possibly Esther had suggested writing it? Perhaps, though Tom did +not, Esther did "want to get something out of her"--Elizabeth Hand, +who was known to have large wages, and to be altogether a thriving +person? Well, it mattered little. The one fact remained: Tom was in +distress; Tom needed her; she must go. + +Her only leisure time was of an evening, after Henry was in bed. The +intervening hours, especially the last one, when the child was down +stairs with his father, calmed her; subdued the tumult of old +remembrances that came surging up and beating at the long shut door +of her heart. When her boy returned, leaping and laughing, and +playing all sorts of tricks as she put him to bed, she could smile +too. And when kneeling beside her in his pretty white night gown, he +stammered through the prayer she had thought it right to begin to +teach him, though of course he was too young to understand it--the +words "Thy will be done;" "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive +those who trespass against us;" and lastly, "Lead us not into +temptation, but deliver us from evil," struck home to his nurse's in +most soul. + +"Mammy, mammy Lizzie's 'tying." + +Yes, she was crying, but it did her good. She was able to kiss her +little boy, who slept like a top in five minutes: then she took off +her good silk gown, and dressed herself; soberly and decently, but so +that people should not suspect, in that low and dangerous +neighborhood, the sovereigns that she carried in an under pocket, +ready to use as occasion required. Thus equipped, without a minute's +delay, she started for Tom's lodging. + +It was poorer than even she expected. One attic room, bate almost as +when it was built. No chimney or grate, no furniture except a box +which served as both table and chair; and a heap of straw, with a +blanket thrown over it. The only comfort about it was that it was +clean; Tom's innate sense of refinement had abided with him to the +last. + +Elizabeth had time to make all these observations, for Tom was +out--gone, the landlady said, to the druggist's shop, round the +corner. + +"He's very bad, ma'am," added the woman, civilly, probably led +thereto by Elizabeth's respectable appearance, and the cab in which +she had come--lest she should lose a minute's time. "Can't last long, +and Lord knows who's to bury him." + +With that sentence knelling in her ears, Elizabeth waited till she +heard the short cough and the hard breathing of some one toiling +heavily up the stair. Tom, Tom himself. But oh, so altered! with +every bit of youth gone out of him; with death written on every line +of his haggard face, the death he had once prognosticated with a +sentimental pleasure, but which now had come upon him in all its +ghastly reality. + +He was in the last stage of consumption. The disease was latent in +his family, Elizabeth knew: she had known it when she belonged to +him, and fondly thought that, as his wife, her incessant care might +save him from it; but nothing could save him now. + +"Who's that?" said he, in his own sharp, fretful voice. + +"Me, Tom. But don't speak. Sit down till your cough's over." + +Tom grasped her hand as she stood by him, but he made no further +demonstration, nor used any expression of gratitude. He seemed far +too ill. Sick people are always absorbed in the sad present; they +seldom trouble themselves much about the past. Only there was +something in the way Tom clung to her hand, helplessly, imploringly, +that moved the inmost heart of Elizabeth. + +"I'm very bad, you see. This cough; oh, it shakes me dreadfully; +especially of nights." + +"Have you any doctor?" + +"The druggist close by, or rather, the druggist's shopman. He's a +very kind young fellow, from our county, I fancy, for he asked me +once if I wasn't a Stowbury man; and ever since he has doctored me +for nothing, and given me a shilling too, now and then, when I've +been a'most clemmed to death in the winter." + +"Oh, Tom, why didn't you write to me before. Have you actually wanted +food?" + +"Yes, many a time. I've been out of work this twelvemonth." + +"But Esther?" + +"Who?" screamed Tom. + +"Your wife?" + +"My wife? I've got none? She spent every thing till I fell ill, and +then she met a fellow with lots of money. Curse her!" + +The fury with which he spoke shook him all over, and sent him into +another violent fit of coughing, out of which he revived by degrees, +but in a state of such complete exhaustion that Elizabeth hazarded no +more questions. He must evidently be dealt with exactly like a child. + +She made up her mind in her own silent way, as indeed she had done +ever since she came into the room. + +"Lie down, Tom, and keep yourself quiet for a little. I'll be back as +soon as I can--back with something to do you good. You won't +object." + +"No, no; you can do any thing you like with me. You always could." + +Elizabeth groped her way down stairs strangely calm and +self-possessed. There was need. Tom, dying, had come to her as his +sole support and consolation--throwing himself helplessly upon her, +never doubting either her will or her power to help him. Neither must +fail. The inexplicable woman's strength, sometimes found in the very +gentlest, quietest, and apparently the weakest character, nerved her +now. + +She went up and down, street after street, looking for lodgings, till +the evening darkened, and the Abbey towers rose grimly against the +summer sky. Then she crossed over Westminster Bridge, and in a little +street on the Surrey side she found what she wanted--a decent room, +half sitting, half bedroom, with what looked like a decent landlady. +There was no time to make many inquiries; any thing was better than +to leave Tom an other night where he was. + +She paid a week's rent in advance; bought firing and provisions; +every thing she could think of to make him comfortable; and then she +went to fetch him in a cab. + +The sick man offered no resistance; indeed, he hardly seemed to know +what she was doing with him. She discovered the cause of this half +insensibility when, in making a bundle of his few clothes, she found +a package labeled "opium." + +"Don't take it from me," he said pitifully, "it's the only comfort I +have." + +But when he found himself in the cheerful room, with the fire blazing +and the tea laid out, he woke up like a person out of a bad dream. + +"Oh, Elizabeth, I'm so comfortable!" + +Elizabeth could have wept. + +Whether the wholesome food and drink revived him, or whether it was +one of the sudden flashes of life that often occur in consumptive +patients, but he seemed really better, and began to talk, telling +Elizabeth about his long illness, and saying over again how very kind +the druggist's young man had been to him. + +"I'm sure he's a gentleman, though he has come down in the world; +for, as he says, 'misery makes a man acquainted with strange +bedfellows, and takes the nonsense out of him.' I think so too, and +if ever I get better, I don't mean to go about the country speaking +against born gentlefolks any more. They're much of a muchness with +ourselves--bad and good; a little of all sorts; the same flesh and +blood as we are. Aren't they, Elizabeth?" + +"I suppose so." + +"And there's another thing I mean to do. I mean to try and be good +like you. Many a night, when I've lain on that straw, and thought I +was dying, I've remembered you and all the things you used to say to +me. You are a good woman; there never was a better." + +Elizabeth smiled, a faint rather sad smile. For, as she was washing +up the tea things, she had noticed Tom's voice grow feebler, and his +features sharper and more wan. + +"I'm very tired," he said. "I'm afraid to go to bed, I get such +wretched nights; but I think, if I lay down in my clothes, I could go +to sleep." + +Elizabeth helped him to the small pallet, shook his pillow, and +covered him up as if he had been a child. + +"You're very good to me," he said, and looked up at her--Tom's +bright, fond look of years ago. But it passed away in a moment, and +he closed his eyes, saying he was so terribly tired. + +"Then I'll bid you good-by, for I ought to have been at home by now. +You'll take care of yourself, Tom, and I'll come and see you again +the very first hour I can be spared. And if you want me you'll send +to me at once? You know where?" + +"I will," said Tom. "Its the same house, isn't it, in Russell +Square?" + +"Yes." And they were both silent. + +After a minute, Tom asked, in a troubled voice. + +"Have you forgiven me?" + +"Yes, Tom, quite." + +"Won't you give me one kiss, Elizabeth?" + +She turned away. She did not mean to be hard, but somehow she could +not kiss Esther's husband. + +"Ah, well; it's all the same! good-by!" + +"Good-by, Tom." + +But as she stood at the door, and looked back at him lying with his +eyes shut, and as white as if he were dead, Elizabeth's heart melted. +He was her Tom, her own Tom, of whom she had been so fond, so proud; +whose future she had joyfully anticipated long before she thought of +herself as mixed up with it; and he was dying, dying at +four-and-twenty; passing away to the other world, where, perhaps, she +might meet him yet, with no cruel Esther between. + +"Tom," she said, and knelt beside him, "Tom, I didn't mean to vex +you. I'll try to be as good as a sister to you. I'll never forsake +you as long as you live." + +"I know you never will." + +"Good-by, then for to-night." + +And she did kiss him, mouth to mouth, quietly and tenderly. She was +so glad of it afterward. + +It was late enough when she reached Russell Square; but nobody ever +questioned the proceedings of Mrs. Hand, who was a privileged person. +She crept in beside her little Henry, and as the child turned in his +sleep and put his arms about her neck, she clasped him tight, and +thought there was still something to live for in this weary world. + +All night she thought over what best could be done for Tom. Though +she never deceived herself for a moment as to his state, still she +thought, with care and proper nursing, he might live a few months. +Especially if she could get him into the Consumption Hospital, newly +started in Chelsea, of which she was aware Mr. Ascott--who dearly +loved to see his name in a charity list--was one of the governors. + +There was no time to be lost; she determined to speak to her master +at once. + +The time she chose was when she brought down little Henry, who was +now always expected to appear, and say, "Dood morning, papa," before +Mr. Ascott went into the city. + +As they stood, the boy laughing in his father's face, and the father +beaming all over with delight, the bitter, almost fierce thought, +smote Elizabeth, Why should Peter Ascott be standing there fat and +flourishing, and poor Tom dying? It made her bold to ask the only +favor she ever had asked of the master whom she did not care for, and +to whom she had done her duty simply as duty, without, until lately, +one fragment of respect. + +"Sir, if you please, might I speak with you a minute before you go +out?" + +"Certainly, Mrs. Hand. Any thing about Master Henry? Or perhaps +yourself? You want more wages? Very well. I shall be glad, in any +reasonable way, to show my satisfaction at the manner in which you +bring up my son." + +"Thank you, Sir," said Elizabeth, curtseying. "But it is not that." + +And in the briefest language she could find she explained what it +was. + +Mr. Ascott knitted his brows and looked important. He never scattered +his benefits with a silent hand, and he dearly liked to create +difficulties, if only to show how he could smooth them down. + +"To get a patient admitted at the Consumption Hospital, is, you +should be aware, no easy matter, until the building at Queen's Elm is +complete. But I flatter myself I have influence. I have subscribed a +deal of money. Possibly the person may be got in in time. Who did you +say he was?" + +"Thomas Cliffe. He married one of the servants here, Esther--" + +"Oh, don't trouble yourself about the name; I shouldn't recollect it. +The housekeeper might. Why didn't his wife apply to the housekeeper?" + +The careless question seemed hardly to expect an answer, and +Elizabeth gave none. She could not bear to make public Tom's misery +and Esther's shame. + +"And you say he is a Stowbury man? That is certainly a claim. I +always feel bound, somewhat as a member of Parliament might be, to do +my best for any one belonging to my native town. So be satisfied, +Mrs. Hand; consider the thing settled." + +And he was going away; but time being of such great moment, Elizabeth +ventured to detain him till he had written the letter of +recommendation, and found out what days the application for admission +could be received. He did it very patiently, and even took out his +purse and laid a sovereign on the top of the letter. + +"I suppose the man is poor; you can use this for his benefit." + +"There is no need, thank you, Sir," said Elizabeth, putting it gently +aside. She could not bear that Tom should accept any body's money but +her own. + +At her first spare moment she wrote him a long letter explaining what +she had done, and appointing the next day but one, the earliest +possible, for taking him out to Chelsea herself. If he objected to +the plan, he was to write and say so; but she urged him as strongly +as she could not to let slip this opportunity of obtaining good +nursing and first rate medical care. + +Many times during the day the thought of Tom alone in his one +room--comfortable though it was, and though she had begged the +landlady to see that he wanted nothing--came across her with a sudden +pang. His face, feebly lifted up from the pillow, with its last +affectionate smile, the sound of his cough as she stood listening +outside on the stair head, haunted her all through that sunshiny June +day; and, mingled with it, came ghostly visions of that other day in +June--her happy Whitsun holiday--her first and her last. + +No letter coming from Tom on the appointed morning, she left Master +Henry in the charge of the house-maid, who was very fond of him--as +indeed he bade fair to be spoiled by the whole establishment at +Russell Square--and went down to Westminster. + +There was a long day before her, so she took a minute's breathing +space on Westminster Bridge, and watched the great current of London +life ebbing and flowing--life on the river and life on the shore; +every body so busy and active and bright. + +"Poor Tom, poor Tom!" she sighed, and wondered whether his ruined +life would ever come to any happy ending, except death. + +She hurried on, and soon found the street where she had taken his +lodging. At the corner of it was, as is too usual in London streets, +a public house, about which more than the usual number of +disreputable idlers were hanging. There were also one or two +policemen, who were ordering the little crowd to give way to a group +of twelve men, coming out. + +"What is that?" asked Elizabeth. + +"Coroner's inquest; jury proceeding to view the body." + +Elizabeth, who had never come into contact with any thing of the +sort, stood aside with a sense of awe, to let the little procession +pass, and then followed up the street. + +It stopped; oh no! not at that door! But it was; there was no +mistaking the number, nor the drawn-down blind in the upper +room--Tom's room. + +"Who is dead?" she asked, in a whisper that made the policeman stare. + +"Oh! nobody particular; a young man, found dead in his bed; supposed +to be a case of consumption; verdict will probably be, 'Died by the +visitation of God!' " + +Ay, that familiar phrase, our English law's solemn recognition of our +national religious feeling, was true. God had "visited" poor Tom; he +suffered no more. + +Elizabeth leaned against the door-way, and saw the twelve jurymen go +up stairs with a clatter of feet, and come down again, one after the +other, less noisily, and some of them looking grave. Nobody took any +notice of her, until the lodging house mistress appeared. + +"Oh, here she is, gentlemen. This is the young woman as saw him last +alive. She'll give her evidence. She'll tell you I'm not a bit to +blame." + +And pulling Elizabeth after her, the landlady burst into a torrent of +explanation; how she had done her very best for the poor fellow; how +she listened at his door several times during the first day, and +heard him cough, that is, she thought she had, but toward night all +was so very quiet; and there having come a letter by post, she +thought she would take it up to him. + +"And I went in, gentlemen, and I declare, upon my oath, I found him +lying just as he is now, and as cold as a stone." + +"Let me pass; I'm a doctor," said somebody behind; a young man, very +shabbily dressed, with a large beard. He pushed aside the landlady +and Elizabeth, till he saw the latter's face. + +"Give that young woman a chair and a glass of water, will you?" he +called out; and his authoritative manner impressed the jurymen, who +gathered around him, ready and eager to hear any thing he could say. + +He gave his name as John Smith, druggist's assistant; said that the +young man who lodged up stairs, whose death he had only just heard +of, had been his patient for some months, and was in the last stage +of consumption. He had no doubt the death had ensued from perfectly +natural causes, as he explained in such technical language as +completely to overpower the jury, and satisfy them accordingly. They +quitted the parlor, and proceeded to the public house, where, after a +brief consultation, they delivered their verdict, as the astute +policeman had foretold, "Died by the visitation of God;" took pipes +and brandy all round at the bar, and then adjourned to their several +homes, gratified at having done their duty to their country. + +Meantime, Elizabeth crept up stairs. Nobody hindered or followed her; +nobody cared any thing for the solitary dead. + +There he lay--poor Tom! almost as she had left him; the counterpane +was hardly disturbed, the candle she had placed on the chair had +burned down to a bit of wick, which still lay in the socket. Nobody +had touched him, or any thing about him, as, in all cases of "Found +dead," English law exacts. + +Whether he had died soon after she quitted him that night, or whether +he had lingered through the long hours of darkness, or of day-light +following, alive and conscious perhaps, yet too weak to call any one, +even had there been any one he cared to call--when, or how, the +spirit had passed away unto Him who gave it, were mysteries that +could never be known. + +But it was all over now; he lay at rest with the death smile on his +face. Elizabeth, as she stood and looked at him, could not, dared not +weep. + +"My poor Tom, my own dear Tom," was all she thought, and knew that he +was all her own now; that she had loved him through every thing, and +loved him to the end. + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +Elizabeth spent the greatest part of her holiday in that house, in +that room. Nobody interfered with her; nobody asked in what relation +she stood to the deceased, or what right she had to take upon herself +the arrangements for his funeral. Every body was only too glad to let +her assume a responsibility which would otherwise have fallen on the +parish. + +The only person who appeared to remember either her or the dead man +was the druggist's assistant, who sent in the necessary medical +certificate as to the cause of death. Elizabeth took it to the +Registrar, and thence proceeded to an undertaker hard by, with whom +she arranged all about the funeral, and that it should took place in +the new cemetery at Kensal Green. She thought she should like that +better than a close, noisy London church yard. + +Before she left the house she saw poor Tom laid in his coffin, and +covered up forever from mortal eyes. Then, and not till then, she sat +herself down beside him and wept. + +Nobody contested with her the possession of the few things that had +belonged to him, which were scarcely more than the clothes he had on +when he died; so she made them up into a parcel and took them away +with her. In his waistcoat pocket she found one book, a little +Testament, which she had given him herself. It looked as if it had +been a good deal read. If all his studies, all his worship of "pure +intellect," as the one supreme good, had ended in that, it was a +blessed ending. + +When she reached home Elizabeth went at once to her master, returned +him his letter of recommendation, and explained to him that his +kindness was not needed now. + +Mr. Ascott seemed a good deal shocked, inquired from her a few +particulars, and again took out his purse, his one panacea for all +mortal woes. But Elizabeth declined; she said she would only ask him +for an advance of her next half-year's wages. She preferred burying +her old friend herself. + +She buried him, herself the only mourner, on a bright summer's day, +with the sun shining dazzlingly on the white grave stones in Kensal +Green. The clergyman appeared, read the service, and went away again. +A few minutes ended it all. When the undertaker and his men had also +departed, she sat down on a bench near to watch the sexton filling up +the grave--Tom's grave. She was very quiet, and none but a closely +observant person watching her face could have penetrated into the +truth of what your impulsive characters, always in the extremes of +mirth or misery, never understand about quiet people, that "still +waters run deep." + +While she sat there some one came past her, and turned round. It was +the shabby-looking chemist's assistant, who had a appeared at the +inquest, and given the satisfactory evidence which had prevented the +necessity of her giving-hers. + +Elizabeth rose and acknowledged him with a respectable courtesy; for +under his threadbare clothes was the bearing of a gentleman, and he +had been so kind to Tom. + +"I am too late," he said; "the funeral is over. I meant to have +attended it, and seen the last of the poor fellow." + +"Thank you, Sir," replied Elizabeth, gratefully. + +The young man stood before her, looking at her earnestly for a minute +or two, and then exclaimed, with a complete change of voice and +manner. + +"Elizabeth, don't you know me? What has become of my aunt Johanna?" + +It was Ascott Leaf. + +But no wonder Elizabeth had not recognized him. His close cropped +hair, his large beard hiding half his face, and a pair of spectacles +which he had assumed, were a sufficient disguise. Besides, the great +change from his former "dandy" appearance to the extreme of +shabbiness; his clothes being evidently worn as long as they could +possibly hold together, and his generally depressed air, giving the +effect of one who had gone down in the world, made him, even without +the misleading "John Smith," most unlikely to be identified with the +Ascott Leaf of old. + +"I never should have known you, Sir!" said Elizabeth truthfully, when +her astonishment had a little subsided; "but I am very glad to see +you. Oh how thankful your aunts will be!" + +"Do you think so? I thought it was quite the contrary. But it does +not matter; they will never hear of me unless you tell them--and I +believe I may trust you. You would not betray me, if only for the +sake of that poor fellow yonder?" + +"No, Sir." + +"Now, tell me something about my aunts, especially my aunt Johanna." + +And sitting down in the sunshine, with his arms upon the back of the +bench, and his hand hiding his eyes, the poor prodigal listened in +silence to every thing Elizabeth told him; of his Aunt Selina's +marriage and death, and of Mr. Lyon's return, and of the happy home +at Liverpool. + +"They are all quite happy, then?" said he, at length; "they seem to +have begun to prosper ever since they got rid of me. Well, I'm glad +of it. I only wanted to hear of them from you. I shall never trouble +them any more. You'll keep my secret, I know. And now I must go, for +I have not a minute more to spare. Good-by, Elizabeth." + +With a humility and friendliness, strange enough in Ascott Leaf, he +held out his hand--empty, for he had nothing to give now--to his +aunt's old servant. But Elizabeth detained him. + +"Don't go, Sir, please, don't; not just yet." And then she added, +with an earnest respectfulness that touched the heart of the poor, +shabby man, "I hope you'll pardon the liberty I take. I'm only a +servant, but I knew you when you were a boy, Mr. Leaf: and if you +would trust me, if you would let me be of use to you in any way--if +only because you were so good to him there." + +"Poor Tom Cliffe; he was not a bad fellow; he liked me rather, I +think; and I was able to doctor him and help him a little. Heigh-ho; +it's a comfort to think I ever did any good to any body." + +Ascott sighed, drew his rusty coat sleeves across his eyes, and sat +contemplating his boots, which were any thing but dandy boots now. + +"Elizabeth, what relation was Tom to you? If I had known you were +acquainted with him I should have been afraid to go near him; but I +felt sure, though he came from Stowbury, he did not guess who I was; +he only knew me as Mr. Smith; and he never once mentioned you. Was he +your cousin, or what?" + +Elizabeth considered a moment, and then told the simple fact; it +could not matter now. + +"I was once going to be married to him, but he saw somebody he liked +better, and married her." + +"Poor girl; poor Elizabeth?" + +Perhaps nothing could have shown the great change in Ascott more than +the tone in which he uttered these words; a tone of entire respect +and kindly pity, from which he never once departed during that +conversation, and many, many others, so long as their confidential +relations lasted. + +"Now, Sir, would you be so kind as to tell me something about +yourself? I'll not repeat any thing to your aunts, if you don't wish +it." + +Ascott yielded. He had been so long, so utterly forlorn. He sat down +beside Elizabeth, and then, with eyes often averted, and with many +breaks between, which she had to fill up as best as she could, he +told her all his story, even to the sad secret of all, which had +caused him to run away from home, and hide himself in the last place +where they would have thought he was, the safe wilderness of London. +There, carefully disguised, he had lived decently while his money +lasted, and then, driven step by step to the brink of destitution, he +had offered himself for employment in the lowest grade of his own +profession, and been taken as assistant by the not over scrupulous +chemist and druggist in that not too respectable neighborhood of +Westminster, with a salary of twenty pounds a year. + +"And I actually live upon it!" added he, with a bitter smile. "I +can't run into debt; for who would trust me? And I dress in rags +almost, as you see. And I get my meals how and where I can; and I +sleep under the shop counter. A pretty life for Mr. Ascott Leaf, +isn't it now? What would my aunts say if they knew it?" + +"They would say that it was an honest life, and that they were not a +bit ashamed of you." + +Ascott drew himself up a little, and his chest heaved visibly under +the close buttoned, thread bare coat. + +"Well, at least, it is a life that makes nobody else miserable." + +Ay, that wonderful teacher, Adversity, + + "Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, + Wears yet a precious jewel in its head," + +had left behind this jewel in the young man's heart. A disguised, +beggared outcast, he had found out the value of an honest name; +forsaken, unfriended, he had learned the preciousness of home and +love; made a servant of, tyrannized over, and held in low esteem, he +had been taught by hard experience the secret of true humility and +charity--the esteeming of others better than himself. + +Not with all natures does misfortune so work, but it did with his. He +had sinned; he had paid the cost of his sin in bitter suffering; but +the result was cheaply bought, and he already began to feel that it +was so. + +"Yes," said he, in answer to a question of Elizabeth's, "I really am, +for some things, happier than I used to be. I feel more like what I +was in the old days, when I was a little chap at Stowbury. Poor old +Stowbury! I often think of the place in a way that's perfectly +ridiculous. Still, if any thing happened to me, I should like my +aunts to know it, and that I didn't forget them." + +"But, Sir," asked Elizabeth earnestly, "do you never mean to go near +your aunts again?" + +"I can't say; it all depends upon circumstances. I suppose," he +added, "if, as is said, one's sin is sure to find one out, the same +rule goes by contraries. It seems poor Cliffe once spoke of me to a +district visitor, the only visitor he ever had; and this gentleman, +hearing of the inquest, came yesterday to inquire about him of me; +and the end was that he offered me a situation with a person he knew, +a very respectable chemist in Tottenham Court Road." + +"And shall you go?" + +"To be sure. I've learned to be thankful for small mercies. Nobody +will find me out or recognize me. You didn't. Who knows? I may even +have the honor of dispensing drugs to Uncle Ascott of Russell +Square." + +"But," said Elizabeth, after a pause, "you will not always remain as +John Smith, druggist's shopman, throwing away all your good +education, position, and name?" + +"Elizabeth," said he, in a humbled tone, "how dare I ever resume my +own name and get back my rightful position while Peter Ascott lives? +Can you or any body point out a way?" + +She thought the question over in her clear head; clear still, even at +this hour, when she had to think for others, though all personal +feeling and interest were buried in that grave over which the sexton +was now laying the turf that would soon grow smoothly green. + +"If I might advise, Mr. Leaf, I should say, save up all your money, +and then go, just as you are, with an honest, bold front, right into +my master's house, with the fifty pounds in your hand--" + +"By Jove, you've hit it!" cried Ascott, starting up. "What a thing a +woman's head is! I've turned over scheme after scheme, but I never +once thought of any thing so simple as that. Bravo, Elizabeth! You're +a remarkable woman." + +She smiled--a very sad smile--but still she felt glad. Any thing that +she could possibly do for any creature belonging to her dear +mistresses seemed to this faithful servant the natural and bounden +duty of her life. + +Long after the young man, whose mercurial temperament no trouble +could repress, had gone away in excellent spirits, leaving her an +address where she could always find him, and give him regular news of +his aunts, though he made her promise to give them, as yet, no +tidings in return, Elizabeth sat still, watching the sun decline and +the shadows lengthen over the field of graves. In the calmness and +beauty of this solitary place an equal calm seemed to come over her; +a sense of how wonderfully events had linked themselves together and +worked themselves out; how even poor Tom's mournful death had brought +about this meeting, which might end in restoring to her beloved +mistresses their lost sheep, their outcast, miserable boy. She did +not reason the matter out, but she felt it, and felt that in making +her in some degree His instrument God had been very good to her in +the midst of her desolation. + +It seemed Elizabeth's lot always to have to put aside her own +troubles for the trouble of somebody else. Almost immediately after +Tom Cliffe's death her little Henry fell ill with scarlatina and +remained for many months in a state of health so fragile as to +engross all her thought and care. It was with difficulty that she +contrived a few times to go for Henry's medicines to the shop where +"John Smith" served. + +She noticed that every time he looked healthier, brighter, freer from +that aspect of broken-down respectability which had touched her so +much. He did not dress any better, but still "the gentleman" in him +could never be hidden or lost, and he said his master treated him +"like a gentleman," which was apparently a pleasant novelty. + +"I have some time to myself also. Shop shuts at nine, and I get up at +5 A. M.--bless us! what would my Aunt Hilary say? And it's not for +nothing. There are more ways than one of turning an honest penny, +when a young fellow really sets about it. Elizabeth, you used to be a +literary character yourself; look into the ---- and the ----," +(naming two popular magazines), "and if you find a series of +especially clever papers on sanitary reform, and so on, I did 'em:" + +He slapped his chest with Ascott's merry laugh of old. It cheered +Elizabeth for a long while afterward. + +By-and-by she had to take little Henry to Brighton, and lost sight of +"John Smith" for some time longer. + +It was on a snowy February day, when, having brought the child home +quite strong, and received unlimited gratitude and guineas from the +delighted father, Master Henry's faithful nurse stood in her usual +place at the dining-room door, waiting for the interminable grace of +"only five minutes more" to be over, and her boy carried +ignominiously but contentedly to bed. + +The footman knocked at the door. "A young man wanting to speak to +master on particular business. + +"Let him send in his name." + +"He says you wouldn't know it, Sir." + +"Show him in, then. Probably a case of charity, as usual. Oh!" + +And Mr. Ascott's opinion was confirmed by the appearance of the +shabby young man with the long beard, whom Elizabeth did not wonder +he never recognized in the least. She ought to have retired, and yet +she could not. She hid herself partly behind the door, afraid of +passing Ascott; dreading alike to wound him by recognition or +non-recognition. But he took no notice. He seemed excessively +agitated. + +"Come a-begging, young man, I suppose? Wants a situation, as hundreds +do, and think that I have half the clerkships in the city at my +disposal, and that I am made of money besides. But it's no good, I +tell you, Sir; I never give nothing to strangers, except--Here, +Henry, my son, take that person there this half crown." + +And the little boy, in his pretty purple velvet frock and his +prettier face, trotted across the room and put the money into poor +Ascott's hand. He took it; and then to the astonishment of Master +Henry, and the still greater astonishment of his father, lifted up +the child and kissed him. + +"Young man, young fellow--" + +"I see you don't know me, Mr. Ascott, and it's not surprising. But I +have come to repay you this--" he laid a fifty pound note down on the +table. "Also, to thank you earnestly for not prosecuting me, and to +say--" + +"Good God!"--the sole expletive Peter Ascott had been heard to use +for long. "Ascott Leaf, is that you? I thought you were in Australia, +or dead, or something." + +"No, I'm alive and here, more's the pity perhaps. Except that I have +lived to pay you back what I cheated you out of. What you generously +gave me I can't pay, though I may sometime. Meantime, I have brought +you this. It's honestly earned. Yes." observing the keen doubtful +look, "though I have hardly a coat to my back, I assure you it's +honestly earned." + +Mr. Ascott made no reply. He stooped over the bank-note, examined it, +folded it, and put it into his pocket-book; then, after another +puzzled investigation of Ascott, cleared his throat. + +"Mrs. Hand, you had better take Master Henry up stairs." + +An hour after, when little Henry had long been sound asleep, and she +was sitting at her usual evening sewing in her solitary nursery, +Elizabeth learned that the "shabby young man" was still in the +dining-room with Mr. Ascott, who had rung for tea, and some cold meat +with it. And the footman stated, with undisguised amazement, that the +shabby young man was actually sitting at the same table with master! + +Elizabeth smiled to herself and held her tongue. Now, as ever, she +always kept the secrets of the family. + +About ten o'clock she was summoned to the dining-room. + +There stood Peter Ascott, pompous as ever, but with a certain kindly +good-humor lightening up his heavy face, looking condescendingly +around him, and occasionally rubbing his hands slowly together, as if +he were exceedingly well pleased with himself. There stood Ascott +Leaf, looking bright and handsome, in spite of his shabbiness, and +quite at his ease--which small peculiarity was never likely to be +knocked out of him under the most depressing circumstances. + +He shook hands with Elizabeth warmly. + +"I wanted to ask you if you have any message for Liverpool. I go +there to-morrow on business for Mr. Ascott, and afterward I shall +probably go and see my aunts." He faltered a moment, but quickly +shook the emotion off. "Of course, I shall tell them all about you, +Elizabeth. Any special message, eh?" + +"Only my duty, Sir, and Master Henry is quite well again," said +Elizabeth, formally, and dropping her old-fashioned courtesy; after +which, as quickly as she could, she slipped out of the dining-room. + +But, long, long after, when all the house was gone to bed, she stood +at the nurser window, looking down upon the trees of the square, that +stretched their motionless arms up into the moonlight sky--just such +a moonlight as it was once, more than three years ago, the night +little Henry was born. And she recalled all the past, from the day +when Miss Hilary hung up her bonnet for her in the house-place at +Stowbury; the dreary life at No. 15; the Sunday nights when she and +Tom Cliffe used to go wandering round and round the square. + +"Poor Tom," said she to herself, thinking of Ascott Leaf, and how +happy he had looked, and how happy his aunts would be to-morrow. +"Well, Tom would be glad too, if he knew all." + +But, happy as every body was, there was nothing so close to +Elizabeth's heart as the one grave over which the snow was now lying, +white and peaceful, out at Kensal Green. + +Elizabeth is still living--which is a great blessing, for nobody +could well do without her. She will probably attain a good old age; +being healthy and strong, very equable in temper now, and very +cheerful too, in her quiet way. + +Doubtless, she will yet have Master Henry's children climbing her +knees, and calling her "Mammy Lizzie." + +But she will never marry--She never loved any body but Tom. + +THE END. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mistress and Maid +by Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock) + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13461 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6e44f78 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #13461 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13461) diff --git a/old/13461.txt b/old/13461.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..40ab06c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13461.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12940 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Mistress and Maid, by Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock) + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Mistress and Maid + +Author: Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock) + +Release Date: September 15, 2004 [EBook #13461] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISTRESS AND MAID *** + + + + +This ebook was formatted and edited by Robin Eugene Escovado + + + + +MISTRESS AND MAID. A Household Story. + +BY + +MISS MULOCH, AUTHOR OF +"JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN," "OLIVE," "THE OGILVIES," +"THE HEAD OF THE FAMILY," "NOTHING NEW," "AGATHA'S HUSBAND," &c,, &c. + +RICHMOND: +WEST & JOHNSTON, PUBLISHERS. +1864. Printed at the Lynchburg "Virginian" Book and Job Office. + + +MISTRESS AND MAID. + + + +CHAPTER I. + +She was a rather tall, awkward, and strongly-built girl of about +fifteen. This was the first impression the "maid" gave to her +"mistresses," the Misses Leaf, when she entered their kitchen, +accompanied by her mother, a widow and washer-woman, by name Mrs. +Hand. I must confess, when they saw the damsel, the ladies felt a +certain twinge of doubt as to whether they had not been rash in +offering to take her; whether it would not have been wiser to have +gone on in their old way--now, alas! grown into a very old way, so as +almost to make them forget they had ever had any other--and done +without a servant still. + +Many consultations had the three sisters held before such a +revolutionary extravagance was determined on. But Miss Leaf was +beginning both to look and to feel "not so young as she had been;" +Miss Selina ditto; though, being still under forty, she would not +have acknowledged it for the world. And Miss Hilary young, bright, +and active as she was, could by no possibility do every thing that +was to be done in the little establishment: be, for instance, in +three places at once--in the school-room, teaching little boys and +girls, in the kitchen cooking dinner, and in the rooms up stairs busy +at house-maid's work. Besides, much of her time was spent in waiting +upon "poor Selina," who frequently was, or fancied her self, too ill +to take any part in either the school or house duties. + +Though, the thing being inevitable, she said little about it, Miss +Leaf's heart was often sore to see Hilary's pretty hands smeared with +blacking of grates, and roughened with scouring of floors. To herself +this sort of thing had become natural--but Hilary! + +All the time of Hilary's childhood, the youngest of the family had of +course, been spared all house-work; and afterward her studies had +left no time for it. For she was a clever girl, with a genuine love +of knowledge Latin, Greek, and even the higher branches of arithmetic +and mathematics, were not beyond her range; and this she found much +more interesting than washing dishes or sweeping floors. True, she +always did whatever domestic duty she was told to do; but her bent +was not in the household line. She had only lately learned to "see +dust," to make a pudding, to iron a shirt; and, moreover, to reflect, +as she woke up to the knowledge of how these things should be done, +and how necessary they were, what must have been her eldest sister's +lot during all these twenty years! What pains, what weariness, what +eternal toil must Johanna have silently endured in order to do all +those things which till now had seemed to do themselves! + +Therefore, after much cogitation as to the best and most prudent way +to amend matters, and perceiving with her clear common sense that, +willing as she might be to work in the kitchen, her own time would be +much more valuably spent in teaching their growing school. It was +Hilary who these Christmas holidays, first started the bold idea, "We +must have a servant;" and therefore, it being necessary to begin with +a very small servant on very low wages, (£3 per annum was, I fear the +maximum), did they take this Elizabeth Hand. So, hanging behind her +parent, an anxious-eyed, and rather sad-voiced woman, did Elizabeth +enter the kitchen of the Misses Leaf. + +The ladies were all there. Johanna arranging the table for their +early tea: Selina lying on the sofa trying to cut bread and butter: +Hilary on her knees before the fire, making the bit of toast, her +eldest sister's one luxury. This was the picture that her three +mistresses presented to Elizabeth's eyes: which, though they seemed +to notice nothing, must, in reality, have noticed every thing. + +"I've brought my daughter, ma'am, as you sent word you'd take on +trial," said Mrs. Hand, addressing herself to Selina, who, as the +tallest, the best dressed, and the most imposing, was usually +regarded by strangers as the head of the family. + +"Oh. Joanna, my dear." + +Miss Leaf came forward, rather uncertainly, for she was of a shy +nature, and had been so long accustomed to do the servant's work of +the household, that she felt quite awkward in the character of +mistress. Instinctively she hid her poor hands, that would at once +have betrayed her to the sharp eyes of the working-woman, and then, +ashamed of her momentary false pride, laid them outside her apron and +sat down. + +"Will you take a chair, Mrs. Hand? My sister told you. I believe all +our requirements We only want a good, intelligent girl. We are +willing to teach her every thing." + +"Thank you, kindly; and I be willing and glad for her to learn, +ma'am," replied the mother, her sharp and rather free tone subdued in +spite of herself by the gentle voice of Miss Leaf. Of course, living +in the same country town, she knew all about the three +school-mistresses, and how till now they had kept no servant. "It's +her first place, and her'll be awk'ard at first, most like. Hold up +your head, Lizabeth." + +"Is her name Elizabeth?" + +"Far too long and too fine," observed Selina from the sofa. "Call her +Betty." + +"Any thing you please, Miss; but I call her Lizabeth. It wor my young +missis' name in my first place, and I never had a second." + +"We will call her Elizabeth," said Miss Leaf, with the gentle +decision she could use on occasion. + +There was a little more discussion between the mother and the future +mistress as to holidays, Sundays, and so on, during which time the +new servant stood silent and impassive in the door-way between the +back kitchen and the kitchen, or, as it is called in those regions, +the house-place. + +As before said, Elizabeth was by no means, a personable girl, and her +clothes did not set her off to advantage. Her cotton frock hung in +straight lines down to her ankles, displaying her clumsily shod feet +and woolen stockings; above it was a pinafore--a regular child's +pinafore, of the cheap, strong, blue-speckled print which in those +days was generally worn. A little shabby shawl, pinned at the throat, +and pinned very carelessly and crookedly, with an old black bonnet, +much too small for her large head and her quantities of ill kept +hair, completed the costume. It did not impress favorably a lady who, +being, or rather having been very handsome herself, was as much alive +to appearances as the second Miss Leaf. + +She made several rather depreciatory observations, and insisted +strongly that the new servant should only be taken "on trial," with +no obligation to keep her a day longer than they wished. Her feeling +on the matter communicated itself to Johanna, who closed the +negotiation with Mrs. Hand, by saying. + +"Well, let us hope your daughter will suit us. We will give her a +fair chance at all events." + +"Which is all I can ax for, Miss Leaf. Her bean't much to look at, +but her's willin' sharp, and her's never told me a lie in her life. +Courtesy to thy missis, and say thee'lt do thy best, Lizabeth." + +Pulled forward Elizabeth did courtesy, but she never offered to +speak. And Miss Leaf, feeling that for all parties the interview had +better be shortened, rose from her chair. + +Mrs. Hand took the hint and departed, saying only, "Good-by, +Lizabeth," with a nod, half-encouraging, half-admonitory, which +Elizabeth silently returned. That was all the parting between mother +and daughter; they neither kissed nor shook hands, which +undemonstrative farewell somewhat surprised Hilary. + +Now, Miss Hilary Leaf had all this while gone on toasting. Luckily +for her bread the fire was low and black; meantime, from behind her +long drooping curls (which Johanna would not let her "turn up," +though she was twenty), she was making her observations on the new +servant. It might be that, possessing more head than the one and more +heart than the other, Hilary was gifted with deeper perception of +character than either of her sisters, but certainly her expression, +as she watched Elizabeth, was rather amused and kindly that +dissatisfied. + +"Now, girl, take off your bonnet," said Selina, to whom Johanna had +silently appealed in her perplexity as to the next proceeding with +regard to the new member of the household. + +Elizabeth obeyed, and then stood, irresolute, awkward, and wretched +to the last degree, at the furthest end of the house-place. + +"Shall I show you where to hang up your things?" said Hilary, +speaking for the first time; and at the new voice, so quick, +cheerful, and pleasant, Elizabeth visibly started. + +Miss Hilary rose from her knees, crossed the kitchen, took from the +girl's unresisting hands the old black bonnet and shawl, and hung +them up carefully on a nail behind the great eight-day clock. It was +a simple action, done quite without intention, and accepted without +acknowledgment, except one quick glance of that keen, yet soft grey +eye; but years and years after Elizabeth reminded Hilary of it. + +And now Elizabeth stood forth in her own proper likeness, unconcealed +by bonnet or shawl, or maternal protection. The pinafore scarcely +covered her gaunt neck and long arms; that tremendous head of rough, +dusky hair was evidently for the first time gathered into a comb. +Thence elf locks escaped in all directions, and were forever being +pushed behind her ears, or rubbed (not smoothed; there was nothing +smooth about her) back from her forehead, which, Hilary noticed, was +low, broad, and full. The rest of her face, except the +before-mentioned eyes was absolutely and undeniably plain. Her +figure, so far as the pinafore exhibited it, was undeveloped and +ungainly, the chest being contracted and the shoulders rounded, as if +with carrying children or other weights while still a growing girl. +In fact, nature and circumstances had apparently united in dealing +unkindly with Elizabeth Hand. + +Still here she was; and what was to be done with her? + +Having sent her with the small burden, which was apparently all her +luggage, to the little room--formerly a box-closet--where she was to +sleep, the Misses Leaf--or as facetious neighbors called them, the +Miss Leaves--took serious counsel together over their tea. + +Tea itself suggested the first difficulty. They were always in the +habit of taking that meal, and indeed every other, in the kitchen. It +saved time, trouble, and fire, besides leaving the parlor always tidy +for callers, chiefly pupils' parents, and preventing these latter +from discovering that the three orphan daughters of Henry Leaf, Esq., +solicitor, and sisters of Henry Leaf, Junior, Esq., also solicitor, +but whose sole mission in life seemed to have been to spend every +thing, make every body miserably, marry, and die, that these three +ladies did always wait upon themselves at meal-time, and did +sometimes breakfast without butter, and dine without meat. Now this +system would not do any longer. + +"Besides, there is no need for it," said Hilary, cheerfully. "I am +sure we can well afford both to keep and to feed a servant, and to +have a fire in the parlor every day. Why not take our meals there, +and sit there regularly of evenings?" + +"We must," added Selina, decidedly. "For my part, I couldn't eat, or +sew, or do any thing with that great hulking girl sitting starting +opposite, or standing; for how could we ask her to sit with us? +Already, what must she have thought of us--people who take tea in the +kitchen?" + +"I do not think that matters," said the eldest sister, gently, after +a moment's silence. "Every body in the town knows who and what we +are, or might, if they chose to inquire. We cannot conceal our +poverty if we tried; and I don't think any body looks down upon us +for it. Not even since we began to keep school, which you thought was +such a terrible thing, Selina." + +"And it was. I have never reconciled myself to teaching the baker's +two boys and the grocer's little girl. You were wrong, Johanna, you +ought to have drawn the line somewhere, and it ought to have excluded +trades-people." + +"Beggars can not be choosers," began Hilary. + +"Beggars!" echoed Selina. + +"No, my dear, we were never that," said Miss Leaf, interposing +against one of the sudden storms that were often breaking out between +these two. "You know well we have never begged or borrowed from any +body, and hardly ever been indebted to any body, except for the extra +lessons that Mr. Lyon would insist upon giving to Ascott at home." + +Here Johanna suddenly stopped, and Hilary, with a slight color rising +in her face, said-- + +"I think, sisters, we are forgetting that the staircase is quite +open, and though I am sure she has an honest look and not that of a +listener, still Elizabeth might hear. Shall I call her down stairs, +and tell her to light a fire in the parlor?" + +While she is doing it, and in spite of Selina's forebodings to the +contrary, the small maiden did it quickly and well, especially after +a hint or two from Hilary--let me take the opportunity of making a +little picture of this same Hilary. + +Little it should be, for she was a decidedly little woman: small +altogether, hands, feet, and figure being in satisfactory proportion. +Her movements, like those of most little women, were light and quick +rather than elegant; yet every thing she did was done with a neatness +and delicacy which gave an involuntary sense of grace and harmony. +She was, in brief, one of those people who are best described by the +word "harmonious;" people who never set your teeth on edge, or rub +you up the wrong way, as very excellent people occasionally do. Yet +she was not over-meek or unpleasantly amiable; there was a liveliness +and even briskness about her, as if the every day wine of her life +had a spice of Champagniness, not frothiness but natural +effervescence of spirit, meant to "cheer but not inebriate" a +household. + +And in her own household this gift was most displayed. No centre of a +brilliant, admiring circle could be more charming, more witty, more +irresistibly amusing than was Hilary sitting by the kitchen fire, +with the cat on her knee, between her two sisters, and the school-boy +Ascott Leaf, their nephew--which four individuals, the cat being not +the least important of them, constituted the family. + +In the family, Hilary shone supreme. All recognized her as the light +of the house, and so she had been, ever since she was born, ever +since her + + "Dying mother mild, + Said, with accents undefiled, + 'Child, be mother to this child.'" + +It was said to Johanna Leaf--who was not Mrs. Leaf's own child. But +the good step-mother, who had once taken the little motherless girl +to her bosom, and never since made the slightest difference between +her and her own children, knew well whom she was trusting. + +From that solemn hour, in the middle of the night, when she lifted +the hour-old baby out of its dead mother's bed into her own, it +became Johanna's one object in life. Through a sickly infancy, for it +was a child born amidst trouble, her sole hands washed, dressed, fed +it; night and day it "lay in her bosom, and was unto her as a +daughter." + +She was then just thirty: not too old to look forward to woman's +natural destiny, a husband and children of her own. But years slipped +by, and she was Miss Leaf still. What matter! Hilary was her +daughter. + +Johanna's pride in her knew no bounds. Not that she showed it much; +indeed she deemed it a sacred duty not to show it; but to make +believe her "child" was just like other children. But she was not. +Nobody ever thought she was--even in externals.--Fate gave her all +those gifts which are sometimes sent to make up for the lack of +worldly prosperity. Her brown eyes were as soft a doves' eyes, yet +could dance with fun and mischief if they chose; her hair, brown +also, with a dark-red shade in it, crisped itself in two wavy lines +over her forehead, and then turn bled down in two glorious masses, +which Johanna, ignorant, alas! of art, called very "untidy," and +labored in vain to quell under combs, or to arrange in proper, +regular curls Her features--well, they too, were good; better than +those unartistic people had any idea of--better even than Selina's, +who in her youth had been the belle of the town. But whether +artistically correct or not, Johanna, though she would on no account +have acknowledged it, believed solemnly that there was not such a +face in the whole world as little Hillary's. + +Possibly a similar idea dawned upon the apparently dull mind of +Elizabeth Hand, for she watched her youngest mistress intently, from +kitchen to parlor, and from parlor back to kitchen; and once when +Miss Hilary stood giving information as to the proper abode of broom, +bellows, etc., the little maid gazed at her with such admiring +observation that the scuttle she carried was titled, and the coals +were strewn all over the kitchen floor. At which catastrophe Miss +Leaf looked miserable. Miss Selina spoke crossly, and Ascott, who +just then came in to his tea, late as usual, burst into a shut of +laughter. + +It was as much as Hilary could do to help laughing herself, she being +too near her nephew's own age always to maintain a dignified +aunt-like attitude, but nevertheless, when, having disposed of her +sisters in the parlor, she coaxed Ascott into the school-room, and +insisted upon his Latin being done--she helping him, Aunt Hilary +scolded him well, and bound him over to keep the peace toward the new +servant. + +"But she is such a queer one. Exactly like a South Sea Islander. When +she stood with her grim, stolid countenance, contemplating the coals +oh, Aunt Hilary, how killing she was!" + +And the regular, rollicking, irresistible boy-laugh broke out again. + +"She will be great fun. Is she really to stay?" + +"I hope so," said Hilary, trying to be grave. "I hope never again to +see Aunt Johanna cleaning the stairs, and getting up to light the +kitchen fire of winter mornings, as she will do if we have not a +servant to do it for her. Don't you see, Ascott?" + +"Oh, I see," answered the boy, carelessly, "But don't bother me, +please. Domestic affairs are for women, not men." + +Ascott was eighteen, and just about to pass out of his caterpillar +state as a doctor's apprentice-lad into the chrysalis condition of a +medical student in London. "But," with sudden reflection, "I hope she +won't be in my way. Don't let her meddle with any of my books and +things." + +"No; you need not be afraid. I have put them all into your room. I +myself cleared your rubbish out of the box closet." + +"The box-closet! Now, really, I can't stand--" + +"She is to sleep in the box-closet; where else could she sleep?" said +Hilary, resolutely, though inly quaking a little; for somehow, the +merry, handsome, rather exacting lad bad acquired considerable +influence in this household of women. "You must put up with the loss +of your 'den.' Ascott; it would be a great shame if you did not, for +the sake of Aunt Johanna and the rest of us." + +"Um!" grumbled the boy, who, though he was not a bad fellow at heart, +had a boy's dislike to "putting up" with the slightest inconvenience. + +"Well, it won't last long. I shall be off shortly. What a jolly life +I'll have in London, Aunt Hilary! I'll see Mr. Lyon there too." + +"Yes," said Aunt Hilary, briefly, returning to Dido and Æneas; humble +and easy Latinity for a student of eighteen; but Ascott was not a +brilliant boy, and, being apprenticed early, his education had been +much neglected, till Mr. Lyon came as usher to the Stowbury +grammar-school, and happening to meet and take an interest in him, +taught him and his Aunt Hilary Latin, Greek, and mathematics +together, of evenings. + +I shall make no mysteries here. Human nature is human nature all the +world over. A tale without love in it would be unnatural, unreal--in +fact, a simple lie; for there are no histories and no lives without +love in them: if there could be, Heaven pity and pardon them, for +they would be mere abortions of humanity. + +Thank Heaven, we, most of us, do not philosophize: we only live. We +like one another, we hardly know why; we love one another, we still +less know why. If on the day she first saw--in church it was--Mr. +Lyon's grave, heavy-browed, somewhat severe face--for he was a +Scotsman, and his sharp, strong Scotch features did look "hard" +beside the soft, rosy, well conditioned youth of Stowbury--if on that +Sunday any one had told Hilary Leaf that the face of this stranger +was to be the one face of her life, stamped upon brain and heart, and +soul with a vividness that no other impressions were strong enough to +efface, and retained there with a tenacity that no vicissitudes of +time, or place, or fortunes had power to alter, Hilary would--yes, I +think she would--have quietly kept looking on. She would have +accepted her lot, such as it was, with its shine and shade, its joy +and its anguish; it came to her without her seeking, as most of the +solemn things in life do; and whatever it brought with it, it could +have come from no other source than that from which all high, and +holy, and pure loves ever must come--the will and permission of GOD. + +Mr. Lyon himself requires no long description. In his first visit he +had told Miss Leaf all about himself that there was to be known; that +he was, as they were, a poor teacher, who had altogether "made +himself," as so many Scotch students do. His father, whom he scarcely +remembered, had been a small Ayrshire farmer; his mother was dead, +and he had never had either brother or sister. + +Seeing how clever Miss Hilary was, and how much as a schoolmistress +she would need all the education she could get, he had offered to +teach her along with her nephew; and she and Johanna were only too +thankful for the advantage. But during the teaching he had also +taught her another thing, which neither had contemplated at the +time--to respect him with her whole soul, and to love him with her +whole heart. + +Over this simple fact let no more be now said. Hilary said nothing. +She recognized it herself as soon as he was gone; a plain, sad, +solemn truth, which there was no deceiving herself did not exist, +even had she wished its non-existence. Perhaps Johanna also found it +out, in her darling's extreme paleness and unusual quietness for a +while; but she too said nothing. Mr. Lyon wrote regularly to Ascott, +and once or twice to her, Miss Leaf; but though every one knew that +Hilary was his particular friend in the whole family, he did not +write to Hilary. He had departed rather suddenly, on account of some +plan which he said, affected his future very considerably; but which, +though he was in the habit of telling them his affairs, he did not +further explain. Still Johanna knew he was a good man, and though no +man could be quite good enough for her darling, she liked him, she +trusted him. + +What Hilary felt none knew. But she was very girlish in some things; +and her life was all before her, full of infinite hope. By-and-by her +color returned, and her merry voice and laugh were heard about the +house just as usual. + +This being the position of affairs, it was not surprising that after +Ascott's last speech Hilary's mind wandered from Dido and Æneas to +vague listening, as the lad began talking of his grand future--the +future of a medical student, all expenses being paid by his +godfather, Mr. Ascott, the merchant, of Russell Square, once a shop +boy of Stowbury. + +Nor was it unnatural that all Ascott's anticipations of London +resolved themselves, in his aunt's eyes, into the one fact that he +would "see Mr. Lyon." + +But in telling thus much about her mistresses, I have for the time +being lost sight of Elizabeth Hand. + +Left to herself, the girl stood for a minute or two looking around +her in a confused manner, then, rousing her faculties, began +mechanically to obey the order with which her mistress had quitted +the kitchen, and to wash up the tea-things. She did it in a fashion +that, if seen, would have made Miss Leaf thankful that the ware was +only the common set, and not the cherished china belonging to former +days: still she did it, noisily it is true, but actively, as if her +heart were in her work. Then she took a candle and peered about her +new domains. + +These were small enough; at least they would have seemed so to other +eyes than Elizabeth's; for, until the school-room and box-closet +above had been kindly added by the landlord, who would have done any +thing to show his respect for the Misses Leaf, it had been merely a +six-roomed cottage--parlor kitchen, back kitchen, and three upper +chambers. It was a very cozy house notwithstanding, and it seemed to +Elizabeth's eyes a perfect palace. + +For several minutes more she stood and contemplated her kitchen, with +the fire shining on the round oaken stand in the centre, and the +large wooden-bottomed chairs, and the loud-ticking clock, with its +tall case, the inside of which, with its pendulum and weights, had +been a perpetual mystery and delight, first to Hilary's and then to +Ascott's childhood. Then there was the sofa, large and ugly, but, oh! +so comfortable, with its faded, flowered chintz, washed and worn for +certainly twenty years. And, overall, Elizabeth's keen observation +was attracted by a queer machine apparently made of thin rope and +bits of wood, which hung up to the hooks on the ceiling--an +old-fashioned baby's swing. Finally, her eye dwelt with content on +the blue and red diamond tiled floor, so easily swept and mopped, and +(only Elizabeth did not think of that, for her hard childhood had +been all work and no play) so beautiful to whip tops upon! Hilary and +Ascott, condoling together over the new servant, congratulated +themselves that their delight in this occupation had somewhat failed, +though it was really not so many years ago since one of the former's +pupils, coming suddenly out of the school-room, had caught her in the +act of whipping a meditative top round this same kitchen floor. + +Meantime Elizabeth penetrated farther, investigating the back +kitchen, with its various conveniences; especially the pantry, every +shelf of which was so neatly arranged and beautifully clean. +Apparently this neatness impressed the girl with a sense of novelty +and curiosity; and though she could hardly be said to meditate--her +mind was not sufficiently awakened for that--still, as she stood at +the kitchen fire, a slight thoughtfulness deepened the expression of +her face, and made it less dull and heavy than it had at first +appeared. + +"I wonder which on 'em does it all. They must work pretty hard, I +reckon; and two o' them's such little uns." + +She stood a while longer; for sitting down appeared to be to +Elizabeth as new a proceeding as thinking; then she went up stairs, +still literally obeying orders, to shut windows and pull down blinds +at nightfall. The bedrooms were small, and insufficiently, nay, +shabbily furnished; but the floors were spotless--ah! poor +Johanna!--and the sheets, though patched and darned to the last +extremity, were white and whole. Nothing was dirty, nothing untidy. +There was no attempt at picturesque poverty--for whatever novelists +may say, poverty can not be picturesque; but all things were decent +and in order. The house, poor as it was, gave the impression of +belonging to "real ladies;" ladies who thought no manner of work +beneath them, and who, whatever they had to do, took the pains to do +it as well as possible. + +Mrs. Hand's roughly-brought-up daughter had never been in such a +house before, and her examination of every new corner of it seemed +quite a revelation. Her own little sleeping nook was fully as tidy +and comfortable as the rest, which fact was not lost upon Elizabeth. +That bright look of mingled softness and intelligence--the only thing +which beautified her rugged face--came into the girl's eyes as she +"turned down" the truckle-bed, and felt the warm blankets and sheets, +new and rather coarse, but neatly sewed. + +"Her's made 'em hersel', I reckon. La!" Which of her mistresses the +"her" referred to remained unspecified; but Elizabeth, spurred to +action by some new idea, went briskly back into the bedrooms, and +looked about to see if there was any thing she could find to do. At +last, with a sudden inspiration, she peered into a wash-stand, and +found there an empty ewer. Taking it in one hand and the candle in +the other, she ran down stairs. + +Fatal activity! Hilary's pet cat, startled from sleep on the kitchen +hearth, at the same instant ran wildly up stairs; there was a +start--a stumble--and then down came the candle, the ewer, Elizabeth, +and all. + +It was an awful crash. It brought every member of the family to see +what was the matter. + +"What has the girl broken?" cried Selina. + +"Where has she hurt herself?" anxiously added Johanna. + +Hilary said nothing, but ran for a light, and then picked up first +the servant, then the candle, and then the fragments of crockery. + +"Why, it's my ewer, my favorite ewer, and it's all smashed to bits, +and I never can match it again. You careless, clumsy, +good-for-nothing creature!" + +"Please, Selma," whispered her eldest sister. + +"Very well, Johanna. You are the mistress, I suppose; why don't you +speak to your servant?" + +Miss Leaf, in an humbled, alarmed way, first satisfied herself that +no bodily injury had been sustained by Elizabeth, and then asked her +how this disaster had happened? For a serious disaster she felt it +was. Not only was the present loss annoying, but a servant with a +talent for crockery breaking would be a far too expensive luxury for +them to think of retaining. And she had been listening in the +solitude of the parlor to a long lecture from her always dissatisfied +younger sister, on the great doubts Selina had about Elizabeth's +"suiting." + +"Come, now," seeing the girl hesitated, "tell me the plain truth. How +was it?" + +"It was the cat," sobbed Elizabeth. + +"What a barefaced falsehood." exclaimed Selina. "You wicked girl, how +could it possibly be the cat? Do you know that you are telling a lie, +and that lies are hateful, and that all liars go to--" + +"Nonsense, hush!" interrupted Hilary, rather sharply; for Selina's +"tongue," the terror of her childhood, now merely annoyed her. +Selina's temper was a long understood household fact--they did not +much mind it, knowing that her bark was worse than her bite--but it +was provoking that she should exhibit herself so soon before the new +servant. + +The latter first looked up at the lady with simple surprise; then, as +in spite of the other two, Miss Selina worked herself up into a +downright passion, and unlimited abuse fell upon the victim's devoted +head, Elizabeth's manner changed. After one dogged repetition of, "It +was the cat!" not another word could be got out of her. She stood, +her eyes fixed on the kitchen floor, her brows knitted, and her under +lip pushed out--the very picture of sullenness. Young as she was, +Elizabeth evidently had, like her unfortunate mistress, "a temper of +her own"--a spiritual deformity that some people are born with, as +others with hare-lip or club-foot; only, unlike these, it may be +conquered, though the battle is long and sore, sometimes ending only +with life. + +It had plainly never commenced with poor Elizabeth Hand. Her +appearance, as she stood under the flood of sharp words poured out +upon her, was absolutely repulsive. Even Miss Hilary turned away, and +began to think it would have been easier to teach all day and do +house work half the night, than have the infliction of a servant--to +say nothing of the disgrace of seeing Selina's "peculiarities" so +exposed before a stranger. + +She knew of old that to stop the torrent was impracticable. The only +chance was to let Selina expend her wrath and retire, and then to +take some quiet opportunity of explaining to Elizabeth that sharp +language was only "her way," and must be put up with. Humiliating as +this was, and fatal to domestic authority that the first thing to be +taught a new servant was to "put up" with one of her mistresses, +still there was no alternative.--Hilary had already foreboded and +made up her mind to such a possibility, but she had hoped it would +not occur the very first evening. + +It did, however, and its climax was worse even than she anticipated. +Whether, irritated by the intense sullenness of the girl. Selina's +temper was worse than usual, or whether, as is always the case with +people like her, something else had vexed her, and she vented it upon +the first cause of annoyance that occurred, certain it is that her +tongue went on unchecked till it failed from sheer exhaustion. And +then, as she flung herself on the sofa--oh, sad mischance!--she +caught sight of her nephew standing at the school-room door, grinning +with intense delight, and making faces at her behind her back. + +It was too much. The poor lady had no more words left to scold with; +but she rushed up to Ascott, and big lad as he was, she soundly boxed +his ears. + +On this terrible climax let the curtain fall. + + + +CHAPTER II. + +Common as were the small fends between Ascott and his Aunt Selina, +they seldom reached such a catastrophe as that described in my last +chapter. Hilary had to fly to the rescue, and literally drag the +furious lad back into the school-room; while Johanna, pale and +trembling, persuaded Selina to quit the field and go and lie down. +This was not difficult; for the instant she saw what she had done, +how she had disgraced herself and insulted her nephew. Selina felt +sorry. Her passion ended in a gush of "nervous" tears under the +influence of which she was led up stairs and put to bed, almost like +a child--the usual termination of these pitiful outbreaks. + +For the time nobody thought of Elizabeth. The hapless cause of all +stood "spectatress of the fray" beside her kitchen fire. What she +thought history saith not. Whether in her own rough home she was used +to see brothers and sisters quarrelling, and mothers boxing their +childrens' ears, can not be known; whether she was or was not +surprised to see the same proceedings among ladies and gentlemen, she +never betrayed, but certain it is that the little servant became +uncommonly serious; yes, serious rather than sulky, for her "black" +looks vanished gradually, as soon as Miss Selina left the kitchen. + +On the reappearance of Miss Hilary it had quite gone. But Hilary took +no notice of her; she was in search of Johanna, who, shaking and cold +with agitation, came slowly down stairs. + +"Is she gone to bed?" + +"Yes, my dear. It was the best thing for her; she is not at all well +to-day." + +Hilary's lip curled a little, but she replied not a word. She had not +the patience with Selina that Johanna had. She drew her elder sister +into the little parlor, placed her in the arm-chair, shut the door, +came and sat beside her, and took her hand. Johanna pressed it, shed +a quiet tear or two, and wiped them away. Then the two sisters +remained silent, with hearts sad and sore. + +Every family has its skeleton in the house: this was theirs. Whether +they acknowledged it or not, they knew quite well that every +discomfort they had, every slight jar which disturbed the current of +household peace, somehow or other originated with "poor Selina." They +often called her "poor" with a sort of pity--not unneeded. Heaven +knows! for if the unhappy are to be pitied, ten times more so are +those who make others miserable. + +This was Selina's case, and had been all her life. And, sometimes, +she herself knew it. Sometimes, after an especially bad outbreak, her +compunction and remorse would be almost as terrible as her passion; +forcing her sisters to make every excuse for her; she "did not mean +it," it was only "ill health," or "nerves," or her "unfortunate way +of taking things." + +But they knew in their hearts that not all their poverty and the +toils it entailed, not all the hardships and humiliation of their +changed estate, were half so bitter to bear as this something--no +moral crime, and yet in its results as fatal as crime--which they +called Selina's "way." + +Ascott was the only one who did not attempt to mince matters. When a +little boy he had openly declared he hated Aunt Salina; when he grew +up he as openly defied her, and it was a most difficult matter to +keep even decent peace between them. Hilary's wrath had never gone +further than wishing Selina was married, that appearing the easiest +way of getting rid of her. Latterly she had ceased this earnest +aspiration; it might be, because, learning to think more seriously of +marriage, she felt that a woman who is no blessing in her own +household, is never likely much to bless a husband's; and that, +looking still farther forward, it was, on the whole, a mercy of +Providence, which made Selina not the mother of children. + +Yet her not marrying had been somewhat a surprise; for she had been +attractive in her day, handsome and agreeable in society. But +perhaps, for all that, the sharp eye of the opposite sex had +discovered the cloven foot; since, though she had received various +promising attentions, poor Selina had never had an offer. Nor, +fortunately, had she ever been known to care for any body; she was +one of those women who would have married as a matter of course, but +who never would have been guilty of the weakness of falling in love. +There seemed small probability of shipping her off, to carry into a +new household the restlessness, the fretfulness, the captious +fault-finding with others, the readiness to take offence at what was +done and said to herself, which made poor Selina Leaf the +unacknowledged grief and torment of her own. + +Her two sisters sat silent. What was the use of talking? It would be +only going ever and over again the old thing; trying to ease and +shift a little the long familiar burden which they knew must be +borne. Nearly every household has, near or remote, some such burden, +which Heaven only can lift off or help to bear. And sometimes, +looking round the world outside, these two congratulated themselves, +in a half sort of way, that theirs was as light as it was; that +Selina was after all, a well-meaning well-principled woman, and, in +spite of her little tempers, really fond of her family, as she truly +was, at least as fond as a nature which has its centre in self can +manage to be. + +Only when Hilary looked, as to-night, into her eldest sister's pale +face, where year by year the lines were deepening, and saw how every +agitation such as the present shook her more and more--she who ought +to have a quiet life and a cheerful home, after so many hard +years--then Hilary, fierce in the resistance of her youth, felt as if +what she could have borne for herself she could not bear for Johanna, +and at the moment, sympathized with Ascott in actually "hating" Aunt +Selina. + +"Where is that boy? He ought to be spoken to," Johanna said, at +length, rising wearily. + +"I have spoken to him; I gave him a good scolding. He is sorry, and +promises never to be so rude again." + +"Oh no; not till the next time," replied Miss Leaf. hopelessly. "But +Hilary." with a sudden consternation, "what are we to do about +Elizabeth?" + +The younger sister had thought of that. She had turned over in her +mind all the pros and cons, the inevitable "worries" that would +result from the presence of an additional member of the family, +especially one from whom the family skeleton could not be hid, to +whom it was already only too fatally revealed. + +But Hilary was a clear headed girl, and she had the rare faculty of +seeing things as they really were, undistorted by her own likings or +dislikings--in fact, without reference to herself at all. She +perceived plainly that Johanna ought not to do the housework, that +Selina would not, and that she could not: ergo, they must keep a +servant. Better, perhaps, a small servant, over whom they could have +the same influence as over a child, than one older and more +independent, who would irritate her mistresses at home, and chatter +of them abroad. Besides, they had promised Mrs. Hand to give her +daughter a fair trial. For a month, then, Elizabeth was bound to +stay; afterward, time would show. It was best not to meet troubles +half way. + +This explained, in Hilary's cheerful voice, seemed greatly to +reassure and comfort her sister. + +"Yes, love, you are right; she must remain her month out, unless she +does something very wrong. Do you think that really was a lie she +told?" + +"About the cat? I don't quite know what to think. Let us call her, +and put the question once more. Do you put it, Johanna. I don't think +she could look at you and tell you a story." + +Other people, at sight of that sweet, grave face, its bloom faded, +and hairs silvered long before their time, yet beautiful, with an +almost childlike simplicity and childlike peace--most other people +would have been of Hilary's opinion. + +"Sit down; I'll call her. Dear me, Johanna, we shall have to set up a +bell as well as a servant, unless we had managed to combine the two." + +But Hilary's harmless little joke failed to make her sister smile; +and the entrance of the girl seemed to excite positive apprehension. +How was it possible to make excuse to a servant for her mistress's +shortcomings? how scold for ill-doing this young girl, to whom, ere +she had been a night in the house, so bad an example had been set? +Johanna half expected Elizabeth to take a leaf out of Selina's book +and begin abusing herself and Hilary. + +No: she stood very sheepish, very uncomfortable, but not in the least +bold or sulky--on the whole, looking rather penitent and humble. + +Her mistress took courage. + +"Elizabeth I want you to tell me the truth about that unfortunate +breakage. Don't be afraid. I had rather you broke every thing in the +house than have told me what was not true." + +"It was true; it was the cat." + +"How could that be possible? You were coming down stairs with the +ewer in your hand." + +"Her got under my feet, and throwed me down, and so I tumbled, and +smashed the thing agin the floor." + +The Misses Leaf glanced at each other. This version of the momentous +event was probable enough, and the girl's eager, honest manner gave +internal confirmatory evidence pretty strong. + +"I am sure she is telling the truth." said Hilary. "And remember what +her mother said about her word being always reliable." + +This reference was too much for Elizabeth. She burst out, not into +actual crying, but into a smothered choke. + +"If you donnot believe me, missus, I'd rather go home to mother." + +"I do believe you," said Miss Leaf, kindly then waited till the +pinafore, used as a pocket handkerchief, had dried up grief and +restored composure. + +"I can quite well understand the accident now; and I am sure if you +had put it as plainly at first, my sister would have understood it +too. She was very much annoyed, and no wonder. She will be equally +glad to find she was mistaken." + +Here Miss Leaf paused, somewhat puzzled how to express what she felt +it her duty to say, so as to be comprehended by the servant, and yet +not let down the dignity of the family Hilary came to her aid. + +"Miss Selina is sometimes hasty; but she means kindly always. You +must take care not to vex her, Elizabeth; and you must never answer +her back again, however sharply she speaks. It is not your business; +you are only a child, and she is your mistress." + +"Is her? I thought it was this 'un." + +The subdued clouding of Elizabeth's face, and her blunt pointing to +Miss Leaf as "this 'un." were too much for Hilary's gravity She was +obliged to retreat to the press, and begin an imaginary search for a +book. + +"Yes, I am the eldest, and I suppose you may consider me specially as +your mistress," said Johanna, simply." + +"Remember always to come to me in any difficulty; and above all, to +tell me every thing outright, as soon as it happens. I can forgive +you almost any fault, if you are truthful and honest; but there is +one thing I never could forgive, and that is deception. Now go with +Miss Hilary, and she will teach you how to make the porridge for +supper." + +Elizabeth obeyed silently; she had apparently a great gift for +silence. And she was certainly both obedient and willing; not stupid, +either, though a nervousness of temperament which Hilary was +surprised to find in so big and coarse-looking a girl, made her +rather awkward at first. However, she succeeded in pouring out and +carrying into the parlor, without accident, three platefuls of that +excellent condiment which formed the frugal supper of the family; but +which they ate, I grieve to say, in an orthodox southern fashion, +with sugar or treacle, until Mr. Lyon--greatly horrified thereby--had +instituted his national custom of "supping" porridge with milk. + +It may be a very unsentimental thing to confess, but Hilary, who even +at twenty was rather practical than poetical, never made the porridge +without thinking of Robert Lyon, and the day when he first staid to +supper, and ate it, or as he said and was very much laughed at, ate +"them" with such infinite relish Since then, whenever he came, he +always asked for his porridge, saying it carried him back to his +childish days. And Hilary, with that curious pleasure that women take +in waiting upon any one unto whom the heart is ignorantly beginning +to own the allegiance, humble yet proud, of Miranda to Ferdinand: + + "To be your fellow + You may deny me; but I'll be your servant + Whether you will or no." + +Hilary always contrived to make his supper herself. + +Those pleasant days were now over. Mr. Lyon was gone. As she stool +alone over the kitchen fire, she thought--as now and then she let +herself think for a minute or two in her busy prosaic life--of that +August night, standing at the front door, of his last "good-by," and +last hand-clasp, tight, warm, and firm; and somehow she, like +Johanna, trusted in him. + +Not exactly in his love; it seemed almost impossible that he should +love her, at least till she grew much more worthy of him than now; +but in himself, that he would never be less himself, less thoroughly +good and true than now. That, some time, he would be sure to come +back again, and take up his old relations with them, brightening +their dull life with his cheerfulness; infusing in their feminine +household the new element of a clear, strong, energetic, manly will, +which sometimes made Johanna say that instead of twenty-five the +young man might be forty; and, above all, bringing into their poverty +the silent sympathy of one who had fought his own battle with the +world--a hard one, too, as his face sometimes showed--though he never +said much about it. + +Of the results of this pleasant relation--whether she being the only +truly marriageable person in the house. Robert Lyon intended to marry +her, or was expected to do so, or that society would think it a very +odd thing if he did not do so--this unsophisticated Hilary never +thought at all. If he had said to her that the present state of +things was to go on forever; she to remain always Hilary Leaf, and he +Robert Lyon, the faithful friend of the family, she would have smiled +in his face and been perfectly satisfied. + +True, she had never had any thing to drive away the smile from that +innocent face; no vague jealousies aroused; no maddening rumors +afloat in the small world that was his and theirs. Mr. Lyon was grave +and sedate in all his ways; he never paid the slightest attention to, +or expressed the slightest interest in, any woman whatsoever. + +And so this hapless girl loved, him--just himself; without the +slightest reference to his "connections," for he had none; or his +"prospects," which, if he had any, she did not know of. Alas! to +practical and prudent people I can offer no excuse for her; except, +perhaps what Shakspeare gives in the creation of the poor Miranda. + +When the small servant re-entered the kitchen, Hilary, with a half +sigh, shook off her dreams, called Ascott out of the school-room, and +returned to the work-a-day world and the family supper. + +This being ended, seasoned with a few quiet words administered to +Ascott, and which on the whole he took pretty well, it was nearly ten +o'clock. + +"Far too late to have kept up such a child as Elizabeth; we must not +do it again," said Miss Leaf, taking down the large Bible with which +she was accustomed to conclude the day--Ascott's early hours at +school and their own house-work making it difficult of mornings. Very +brief the reading was, sometimes not more than half a dozen verses, +with no comment thereon; she thought the Word of God might safely be +left to expound itself Being a very humble-minded woman, she did not +feel qualified to lead long devotional "exercises," and she disliked +formal written prayers. So she merely read the Bible to the family, +and said after it the Lord's Prayer. + +But, constitutionally shy as Miss Leaf was to do even this in +presence of a stranger cost her some effort; and it was only a sense +of duty that made her say "yes" to Hilary's suggestion, "I suppose we +ought to call in Elizabeth?" + +Elizabeth came. + +"Sit down," said her mistress: and she sat down, staring uneasily +round about her, as if wondering what was going to befall her next. +Very silent was the little parlor; so small, that it was almost +filled up by its large square piano, its six cane-bottomed chairs, +and one easy chair, in which sat Miss Leaf with the great Book in her +lap. + +"Can you read, Elizabeth?" + +"Yes, ma'am." + +"Hilary, give her a bible." + +And so Elizabeth followed, guided by her not too clean finger, the +words, read in that soft, low voice, somewhere out of the New +Testament; words simple enough for the comprehension of a child or a +heathen. The "South Sea Islander," as Ascott persisted in calling +her, then, doing as the family did, turned round to kneel down; but +in her confusion she knocked over a chair, causing Miss Leaf to wait +a minute till reverent silence was restored. Elizabeth knelt, with +her eyes fixed on the wall: it was a green paper, patterned with +bunches of nuts. How far she listened, or how much she understood, it +was impossible to say; but her manner was decent and decorous. + +"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against +us." Unconsciously Miss Leaf's gentle voice rested on these words, so +needed in the daily life of every human being, and especially of +every family. Was she the only one who thought of "poor Selina?" + +They all rose from their knees, and Hilary out the Bible away. The +little servant "hung about," apparently uncertain what was next to be +done, or what was expected of her to do. Hilary touched her sister. + +"Yes," said Miss Leaf. recollecting herself, and assuming the due +authority, "it is quite time for all the family to be in bed. Take +care of your candle, and mind and be up at six tomorrow morning." + +This was addressed to the new maiden, who dropped a courtesy, and +said, almost cheerfully, "Yes, ma'am." + +"Very well, Good night. Elizabeth." + +And following Miss Leaf's example, the other two, even Ascott, said +civilly and kindly, "Good night, Elizabeth." + + + +CHAPTER III. + +The Christmas holidays ended, and Ascott left for London. It was the +greatest household change the Misses Leaf had known for years, and +they missed him sorely. Ascott was not exactly a lovable boy, and +yet, after the fashion of womankind, his aunts were both fond and +proud of him; fond, in their childless old maidenhood, of any sort of +nephew, and proud, unconsciously, that the said nephew was a big +fellow, who could look over all their heads, besides being handsome +and pleasant mannered, and though not clever enough to set the Thames +on fire, still sufficiently bright to make them hope that in his +future the family star might again rise. + +There was something pathetic in these three women's idealization of +him--even Selina's who though quarrelling with him to his face always +praised him behind his back,--that great, good-looking, lazy lad; +who, every body else saw clearly enough, thought more of his own +noble self than of all his aunts put together. + +The only person he stood in awe of was Mr. Lyon--for whom he always +protested unbounded respect and admiration. How far Robert Lyon liked +Ascott even Hilary could never quite find out; but he was always very +kind to him. + +There was one person in the house who, strange to say, did not +succumb to the all-dominating youth. From the very first there was a +smouldering feud between him and Elizabeth. Whether she overheard, +and slowly began to comprehend his mocking gibes about the "South Sea +Islander," or whether her sullen and dogged spirit resisted the first +attempts the lad made to "put upon her"--as he did upon his aunts, in +small daily tyrannies--was never found out; but certainly Ascott, the +general favorite, found little favor with the new servant. She never +answered when he "hollo'd" for her; she resisted blacking his boots +more than once a day; and she obstinately cleared the kitchen +fire-place of his "messes," as she ignominiously termed various pots +and pans belonging to what he called his "medical studies." + +Although the war was passive rather than aggressive, and sometimes a +source of private amusement to the aunts, still, on the whole, it was +a relief when the exciting cause of it departed; his new and most +gentlemanly port manteau being carried down stairs by Elizabeth +herself, of her own accord, with an air of cheerful alacrity, foreign +to her mien for some weeks past, and which, even in the midst of the +dolorous parting, amused Hilary extremely. + +"I think that girl is a character," she said afterward to Johanna. +"Any how she has curiously strong likes and dislikes." + +"You may say that, my dear; for she brightens up whenever she looks +at you." + +"Does she? Oh, that must be because I have most to do with her. It is +wonderful how friendly one gets over sauce pans and brooms; and what +reverence one inspires in the domestic mind when one really knows how +to make a bed or a pudding." + +"How I wish you had to do neither!" sighed Johanna, looking fondly at +the bright face and light little figure that was flitting about +putting the school-room to rights before the pupils came in. + +"Nonsense--I don't wish any such thing. Doing it makes me not a whit +less charming and lovely." She often applied these adjectives to +herself, with the most perfect conviction that she was uttering a +fiction patent to every body. I must be very juvenile also, for I'm +certain the fellow-passenger at the station to-day took me for +Ascott's sweetheart. When we were saying good by an old gentleman who +sat next him was particularly sympathetic, and you should have seen +how indignantly Ascott replied, "It's only my aunt!" + +Miss Leaf laughed, and the shadow vanished from her face, as Hilary +had meant it should. She only said, caressing her, "Well, my pet, +never mind. I hope you will have a real sweetheart some day." + +"I'm in no hurry, thank you, Johanna." + +But now was heard the knock after knock of the little boys and girls, +and there began that monotonous daily round of school labor, rising +from the simplicities of c, a, t, cat, and d, o, g, dog--to the +sublime heights of Pinnock and Lennie, Telemaque and Latin Delectus. +No loftier; Stowbury being well supplied with first class schools, +and having a vague impression that the Misses Leaf, born ladies and +not brought up as governesses, were not competent educators except of +very small children. + +Which was true enough until lately. So Miss Leaf kept contentedly to +the c, a, t, cat, and d, o, g, dog, of the little butchers and +bakers, as Miss Selina, who taught only sewing, and came into the +school-room but little during the day, scornfully termed them. The +higher branches such as they were, she left gradually to Hilary, who, +of late, possibly out of sympathy with a friend of hers, had begun to +show an actual gift for teaching school. + +It is a gift--all will allow; and chiefly those who have it not, +among which was poor Johanna Leaf. The admiring envy with which she +watched Hilary, moving briskly about from class to class, with a word +of praise to one and rebuke to another, keeping every one's attention +alive, spurring on the dull, controlling the unruly, and exercising +over every member in this little world that influence, at once the +strongest and most intangible and inexplicable--personal +influence--was only equaled by the way in which, at pauses in the +day's work, when it grew dull and monotonous or when the stupidity of +the children ruffled her own quick temper beyond endurance, Hilary +watched Johanna. + +The time I am telling of now is long ago. + +The Stowbury children, who were then little boys and girls, are now +fathers and mothers--doubtless a large proportion being decent +tradesfolk in Stowbury still; though, in this locomotive quarter, +many must have drifted elsewhere--where, Heaven knows. But not a few +of them may still call to mind Miss Leaf, who first taught them their +letters--sitting in her corner between the fire and the window, while +the blind was drawn down to keep out, first the light from her own +fading eyes, and, secondly, the distracting view of green fields and +trees from the youthful eyes by her side. They may remember still her +dark plain dress and her white apron, on which the primers, torn and +dirty, looked half ashamed to lie; and above all, her sweet face and +sweeter voice, never heard in any thing sharper than that grieved +tone which signified their being "naughty children." They may recall +her unwearied patience with the very dullest and most wayward of +them; her unfailing sympathy with every infantile pleasure and pain. +And I think they will acknowledge that whether she taught them much +or little--in this advancing age it might be thought little--Miss +Leaf taught them one thing--to love her. Which, as Ben Johnson said +of the Countess of Pembroke, was in itself a "liberal education." + +Hilary, too. Often when Hilary's younger and more restless spirit +chafed against the monotony of her life; when, instead of wasting her +days in teaching small children, she would have liked to be learning, +learning--every day growing wiser and cleverer, and stretching out +into that busy, bright, active world of which Robert Lyon had told +her--then the sight of Johanna's meek face bent over those dirty +spelling books would at once rebuke and comfort her. She felt, after +all, that she would not mind working on forever, so long as Johanna +still sat there. + +Nevertheless, that winter seemed to her very long--especially after +Ascott was gone. For Johanna, partly for money, and partly for +kindness, had added to her day's work four evenings a week when a +half educated mother of one of her little pupils came to be taught to +write a decent hand, and to keep the accounts of her shop. Upon which +Selina, highly indignant, had taken to spending her evenings in the +school room, interrupting Hilary's solitary studies there by many a +lamentation over the peaceful days when they all sat in the kitchen +together and kept no servant. For Selina was one of those who never +saw the bright side of any thing till it had gone by. + +"I'm sure I don't know how we are to manage with Elizabeth. That +greedy--" + +"And growing," suggested Hilary. + +"I say that greedy girl eats as much as any two of us. And as for her +clothes--her mother does not keep her even decent." + +"She would find it difficult upon three pounds a year." + +"Hilary, how dare you contradict me! I am only stating a plain fact." + +"And I another. But, indeed, I don't want to talk Selina." + +"You never do except when you are wished to be silent; and then your +tongue goes like any race horse." + +"Does it? Well, like Gilpin's, + + 'It carries weight: it rides a race, + 'Tis for a thousand pound?' + +--and I only wish it were. Heigh ho! if I could but earn a thousand +pounds!" + +Selina was too vexed to reply and for five quiet minutes Hilary bent +over her Homer which Mr. Lyon had taken such pleasure in teaching +her, because he said, she learned it faster than any of his grammar +school boys. She had forgotten all domestic grievances in a vision of +Thetis and the water nymphs; and was repeating to herself, first in +the sonorous Greek and then in Pope's small but sweet English, that +catalogue of oceanic beauties ending with + + "Black Janira and Janassa fair, + And Amatheia with her amber hair." + +"Black, did you say? I'm sure she was as black as a chimney sweep all +to-day. And her pinafore" + +"Her what? Oh, Elizabeth, you mean--" + +"Her pinafore had three rents in it, which she never thinks of +mending though I gave her needles and thread myself a week ago. But +she does not know how to use them any more than a baby." + +"Possibly, nobody ever taught her." + +"Yes; she went for a year to the National School, she says, and +learned both marking and sewing." + +"Perhaps she has never practiced them since. She could hardly have +had time, with all the little Hands to look after, as her mother says +she did. All the better for us. It makes her wonderfully patient with +our troublesome brats. It was only to day, when that horrid little +Jacky Smith hurt himself so, that I saw Elizabeth take him into the +kitchen, wash his face and hands, and cuddle him up and comfort him, +quite motherly. Her forte is certainly children." + +"You always find something to say for her." + +"I should be ashamed if I could not find something to say for any +body who is always abused." + +Another pause--and then Selina returned to the charge. + +"Have you ever observed, my dear, the extraordinary way she has of +fastening, or rather, not fastening her gown behind? She just hooks +it together at the top and at the waist, while between there is a--" + +"Hiatus valde deflendus. Oh dear me! what shall I do? Selina, how can +I help it if a girl of fifteen years old is not a paragon of +perfection? as of course we all are, if we only could find it out." + +And Hilary, in despair, rose to carry her candle and books into the +chilly but quiet bedroom, biting her lips the while lest she should +be tempted to say something which Selina called "impertinent," which +perhaps it was, from a younger sister to an elder. I do not set +Hilary up as a perfect character. Through sorrow only do people go on +to perfection; and sorrow, in its true meaning, the cherished girl +had never known. + +But that night, talking to Johanna before they went to sleep--they +had always slept together since the time when the elder sister used +to walk the room of nights with that pulling, motherless infant in +her arms--Hilary anxiously started the question of the little +servant. + +"I am afraid I vexed Selina greatly about her to-night, and yet what +can one do? Selina is so very unjust--always expecting +impossibilities. She would like to have Elizabeth at once a first +rate cook, a finished house-maid, and an attentive lady's maid, and +all without being taught! She gives her things to do, neither waiting +to see if they are comprehended by her, nor showing her how to do +them. Of course the girl stands gaping and staring and does not do +them, or does them so badly, that she gets a thorough scolding." + +"Is she very stupid, do you think?" asked Johanna, in unconscious +appeal to her pet's stronger judgment. + +"No, I don't. Far from stupid; only very ignorant, and--you would +hardly believe it--very nervous. Selina frightens her. She gets on +extremely well with me." + +"Any one would, my dear. That is," added the conscientious elder +sister, still afraid of making the "child" vain, "any one whom you +took pain with. But do you think you can ever make any thing out of +Elizabeth? Her month ends to-morrow. Shall we let her go?" + +"And perhaps get in her place a story-teller--a tale-bearer--even a +thief. No, no; let us + + 'Rather bear the ills we have, + Than fly to others that we know not of;' + +and a thief would be worse than even a South Sea Islander." + +"Oh yes, my dear," said Johanna, with a shiver. + +"By-the-by, the first step in the civilization of the Polynesians was +giving them clothes. And I have heard say that crime and rags often +go together; that a man unconsciously feels that he owes something to +himself and society in the way of virtue when he has a clean face and +clean shirt, and a decent coat on. Suppose we try the experiment of +dressing Elizabeth. How many old gowns have we?" + +The number was few. Nothing in the Leaf family was ever cast off till +its very last extremity of decay; the talent that + + "Gars auld claes look amaist as gude's the new" + +being specially possessed by Hilary. She counted over her own +wardrobe and Johanna's but found nothing that could be spared. + +"Yes, my love, there is one thing. You certainly shall never put on +that old brown merino again; though you have laid it so carefully by, +as if you meant it to come out as fresh as ever next winter. No, +Hilary, you must have a new gown, and you must give Elizabeth your +brown merino." + +Hilary laughed, and replied not. + +Now it might be a pathetic indication of a girl who had very few +clothes, but Hilary had a superstitious weakness concerning +hers.--Every dress had its own peculiar chronicle of the scenes where +it had been, the enjoyments she had shared in it. Particular dresses +were special memorials of her loves, her pleasures, her little +passing pains; as long as a bit remained of the poor old fabric the +sight of it recalled them all. + +This brown merino--in which she had sat two whole winters over her +Greek and Latin by Robert Lyon's side, which he had once stopped to +touch and notice, saying what a pretty color it was, and how he liked +soft-feeling dresses for women--to cut up this old brown merino +seemed to hurt her so she could almost have cried. + +Yet what would Johanna think if the refused? And there was Elizabeth +absolutely in want of clothes. "I must be growing very wicked," +thought poor Hilary. + +She lay a good while silent in the dark, while Johanna planned and +replanned--calculating how, even with the addition of an old cape of +her own, which was out of the same piece, this hapless gown could be +made to fit the gaunt frame of Elizabeth Hand.--Her poor kindly brain +was in the last extremity of muddle, when Hilary, with a desperate +effort, dashed in to the rescue, and soon made all clear, contriving +body, skirt, sleeves and all. + +"You have the best head in the world, my love. I don't know whatever +I should do without you." + +"Luckily you are never likely to be tried. So give me a kiss; and +good night, Johanna." + +I misdoubt many will say I am writing about small, ridiculously +small, things. Yet is not the whole of life made up of +infinitesimally small things? And in its strange and solemn mosaic, +the full pattern of which we never see clearly till looking back on +it from far away, dare we say of any thing which the hand of Eternal +Wisdom has put together, that it is too common or too small? + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +While her anxious mistresses were thus talking her over the servant +lay on her humble bed and slept. They knew she did, for they heard +her heavy breathing through the thin partition wall. Whether, as +Hilary suggested, she was too ignorant to notice the days of the +week, or month, or, as Selina thought, too stupid to care for any +thing beyond eating, drinking, and sleeping. Elizabeth manifested no +anxiety about herself or her destiny. + +She went about her work just as usual; a little quicker and readier, +now she was becoming familiarized to it; but she said nothing. She +was undoubtedly a girl of silent and undemonstrative nature. + +"Sometimes still waters run deep," said Miss Hilary. + +"Nevertheless. there are such things as canals," replied Johanna. +"When do you mean to have your little talk with her?" + +Hilary did not know. She was sitting, rather more tired than usual, +by the school-room fire, the little people having just departed for +their Saturday half-holiday. Before clearing off the debris which +they always left behind, she stood a minute at the window, refreshing +her eyes with the green field opposite, and the far-away wood, +crowned by a dim white monument, visible in fair weather, on which +those bright brown eyes had a trick of lingering, even in the middle +of school hours. For the wood and the hill beyond belonged to a +nobleman's "show" estate, five miles off--the only bit of real +landscape beauty that Hilary had ever beheld. There, during the last +holidays but one, she, her sisters, her nephew, and, by his own +special request, Mr. Lyon, had spent a whole long, merry, midsummer +day. She wondered whether such a day would ever come again! + +But spring was coming again, any how; the field looked smiling and +green, specked here and there with white dots which, she opined. +might possibly be daisies. She half wished she was not too old and +dignified to dart across the road, leap the sunk fence, and run to +see. + +"I think, Johanna--Hark, what can that be?" + +For at this instant somebody came tearing down the stairs, opened the +front door, and did--exactly what Hilary had just been wishing to do. + +"It's Elizabeth, without her bonnet or shawl, with something white +flying behind her. How she is dashing across the field! What can she +be after? Just look." + +But loud screams from Selina's room, the front, one, where she had +been lying in bed all morning, quite obliterated the little servant +from their minds. The two sisters ran hastily up stairs. + +Selina was sitting up, in undisguised terror and agitation. + +"Stop her! Hold her! I'm sure she has gone mad. Lock the door, or +she'll come back and murder us all." + +"Who? Elizabeth! Was she here? What has been the matter?" + +But it was some time before they could make out any thing. At last +they gathered that Elizabeth had been waiting upon Miss Selina, +putting vinegar cloths on her head, and doing various things about +the room. "She is very handy when one is ill." even Selina allowed. + +"And I assure you I was talking most kindly to her; about the duties +of her position, and how she ought to dress better, and be more civil +behaved, or else she never could except to keep any place. And she +stood in her usual sulky way of listening, never answering a +word--with her back to me, staring right out of window. And I had +just said, Elizabeth, my girl'--indeed, Hilary, I was talking to her +in my very kindest way--" + +"I've no doubt of it--but do get on." + +"When she suddenly turned round, snatched a clean towel from a chair +back, and another from my head--actually from my very head, +Johanna--and out she ran. I called after her, but she took no more +notice than if I had been a stone. And she left the door wide +open--blowing upon me. Oh, dear; she has given me my death of cold." +And Selina broke out into piteous complainings. + +Her elder sister soothed her as well as she could, while Hilary ran +down to the front door and looked, and enquired every where for +Elizabeth. She was not to be seen on field or road; and along that +quiet terrace not a soul had even perceived her quit the house. + +"It's a very odd thing." said Hilary, returning. "What can have come +over the girl? You are sure, Selina, that you said nothing which--" + +"Now I know what you are going to say, You are going to blame me. +Whatever happens in this house you always blame me. And perhaps +you're right. Perhaps I am a nuisance--a burden--would be far better +dead and buried. I wish I were!" + +When Selina took this tack, of course her sisters were silenced. They +quited her a little, and then went down and searched the house all +over. + +All was in order; at least in as much order as was to be expected the +hour before dinner. The bowl of half-peeled potatoes stood on the +back kitchen "sink;" the roast was down before the fire; the knives +were ready for cleaning. Evidently Elizabeth flight had not been +premeditated. + +"It's all nonsense about her going mad. She has as sound a head as I +have," said Hilary to Johanna, who began to look seriously uneasy. +"She might have run away in a fit of passion, certainly; and yet that +is improbable; her temper is more sullen than furious. And having no +lack of common sense she must know that doing a thing like this is +enough to make her lose her place at once." + +"Yes," said Johanna, mournfully, "I'm afraid after this she must go." + +"Wait and see what she has to say for herself." pleaded Hilary. "She +will surely be back in two or three minutes." + +But she was not, nor even in two or three hours. + +Her mistresses' annoyance became displeasure, and that again subsided +into serious apprehension. Even Selina ceased talking over and over +the incident which gave the sole information to be arrived at; rose, +dressed, and came down to the kitchen. There, after long and anxious +consultation, Hilary, observing that "Somebody had better do +something," began to prepare the dinner as in pre-Elizabethan days; +but the three ladies' appetites were small. + +About three in the afternoon, Hilary, giving utterance to the hidden +alarm of all, said-- + +"I think, sisters, I had better go down as quickly as I can to Mrs. +Hand's." + +This agreed, she stood consulting with Johanna as to what could +possibly be said to the mother in case that unfortunate child had not +gone home, when the kitchen door opened, and the culprit appeared. + +Not, however, with the least look of a culprit. Hot she was, and +breathless; and with her hair down about her ears, and her apron +rolled up round her waist, presented a most forlorn and untidy +aspect; but her eyes were bright, and her countenance glowing. + +She took a towel from under her arm.--"There's one on 'em--and you'll +get back--the other--when it's washed." + +Having blurted out this, she leaned against the wall, trying to +recover her breath. + +"Elizabeth! Where have you been? How dared you go? Your behavior is +disgraceful--most disgraceful, I say. Johanna, why don't you speak to +your servant?" (When, for remissness in reproving others, the elder +sister herself fell under reproof, it was always emphatically "your +sister--"your nephew"--"your servant.") + +But, for once, Miss Selina's sharp voice failed to bring the +customary sullen look to Elizabeth's face, and when Miss Leaf, in her +milder tones, asked where she had been, she answered unhesitatingly-- + +"I've been down the town." + +"Down the town!" the three ladies cried, in one chorus of +astonishment. + +"I've been as quick as I could, missis. I runned all the way there +and back; but it was a good step, and he was some'at heavy, though he +is but a little'un," + +"He! who on earth is he?" + +"Deary me! I never thought of axing; but his mother lives in Hall +street. Somebody saw me carrying him to the doctor, and went and told +her. Oh! he was welly killed, Miss Leaf--the doctor said so; but +he'll do now, and you'll get your towel clean washed tomorrow." + +While Elizabeth spoke so incoherently, and with such unwonted energy +and excitement, Johanna looked as if she thought her sister's fears +were true, and the girl had really gone mad; but Hilary's quicker +perceptions jumped at a different conclusion. + +"Quiet yourself, Elizabeth," said she, taking a firm hold of her +shoulder, and making her sit down, when the rolled-up apron dropped, +and showed itself all covered with blood spots. Selina screamed +outright. + +Then Elizabeth seemed to become half conscious that she had done +something blamable, or was at least a suspected character. Her warmth +of manner faded; the sullen cloud of dogged resistance to authority +was rising in her poor dirty face, when Hilary, beginning with, "Now, +we are not going to scold you; but we must hear the reason of this," +contrived by adroit questions, and not a few of them, to elicit the +whole story. + +It appeared that, while standing at Miss Selina's window, Elizabeth +had watched three little boys, apparently engaged in a very favorite +amusement of little boys in that field, going quickly behind a horse, +and pulling out the longest and handsomest hairs in his tail to make +fishing lines of. She saw the animal give a kick, and two of the boys +ran away; the other did not stir. For a minute or so she noticed a +black lump lying in the grass; then, with the quick instinct for +which nobody had ever given her credit, she guessed what had +happened, and did immediately the wisest and only thing possible +under the circumstances, namely, to snatch up a towel, run across the +field, bind up the child's head as well as she could, and carry it, +bleeding and insensible, to the nearest doctor, who lived nearly a +mile off. + +She did not tell--and they only found it out afterward--how she had +held the boy while under the doctor's hands, the skull being so badly +fractured that the frightened mother fainted at the sight; how she +had finally carried him home, and left him comfortably settled in +bed, his senses returned, and his life saved. + +"Ay, my arms do ache above a bit," she said, in answer to Miss Leaf's +questions. "He wasn't quite a baby--nigh upon twelve, I reckon; but +then he was very small of his age. And he looked just as if he was +dead--and he bled so." + +Here, just for a second or two, the color left the big girl's lips, +and she trembled a little. Miss Leaf went to the kitchen cupboard, +and took out their only bottle of wine--administered in rare doses, +exclusively as medicine. + +"Drink this, Elizabeth; and then go and wash your face and eat your +dinner. We will talk to you by-and-by." + +Elizabeth looked up with a long, wistfull stare of intense surprise, +and then added, "Have I done any thing wrong, missis?" + +"I did not say so. But drink this; and don't talk, child." + +She was obeyed. By-and-by Elizabeth disappeared into the back +kitchen, emerged thence with a clean face, hands, and apron; and went +about her afternoon business as if nothing had happened. + +Her mistresses' threatened "talk" with her never came about. What, +indeed, could they say? No doubt the little servant had broken the +strict letter of domestic law by running off in that highly eccentric +and inconvenient way; but, as Hilary tried to explain by a series of +most ingenious ratiocinations, she had fulfilled, in the spirit of +it, the very highest law--that of charity. She had also shown prompt +courage, decision, practical and prudent forethought, and above all, +entire self-forgetfulness. + +"And I should like to know," said Miss Hilary, warming with her +subject, "if those are not the very qualities that go to constitute a +hero." + +"But we don't want a hero; we want a maid-of-all-work." + +"I'll tell you what we want, Selina. We want a woman; that is, a girl +with the making of a good woman in her. If we can find that, all the +rest will follow. For my part, I would rather take this child, rough +as she is, but with her truthfulness, conscientiousness, kindliness +of heart, and evident capability of both self-control and +self-devotedness, than the most finished servant we could find. My +advice is--keep her." + +This settled the matter, since it was a curious fact that the +"advice" of the youngest Miss Leaf was, whether they knew it or not, +almost equivalent to a family ukase. + +When Elizabeth had brought in the tea-things, which she did with +especial care, apparently wishing to blot out the memory of the +morning's escapade by astonishingly good behavior for the rest of the +day, Miss Leaf called her, and asked if she knew that her month of +trial ended this day? + +"Yes, ma'am," with the strict normal courtesy, something between that +of the old-world family domestic--as her mother might have been to +the Miss Elizabeth Something she was named after--and the abrupt +"dip" of the modern National school girl; which constituted Elizabeth +Hand's sole experience of manners. + +"If you had not been absent I should have gone to speak with your +mother to-day. Indeed Miss Hilary was going when you came in; but it +would have been with a very different intention from what we had in +the morning. However, that is not likely to happen again." + +"Eh?" said Elizabeth, inquiringly. + +Miss Leaf hesitated, and looked uneasily at her two sisters. It was +always a trial to her shy nature to find herself the mouth-piece of +the family; and this same shyness made it still more difficult to +break through the stiff barriers which seemed to rise up between her, +a gentlewoman well on in years, and this coarse working girl. She +felt, as she often complained, that with the-kindest intentions, she +did not quite know how to talk to Elizabeth. + +"My sister means," said Hilary, "that as we are not likely to have +little boys half killed in the field every day, she trusts you will +not be running away again as you did this morning. She feels sure +that you would not do such a thing, putting us all to so great +annoyance and uneasiness, for any less cause than such as happened +to-day. You promise that?" + +"Yes, Miss Hilary." + +"Then we quite forgive you as regards ourselves. Nay"--feeling in +spite of Selina's warning nudge, that she had hardly been kind +enough--"we rather praise than blame you, Elizabeth. And if you like +to stay with us and will do your best to improve, we are willing to +keep you as our servant." + +"Thank you ma'am. Thank you, Miss Hilary. Yes, I'll stop." + +She said no more--but sighed a great sigh, as if her mind were +relieved--("So," thought Hilary, "she was not so indifferent to us as +we imagined")--and bustled back into her kitchen. + +"Now for the clothing of her," observed Miss Leaf, also looking much +relieved that the decision was over. "You know what we agreed upon; +and there is certainly no time to be lost. Hilary, my dear, suppose +you bring down your brown merino?" Hilary went without a word. + +People who inhabit the same house, eat, sit, and sleep +together--loving one another and sympathizing with one another, ever +so deeply and dearly--nevertheless inevitably have momentary seasons +when the intense solitude in which we all live, and must expect ever +to live, at the depth of our being, forces itself painfully upon the +heart. Johanna must have had many such seasons when Hilary was a +child; Hilary had one now. + +She unfolded the old frock, and took out of its pocket, a hiding +place at once little likely to be searched, and harmless if +discovered, a poor little memento of that happy midsummer day. + + "Dear Miss Hilary. To-morrow, then, I shall come. + Yours truly, Robert Lyon." + +The only scrap of note she had ever received; he always wrote to +Johanna; as regularly as ever, or more so, now Ascott was gone; but +only to Johanna. She read over the two lines, wondered where she +should keep them now that Johanna might not notice them; and then +recoiled, as if the secret were a wrong to that dear sister who loved +her so well. + +"But nothing makes me love her less; nothing ever could. She thinks +me quite happy, as I am; and yet--oh, if I did not miss him so!" + +And the aching, aching want which sometimes came over began again. +Let us not blame her. God made all our human needs. God made love. +Not merely affection but actual love--the necessity to seek and find +out some other being, not another but the complement of one's +self--the "other half," who brings rest and strength for weakness, +sympathy in aspiration, and tenderness for tenderness, as no other +person ever can. Perhaps, even in marriage, this love is seldom +found, and it is possible in all lives to do without it. Johanna had +done so. But then she had been young, and was now growing old; and +Hilary was only twenty, with a long life before her. Poor child, let +us not blame her! + +She was not in the least sentimental, her natural disposition +inclining her to be more than cheerful, actually gay. She soon +recovered herself, and when, a short time after, she stood, scissors +in hand, demonstrating how very easy it was to make something out of +nothing, her sisters never suspected how very near tears had lately +been to those bright eyes, which were always the sunshine of the +house. + +"You are giving yourself a world of trouble," said Selina. "If I were +you, I would just make over the dress to Elizabeth, and let her do +what she could with it." + +"My dear, I always find I give myself twice the trouble by expecting +people to do what they can't do. I have to do it myself afterward. +Prove how a child who can't even handle a needle and thread is +competent to make a gown for herself, and I shall be most happy to +secede in her favor." + +"Nay," put in the eldest sister, afraid of a collision of words, +"Selina is right; if you do not teach Elizabeth to make her own gowns +how can she learn?" + +"Johanna, you are the brilliantest of women! and you know you don't +like the parlor littered with rags and cuttings. You wish to get rid +of me for the evening? Well, I'll go! Hand me the work basket and the +bundle, and I'll give my first lesson in dress making to our South +Sea Islander." + +But Fate stood in the way of Miss Hilary's good intentions. + +She found Elizabeth not as was her wont, always busy, over the +perpetual toil of those who have not yet learned the mysterious art +of arrangement and order, nor, as sometimes, hanging sleepily over +the kitchen fire, waiting for bedtime; but actually sitting, sitting +down at the table. Her candle was flaring on one side of her; on the +other was the school room inkstand, a scrap of waste paper, and a pen +But she was not writing; she sat with her head on her hands, in an +attitude of disconsolate idleness, so absorbed that she seemed not to +hear Hilary's approach. + +"I did not know you could write, Elizabeth." + +"No more I can," was the answer, in the most doleful of voices. "It +bean't no good. I've forgotten all about it. T' letters wonna join." + +"Let me look at them." And Hilary tried to contemplate gravely the +scrawled and blotted page, which looked very much as if a large +spider had walked into the ink bottle, and then walked out again on a +tour of investigation. "What did you want to write?" asked she, +suddenly. + +Elizabeth blushed violently. "It was the woman, Mrs. Cliffe, t' +little lad's mother, you know; she wanted somebody to write to her +husband as is at work at Birmingham, and I said I would. I'd learned +at the National, but I've forgotten it all. I'm just as Miss Selina +says--I'm good for nowt." + +"Come, come, never fret;" for there was a sort of choke in the girl's +voice. "There's many a good person who never learned to write. But I +don't see why you should not learn. Shall I teach you?" + +Utter amazement, beaming gratitude, succeeded one another, plain as +light, in Elizabeth's eyes, but she only said, "Thank you, Miss +Hilary." + +"Very well. I have brought you an old gown of mine, and was going to +show you how to make it up for yourself, but I'll look over your +writing instead. Sit down and let me see what you can do." + +In a state of nervous trepidation, pitiful to behold, Elizabeth took +the pen. Terrible scratches resulted; blots innumerable; and one +fatal deluge of ink, which startled from their seats both mistress +and maid, and made Hilary thankful that she had taken off her better +gown for a common one, as, with sad thriftiness, the Misses Leaf +always did of evenings. + +When Elizabeth saw the mischief she had done, her contrition and +humility were unbounded. "No, Miss Hilary, you can't make nothin' of +me. I be too stupid, I'll give it up." + +"Nonsense!" And the bright active little lady looked steadily into +the heavy face of this undeveloped girl, half child, half woman, +until some of her own spirit seemed to be reflected there. Whether +the excitement of the morning had roused her, or her mistresses' +kindness had touched Elizabeth's heart, and--as in most women--the +heart was the key to the intellect; or whether the gradual daily +influence of her changed life during the last month had been taking +effect, now for the first time to appear--certain it is that Hilary +had never perceived before what an extremely intelligent face it was; +what good sense was indicated in the well shaped head and forehead; +what tenderness and feeling in the deep-set grey eyes. + +"Nonsense," repeated she. "Never give up any thing; I never would. +We'll try a different plan, and begin from the beginning, as I do +with my little scholars. Wait, while I fetch a copy book out of the +parlor press." + +She highly amused her sisters with a description of what she called +her "newly instituted Polynesian Academy;" returned, and set to work +to guide the rough, coarse hand through the mysteries of calligraphy. + +To say this was an easy task would not be true. Nature's own laws and +limits make the using of faculties which have been unused for +generations very difficult at first. To suppose that a working man, +the son of working men, who applies himself to study, does it with as +little trouble as your upper-class children, who have been +unconsciously undergoing education ever since the cradle, is a great +mistake. All honor, therefore, to those who do attempt, and to ever +so small a degree succeed in, the best and wisest culture of all, +self-culture. + +Of this honor Elizabeth deserved her share. + +"She is stupid enough," Hilary confessed, after the lesson was over; +"but there is a dogged perseverance about the girl which I actually +admire. She blots her fingers, her nose, her apron, but she never +gives in; and she sticks to the grand principle of one thing at a +time. I think she did two whole pages of a's, and really performed +them satisfactorily, before she asked to go on to b's. Yes! I believe +she will do." + +"I hope she will do her work, any how," said Selina, breaking into +the conversation rather crossly. "I'm sure I don't see the good of +wasting time over teaching Elizabeth to write, when there's so much +to be done in the house by one and all of us, from Monday morning +till Saturday night." + +"Ay, that's it," answered Hilary, meditatively. "I don't see how I +ever shall get time to teach her, and she is so tired of nights when +the work is all done; she'll be dropping asleep with the pen in her +hand--I have done it myself before now." + +Ay, in those days when, trying so hard to "improve her mind," and +make herself a little more equal and companionable to another mind +she knew, she had, after her daily house cares and her six hours of +school teaching, attempted at nine P. M. to begin close study on her +own account. And though with her strong will she succeeded tolerably, +still, as she told Johanna, she could well understand how slow was +the, "march of intellect" (a phrase which had just then come up) +among day laborers and the like; and how difficult it was for these +Mechanics Institutions, which were now talked so much of, to put any +new ideas into the poor tired heads, rendered sluggish and stupid +with hard bodily labor, "Suppose I were to hold my Polynesian Academy +on a Sunday?" and she looked inquiringly at her sisters, especially +Johanna. + +Now the Misses Leaf were old fashioned country folk, who lived before +the words Sabbatarian and un-Sabbatarian had ever got into the +English language. They simply "remembered the Sabbath day to keep it +holy;" they arranged so as to make it for all the household a day of +rest: and they went regularly to church once--sometimes Selina and +Hilary went twice. For the intervening hours, their usual custom was +to take an afternoon walk in the fields; begun chiefly for Ascott's +sake, to keep the lad out of mischief, and put into his mind better +thoughts than he was likely to get from his favorite Sunday +recreation of sitting on the wall throwing stones. After he left for +London there was Elizabeth to be thought of; and they decided that +the best Sabbath duty for the little servant was to go and see her +mother. So they gave her every Sunday afternoon free; only requiring +that she should be at home punctually after church time, at eight +o'clock. But from thence till bedtime was a blank two hours, which, +Hilary had noticed, Elizabeth not infrequently spent in dozing over +the fire. + +"And I wonder," said she, giving the end of her long meditation out +loud, "whether going to sleep is not as much Sabbath breaking as +learning to write? What do you say, Johanna?" + +Johanna, simple, God-fearing woman as she was, to whom faith and love +came as natural as the breath she drew, had never perplexed herself +with the question. She only smiled acquiescence. But Selina was +greatly shocked. Teaching to write on a Sunday! Bringing the week day +work into the day of rest! Doing one's own pleasure on the holy day! +She thought it exceedingly wrong. Such a thing had never been heard +of in their house. Whatever else might be said of them, the Leafs +were always a respectable family as to keeping Sunday. Nobody could +say that even poor Henry-- + +But here Selina's torrent of words stopped. + +When conversation revived, Hilary, who had been at first half annoyed +and half amused, resumed her point seriously. + +"I might say that writing isn't Elizabeth's week-day work, and that +teaching her is not exactly doing my own pleasure; but I won't creep +out of the argument by a quibble. The question is, What is keeping +the Sabbath day 'holy?' I say--and I stick to my opinion--that it is +by making it a day of worship, a rest day--a cheerful and happy +day--and by doing as much good in it as we can. And therefore I mean +to teach Elizabeth on a Sunday." + +"She'll never understand it. She'll consider it work." + +"And if she did, work is a more religious thing than idleness. I am +sure I often feel that, of the two, I should be less sinful in +digging potatoes in my garden, or sitting mending stockings in my +parlor, than in keeping Sunday as some people do--going to church +genteelly in my best clothes, eating a huge Sunday dinner, and then +nodding over a good book, or taking a regular Sunday nap till +bedtime." + +"Hush, child!" said Johanna, reprovingly; for Hilary's cheeks were +red, and her voice angry. She was taking the hot, youthful part which +in its hatred of forms and shams, sometimes leads--and not seldom led +poor Hilary--a little too far on the other side. "I think," Miss Leaf +added, "that our business is with ourselves, and not with our +neighbors. Let us keep the Sabbath according to our conscience. Only, +I would take care never to do any thing which jarred against my +neighbor's feelings. I would, like Paul, 'eat no meat while the world +standeth' rather than 'make my brother to offend.' " + +Hilary looked in her sister's sweet, calm face, and the anger died +out of her own. + +"Shall I give up my academy?" she said, softly. + +"No, my love. It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath day, and +teaching a poor ignorant girl to write is an absolute good. Make her +understand that, and you need not be afraid of any harm ensuing." + +"You never will make her understand," said Selina, sullenly. "She is +only a servant." + +"Nevertheless I'll try." + +Hilary could not tell how far she succeeded in simplifying to the +young servant's comprehension this great question, involving so many +points--such as the following of the spirit and the letter, the law +of duty and the compulsion of love, which, as she spoke, seemed +opening out so widely and awfully that she herself involuntarily +shrank from it, and wondered that poor finite creatures should, ever +presume to squabble about it at all. + +But one thing the girl did understand--her young mistress's kindness. +She stood watching the delicate little hand that had so patiently +guided hers, and now wrote copy after copy for her future benefit. At +last she said-- + +"You're taking a deal o' trouble wi' a poor wench, and it's very kind +in a lady like you." + +Miss Hilary was puzzled what answer to make. True enough it was +"kind," and she was "a lady;" and between her and Mrs. Hand's rough +daughter was an unmistakable difference and distinction. That +Elizabeth perceived it was proved by her growing respectfulness of +manner--the more respectful, it seemed, the more she herself +improved. Yet Hilary could not bear to make her feel more sharply +than was unavoidable the great gulf that lies and ever must lie--not +so much between mistress and servant, in their abstract +relation--(and yet that is right, for the relation and authority are +ordained of God)--but between the educated and the ignorant, the +coarse and the refined. + +"Well," she said, after a pause of consideration, "you always have it +in your power to repay my 'kindness,' as you call it. The cleverer +you become the more useful you will be to me; and the more good you +grow the better I shall like you." + +Elizabeth smiled--that wonderfully bright, sudden smile which seemed +to cover over all her plainness of feature. + +"Once upon a time," Hilary resumed by-and-by, "when England was very +different from what it is now, English ladies used to have what they +call 'bower-women,' whom they took as girls, and brought up in their +service; teaching them all sorts of things--cooking, sewing, +spinning, singing, and, probably, except that the ladies of that time +were very ill-educated themselves, to read and write also. They used +to spend part of every day among their bower-women; and as people can +only enjoy the company of those with whom they have some sympathies +in common, we must conclude that--" + +Here Hilary stopped, recollecting she must be discoursing miles above +the head of her little bower-maiden, and that, perhaps, after all, +her theory would be best kept to herself, and only demonstrated +practically. + +"So, Elizabeth, if I spend a little of my time in teaching you, you +must grow up my faithful and attached bower-maiden?" + +"I'll grow up any thing, Miss Hilary, if it's to please you," was the +answer, given with a smothered intensity that quite startled the +young mistress. + +"I do believe the girl is getting fond of me," said she, half +touched, half laughing to Johanna. "If so, we shall get on. It is +just as with our school children, you know. We have to seize hold of +their hearts first, and their heads afterward. Now, Elizabeth's head +may be uncommonly tough, but I do believe she likes me." + +Johanna smiled; but she would not for the world have said--never +encouraging the smallest vanity in her child--that she did not think +this circumstance so very remarkable. + + + +CHAPTER V. + +A household exclusively composed of women has its advantages and its +disadvantages. It is apt to become somewhat narrow in judgment, +morbid in feeling, absorbed in petty interests, and bounding its +vision of outside things to the small horizon which it sees from its +own fireside. But, on the other hand, by this fireside often abides a +settled peace and purity, a long-suffering, generous forbearance, and +an enduring affectionateness which the other sex can hardly +comprehend or credit. Men will not believe, what is nevertheless the +truth, that we can "stand alone" better than they can; that we can do +without them far easier, and with less deterioration of character, +than they can do without us; that we are better able to provide for +ourselves interests, duties, and pleasures; in short, strange as it +may appear, that we have more real self-sustaining independence than +they. + +Of course, that the true life, the highest life, is that of man and +woman united, no one will be insane enough to deny; I am speaking of +the substitute for it, which poor humanity has so often to fall back +upon and make the best of--a better best very frequently than what +appears best in the eyes of the world. In truth, many a troubled, +care ridden, wealthy family, torn with dissensions, or frozen up in +splendid formalities, might have envied that quiet, humble, maiden +household of the Misses Leaf, where their only trial was poverty, and +their only grief the one which they knew the worst of, and had met +patiently for many a year--poor Selina's "way." + +I doubt not it was good for Elizabeth Hand that her first place--the +home in which she received her first impressions--was this feminine +establishment, simple and regular, in which was neither waste nor +disorder allowed. Good, too, that while her mistresses' narrow means +restricted her in many things enjoyed by servants in richer families, +their interests, equally narrow, caused to be concentrated upon +herself a double measure of thought and care. She became absolutely +"one of the family," sharing in all its concerns. From its small and +few carnal luxuries--such as the cake, fruit, or pot of preserve, +votive offerings from pupils' parents--up to the newspaper and the +borrowed book, nothing was either literally or metaphorically +"locked" up from Elizabeth. + +This grand question of locking up had been discussed in full conclave +the day after her month of preparation ended, the sisters taking +opposite sides, as might have been expected. Selina was for the +immediate introduction of a locksmith and a key basket. + +"While she was only on trial, it did not so much signify; besides, if +it did, we had only buttons on the press doors; but now she is our +regular servant we ought to institute a regular system of authority. +How can she respect a family that never locks up any thing?" + +"How can we respect a servant from whom we lock up every thing!" + +"Respect a servant! What do you mean, Hilary?" + +"I mean that if I did not respect a servant I would be very sorry to +keep her one day in any house of mine." + +"Wait till you've a house of your own to keep, Miss," said Selina, +crossly. "I never heard such nonsense. Is that the way you mean to +behave to Elizabeth? leave every thing open to her--clothes, books, +money; trust her with all your secrets; treat her as your most +particular friend?" + +"A girl of fifteen would be rather an inconvenient particular friend! +And I have happily few secrets to trust her with. But if I could not +trust her with our coffee, tea, sugar, and so on, and bring her up +from the very first in the habit of being trusted, I would recommend +her being sent away to-morrow." + +"Very fine talking; and what do you say, Johanna?--if that is not an +unnecessary question after Hilary has given her opinion." + +"I think," replied the elder sister, taking no notice of the long +familiar innuendo, "that in this case Hilary is right. How people +ought to manage in great houses I can not say; but in our small house +it will be easier and better not to alter our simple ways. Trusting +the girl--if she is a good girl--will only make her more trustworthy; +if she is bad, we shall the sooner find it out and let her go." + +But Elizabeth did not go. A year passed; two years; her wages were +raised, and with them her domestic position. From a "girl" she was +converted into a regular servant; her pinafores gave place to +grown-up gowns and aprons; and her rough head, at Miss Selina's +incessant instance, was concealed by a cap--caps being considered by +that lady as the proper and indispensable badge of servant-hood. + +To say that during her transition state, or even now that she had +reached the cap era, Elizabeth gave her mistresses no trouble, would +be stating a self-evident improbability. What young lass under +seventeen, of any rank, does not cause plenty of trouble to her +natural guardians? Who can "put an old head on young shoulders?" or +expect from girls at the most unformed and unsatisfactory period of +life that complete moral and mental discipline, that unfailing +self-control, that perfection of temper, and every thing else which, +of course, all mistresses always have? + +I am obliged to confess that Elizabeth had a few--nay, not a +few--most obstinate faults; that no child tries its parents, no pupil +its school teachers, more than she tried her three mistresses at +intervals. She was often thoughtless and careless, brusque in her +manner, slovenly, in her dress; sometimes she was down-right "bad," +filled full--as some of her elders and betters are, at all ages--with +absolute naughtiness; when she would sulk for hours and days +together, and make the whole family uncomfortable, as many a servant +can make many a family small as that of the Misses Leaf. + +But still they never lost what Hilary termed their "respect" for +Elizabeth; they never found her out in a lie, a meanness, or an act +of deception or dishonesty. They took her faults as we must take the +surface faults of all connected with us--patiently rather than +resentfully, seeking to correct rather than to punish. And though +there were difficult elements in the household, such as their being +three mistresses to be obeyed the youngest mistress a thought too lax +and the second one undoubtedly too severe, still no girl could live +with these high-principled, much-enduring women without being +impressed with two things which the serving class are slowest to +understand--the dignity of poverty, and the beauty of that which is +the only effectual law to bring out good and restrain evil--the law +of loving-kindness. + +Two fracas, however, must be chronicled, for after both, the girl's +dismissal hung on a thread. The first was when Mrs. Cliffe, mother of +Tommy Cliffe, who was nearly killed in the field, being discovered to +be an ill sort of woman, and in the habit of borrowing from Elizabeth +stray shillings, which were never returned, was forbidden the house, +Elizabeth resented it so fiercely that she sulked for a whole week +afterward. + +The other and still more dangerous crisis in Elizabeth's destiny was +when a volume of Scott's novels, having been missing for some days, +was found hidden in her bed, and she lying awake reading it was thus +ignominiously discovered at eleven P. M. by Miss Selina, in +consequence of the gleam of candle light from under her door. + +It was true neither of these errors were actual moral crimes. Hilary +even roused a volley of sharp words upon herself by declaring they +had their source in actual virtues; that a girl who would stint +herself of shillings, and hold resolutely to any liking she had, even +if unworthy, had a creditable amount of both self-denial and fidelity +in her disposition. Also that a tired out maid-of all-work, who was +kept awake of nights by her ardent appreciation of the "Heart of +Mid-Lothian," must possess a degree of both intellectual and moral +capacity which deserved cultivation rather than blame. And though +this surreptitious pursuit of literature under difficulties could not +of course be allowed, I grieve to say that Miss Hilary took every +opportunity of not only giving the young servant books to read, but +of talking to her about them. And also that a large proportion of +these books were--to Miss Selina's unmitigated horror--absolutely +fiction! stories, novels, even poetry--books that Hilary liked +herself--books that had built up in her own passionate dream of life; +wherein all the women were faithful, tender, heroic, self-devoted; +and all the men were--something not unlike Robert Lyon. + +Did she do harm? Was it; as Selina and even Johanna said sometimes, +"dangerous" thus to put before Elizabeth a standard of ideal +perfection, a Quixotic notion of life--life in its full purpose +power, and beauty--such as otherwise never could have crossed the +mind of this working girl, born of parents who, though respectable +and worthy, were in no respect higher than the common working class? +I will not argue the point: I am not making Elizabeth a text for a +sermon; I am simply writing her story. + +One thing was certain, that by degrees the young woman's faults +lessened; even that worst of them, the unmistakable bad temper, not +aggressive, but obstinately sullen, which made her and Miss Selina +sometimes not on speaking terms for a week together. But she simply +"sulked;" she never grumbled or was pert; and she did her work just +as usual--with a kind of dogged struggle not only against the +superior powers but against something within herself much harder to +fight with. + +"She makes me feel more sorry for her than angry with her," Miss Leaf +would sometimes say, coming out of the kitchen with that grieved +face, which was the chief sign of displeasure her sweet nature ever +betrayed. "She will have up-hill work through life, like us all, and +more than many of us, poor child!" + +But gradually Elizabeth, too, copying involuntarily the rest of the +family, learned to put up with Miss Selina; who, on her part, kept a +sort of armed neutrality. And once, when a short but sharp illness of +Johanna's shook the house from its even tenor, startled every body +out of their little tempers, and made them cling together and work +together in a sort of fear-stricken union against one common grief, +Selina allowed that they might have gone farther and fared worse on +the day they engaged Elizabeth. + +After this illness of his Aunt. Ascott came home. It was his first +visit since he had gone to London: Mr. Ascott, he said, objected to +holidays. But now, from some unexplained feeling, Johanna in her +convalescence longed after the boy--no longer a boy, however, but +nearly twenty, and looking fully his age. How proud his aunts were to +march him up the town, and hear every body's congratulations on his +good looks and polished manners! It was the old story--old as the +hills! I do not pretend to invent any thing new. Women, especially +maiden aunts, will repeat the tale till the end of time, so long as +they have youths belonging to them on whom to expend their natural +tendency to clinging fondness, and ignorant, innocent hero worship. +The Misses Leaf--ay, even Selina, whose irritation against the +provoking boy was quite mollified by the elegant young man--were no +wiser than their neighbors. + +But there was one person in the household who still obstinately +refused to bow the knee to Ascott. Whether it was, as psychologists +might explain, some instinctive polarity in their natures; or +whether, having once conceived a prejudice, Elizabeth held on to it +like grim death; still there was the same unspoken antagonism between +them. The young fellow took little notice of her except to observe +"that she hadn't grown any handsomer;' but Elizabeth watched him with +a keen severity that overlooked nothing, and resisted, with a passive +pertinacity that was quite irresistible, all his encroachments on the +family habits, all the little self-pleasing ways which Ascott had +been so used to of old, that neither he nor his aunts apparently +recognized them as selfish. + +"I canna bear to see him" ("can not," suggested her mistress, who not +seeing any reason why Elizabeth should not speak the Queen's English +as well as herself, had instituted h's, and stopped a few more +glaring provincialisms.) "I cannot bear to see him, Miss Hilary, +lolling on the arm-chair, when Missis looks so tired and pale, and +sitting up o' nights, burning double fires, and going up stairs at +last with his boots on, and waking every body. I dunnot like it, I +say." + +"You forget; Mr. Ascott has his studies. He must work for the next +examination." + +"Why doesn't he get up of a morning then instead of lying in bed, and +keeping the break-fast about till ten? Why can't he do his learning +by daylight? Daylight's cheaper than mould candles, and a deal better +for the eyes." + +Hilary was puzzled. A truth was a truth, and to try and make it out +otherwise, even for the dignity of the family, was something from +which her honest nature revolted. Besides, the sharp-sighted servant +would be the first to detect the inconsistency of one law of right +for the parlor and another for the kitchen. So she took-refuge in +silence and in the apple-pudding she was making. + +But she resolved to seize the first opportunity of giving Ascott, by +way of novelty, the severest lecture that tongue of aunt could +bestow. And this chance occurred the same afternoon, when the other +two aunts had gone out to tea, to a house which Ascott voted "slow," +and declined going to. She remained to make tea for him, and in the +mean time took him for a constitutional up and down the public walks +hard by. + +Ascott listened at first very good humoredly; once or twice calling +her "a dear little prig," in his patronizing way--he was rather fond +of patronizing his Aunt Hilary. But when she seriously spoke of his +duties, as no longer a boy but a man, who ought now to assume the +true, manly right of thinking for and taking care of other people, +especially his aunts, Ascott began to flush up angrily. + +"Now stop that, Aunt Hilary: I'll not have you coming Mr. Lyon over +me." + +"What do you mean?" + +For of late Ascott had said very little about Mr. Lyon--not half so +much as Mr. Lyon, in his steadily persistent letters to Miss Leaf, +told her about her nephew Ascott. + +"I mean that I'll not be preached to like that by a woman. It's bad +enough to stand it from a man; but then Lyon's a real sharp fellow, +who knows the world, which women don't, Aunt Hilary. Besides, he +coaches me in my Latin and Greek; so I let him pitch into me now and +then. But I won't let you; so just stop it; will you." + +Something new in Ascott's tone--speaking more of the resentful +fierceness of the man than the pettishness of the boy--frightened his +little aunt, and silenced her. By-and-by she took comfort from the +reflection that, as the lad had in his anger betrayed, he had beside +him in London a monitor whose preaching would be so much wiser and +more effectual than her own that she determined to say no more. + +The rare hearing of Mr. Lyon's name--for, time and absence having +produced their natural effect, except when his letter came, he was +seldom talked about now--set Hilary thinking. + +"Do you go to see him often?" she said, at last. + +"Who? Mr. Lyon?" And Ascott, delighted' to escape into a fresh +subject, became quite cheerful and communicative. "Oh, bless you! He +wouldn't care for my going to him. He lives in a two-pair back, only +one room, 'which serves him for kitchen and parlor and all:' dines at +a cook shop for nine-pence a day, and makes his own porridge night +and morning. He told me so once, for he isn't a bit ashamed of it. +But he must be precious hard up sometimes. However, as he contrives +to keep a decent coat on his back, and pay his classes at the +University, and carry off the very first honors going there, nobody +asks any questions. That's the good of London life, Aunt Hilary," +said the young fellow, drawing himself up with great wisdom. "Only +look like a gentleman, behave yourself as such, and nobody asks any +questions." + +"Yes," acquiesced vaguely Aunt Hilary. And then her mind wandered +yearningly to the solitary student in the two-pair back. He might +labor and suffer; he might be ill; he might die, equally solitary, +and "nobody would ask any questions." This phase of London life let a +new light in upon her mind. The letters to Johanna had been chiefly +filled with whatever he thought would interest them. With his +characteristic Scotch reserve, he had said very little about himself, +except in the last, wherein he mentioned that he had "done pretty +well" at the college this term, and meant to "go in for more work" +immediately. + +What this work entailed--how much more toil, how much more +poverty--Hilary knew not. Perhaps even his successes, which Ascott +went on to talk of, had less place in her thoughts than the picture +of the face she knew, sharpened with illness, wasted with hard work +and solitary care. + +"And I can not help him--I can not help him!" was her bitter cry; +until, passing from the dream-land of fancy, the womanly nature +asserted itself. She thought if it had been, or if it were to be, her +blessed lot to be chosen by Robert Lyon, how she would take care of +him! what an utter slave she would be to him! How no penury would +frighten her, no household care oppress or humble her, if done for +him and for his comfort. To her brave heart no battle of life seemed +too long or too sore, if only it were fought for him and at his side. +And as the early falling leaves were blown in gusts across her path, +and the misty autumn night began to close in, nature herself seemed +to plead in unison with the craving of her heart, which sighed that +youth and summer last not always; and that, "be it ever so humble," +as the song says, there is no place so bright and beautiful as the +fireside of a loveful home. + +While the aunt and nephew were strolling thus, thinking of very +different things, their own fire newly lit--Ascott liked a fire--was +blazing away in solitary glory, for the benefit of all passers-by. At +length one--a gentleman--stopped at the gate, and looked in, then +took a turn to the end of the terrace, and stood gazing in once more. +The solitude of the room apparently troubled him; twice his hand was +on the latch before he opened it and knocked at the front door. + +Elizabeth appeared, which seemed to surprise him. + +"Is Miss Leaf at home?" + +"No, Sir." + +"Is she well? Are all the family well?" and he stepped right into the +passage, with the freedom of a familiar foot. + +("I should ha' slammed the door in his face," was Elizabeth's comment +afterward; "only, you see, Miss Hilary, he looked a real gentleman.") + +The stranger and she mutually examined one another. + +"I think I have heard of you," said he, smiling. "You are Miss Leaf's +servant--Elizabeth Hand." + +"Yes, Sir," still grimly, and with a determined grasp of the door +handle. + +"If your mistresses are likely to be home soon, will you allow me to +wait for them? I am an old friend of theirs. My name is Lyon." + +Now Elizabeth was far too much one of the family not to have heard of +such a person. And his knowing her was a tolerable proof of his +identity; besides, unconsciously, the girl was influenced by that +look and mien of true gentlemanhood, as courteous to the poor +maid-of-all-work as he would have been to any duchess born; and by +that bright, sudden smile, which came like sunshine over his face, +and like sunshine warmed and opened the heart of every one that met +it. + +It opened that of Elizabeth. She relaxed her Cerberus keeping of the +door, and even went so far as to inform him that Miss Leaf and Miss +Selina were out to tea, but Miss Hilary and Mr. Ascott would be at +home shortly. He was welcome to wait in the parlor if he liked. + +Afterward, seized with mingled curiosity and misgiving, she made +various errands to go in and look at him; but she had not courage to +address him, and he never spoke to her. He sat by the window, gazing +out into the gloaming. Except just turning his head at her entrance; +she did not think he had once stirred the whole time. + +Elizabeth went back to her kitchen, and stood listening for her young +mistress's familiar knock. Mr. Lyon seemed to have listened too, for +before she could reach it the door was already opened. + +There was a warm greeting--to her great relief: for she knew she had +broken the domestic laws in admitting a stranger unawares--and then +Elizabeth heard them all three go into the parlor, where they +remained talking, without ringing for either tea or candles, a full +quarter of an hour. + +Miss Hilary at last came out, but much to Elizabeth's surprise, went +straight up into her bedroom without entering the kitchen at all. + +It was some minutes more before she descended; and then, after giving +her orders for tea, and seeing that all was arranged with special +neatness, she stood absently by the kitchen fire. Elizabeth noticed +how wonderfully bright her eyes were, and what a soft, happy smile +she had. She noticed it, because she had never seen Miss Hilary look +exactly like that before; and she never did again. + +"Don't you be troubling yourself with waiting about here," she said; +and her mistress seemed to start at being spoken to. "I'll get the +tea all right, Miss Hilary. Please go back into the parlor." + +Hilary went in. + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +Elizabeth got tea ready with unwonted diligence and considerable +excitement. Any visitor was a rare occurrence in this very quiet +family; but a gentleman visitor--a young gentleman too--was a +remarkable fact, arousing both interest and curiosity. For in the +latter quality this girl of seventeen could scarcely be expected to +be deficient; and as to the former, she had so completely identified +herself with the family she served, that all their concerns were her +concerns also. Her acute comments on their few guests, and on their +little scholars, sometimes amused Hilary as much as her criticisms on +the books she read. But as neither were ever put forward intrusively +or impertinently, she let them pass, and only laughed over them with +Johanna in private. + +In speaking of these said books, and the questions they led to, it +was not likely but that mistress and maid--one aged twenty-two, and +the other seventeen--should occasionally light upon a subject rather +interesting to women of their ages, though not commonly discussed +between mistresses and maids. Nevertheless, when it did come in the +way, Miss Hilary never shirked it, but talked it out, frankly and +freely, as she would to any other person. + +"The girl has feelings and notions on the matter, like all other +girls, I suppose," reasoned she to herself; "so it is important that +her notions should be kept clear, and her feelings right. It may do +her some good, and save her from much harm." + +And so it befell that Elizabeth Hand, whose blunt ways, unlovely +person, and temperament so oddly nervous and reserved, kept her from +attracting any "sweetheart" of her own class, had unconsciously +imbibed her mistress's theory of love. Love, pure and simple, the +very deepest and highest, sweetest and most solemn thing in life: to +be believed in devoutly until it came, and when it did come, to be +held to, firmly, faithfully, with a single-minded, settled constancy, +till death. A creed, quite impossible, many will say, in this +ordinary world, and most dangerous to be put into the head of a poor +servant. Yet a woman is but a woman, be she maid-servant or queen; +and if, from queens to maid-servants, girls were taught thus to think +of love, there might be a few more "broken" hearts perhaps, but there +would certainly be fewer wicked hearts; far fewer corrupted lives of +men, and degraded lives of women; far fewer unholy marriages, and +desolated, dreary, homeless homes. + +Elizabeth, having cleared away her tea-things, stood listening to the +voices in the parlor, and pondering. She had sometimes wondered in +her own mind that no knight ever came to carry off her charming +princess--her admired and beloved Miss Hilary. Miss Hilary, on her +part, seemed totally indifferent to the youths at Stowbury; who +indeed were, Elizabeth allowed, quite unworthy her regard. The only +suitable lover for her young mistress must be somebody exceedingly +grand and noble--a compound of the best heroes of Shakespeare, Scott, +Fenimore Cooper, Maria Edgeworth, and Harriet Martineau. When this +strange gentleman appeared--in ordinary coat and hat, or rather +Glengary bonnet, neither particularly handsome nor particularly tall, +yet whose coming had evidently given Miss Hilary so much pleasure, +and who, once or twice while waiting at tea, Elizabeth fancied she +had seen looking at Miss Hilary as nobody ever looked before--when +Mr. Robert Lyon appeared on the horizon, the faithful "bower maiden" +was a good deal disappointed. + +She had expected something better; at all events, something +different. Her first brilliant castle in the air fell, poor lass! but +she quickly built it up again, and, with the vivid imagination of her +age, she mapped out the whole future, ending by a vision of Miss +Hilary, all in white, sweeping down the Terrace in a carriage and +pair--to fortune and happiness; leaving herself, though with a sore +want at her heart, and a great longing to follow, to devote the +remainder of her natural life to Miss Johanna. + +"Her couldna do without somebody to see to her--and Miss Selina do +worrit her so." muttered Elizabeth, in the excitement of this +Almaschar vision, relapsing into her old provincialisms. "So, even if +Miss Hilary axes me to come, I'll stop, I reckon. Ay, I'll stop wi' +Miss Leaf." + +This valorous determination taken, the poor maid servant's dream was +broken by the opening of the parlor door, and an outcry of Ascott's +for his coat and gloves, he having to fetch his aunts home at nine +o'clock, Mr. Lyon accompanying him. And as they all stood together at +the front door, Elizabeth overheard Mr. Lyon say something about what +a beautiful night it was. + +"It would do you no harm, Miss Hilary; will you walk with us?" + +"If you like." + +Hilary went up stairs for her bonnet and shawl; but when, a minute or +two after, Elizabeth followed her with a candle, she found her +standing in the centre of the room, all in the dark, her face white +and her hands trembling. + +"Thank you, thank you!" she said mechanically, as Elizabeth folded +and fastened her shawl for her--and descended immediately. Elizabeth +watched her take, not Ascott's arm, but Mr. Lyon's, and walk down the +terrace in the starlight. + +"Some'at's wrong. I'd like to know who's been a-vexin' of her," +thought fiercely the young servant. + +No, nobody had been "a-vexing" her mistress. There was nobody to +blame; only there had happened to Hilary one of those things which +strike like a sword through a young and happy heart, taking all the +life and youth out of it. + +Robert Lyon had, half an hour ago, told her--and she had had to hear +it as a piece of simple news, to which she had only to say, +"Indeed!"--that to day and to-morrow were his two last days at +Stowbury--almost his last in England. Within a week he was to sail +for India. + +There had befallen him what most people would have considered a piece +of rare good fortune. At the London University, a fellow student, +whom he had been gratuitously "coaching" in Hindostanee, fell ill, +and was "thrown upon his hands." as he briefly defined services which +must have been great, since they had resulted in this end. The young +man's father--a Liverpool and Bombay merchant--made him an offer to +go out there, to their house, at a rising salary of 300 rupees a +month for three years; after the third year to become a junior +partner; remaining at Bombay in that capacity for two years more. + +This he told to Hilary and Ascott in almost as few words as I have +here put it--for brevity seemed a refuge to him. It was also to one +of them. But Ascott asked so many questions that his aunt needed to +ask none. She only listened, and tried to take all in, and understand +it, that is, in a consecutive, intelligent, business shape, without +feeling it. She dared not let herself feel it, not for a second, till +they were out, arm-in-arm, under the quiet winter stars. Then she +heard his voice asking her, "So you think I was right?" + +"Right?" she echoed mechanically. + +"I mean in accepting that sudden chance, and changing my whole plan +of life. I did not do it--believe me--without a motive." + +"What motive?" she would once unhesitatingly have asked; now she could +not. + +Robert Lyon continued speaking, distinctly and yet in an undertone, +that though Ascott was walking a few yards off, Hilary felt was meant +for her alone to hear. + +"The change is, you perceive, from the life of a student to that of a +man of business. I do not deny that I preferred the first. Once upon +a time to be a fellow in a college, or a professor, or the like, was +my utmost aim and I would have half killed myself to attain it. Now, +I think differently." + +He paused, but did not seem to require an answer, and it did not +come. + +"I want, not to be rich but to get a decent competence, and to get it +as soon as I can. I want not to ruin my health with incessant study. +I have already injured it a good deal." + +"Have you been ill? You never said so." + +"Oh no, it was hardly worth while. And I knew an active life would +soon set me right again. No fear! there's life in the old dog yet. He +does not wish to die. But," Mr. Lyon pursued, "I have had a 'sair +fecht' the last year or two. I would not go through it again, nor see +any one dear to me go through it. It is over, but it has left its +scars. Strange! I have been poor all my life, yet I never till now +felt an actual terror of poverty." + +Hilary shrank within herself; less even at the words than at +something in their tone--something hard, nay fierce; something at +once despairing and aggressive. + +"It is strange," she said; "such a terror is not like you. I feel +none; I can not even understand it." + +"No, I knew you could not," he muttered; and was silent. + +So was Hilary. A vague trouble came over her. Could it be that he, +Robert Lyon, had been seized with the _auri sacra fames_, which he had +so often inveighed against and despised? that his long battle with +poverty had caused in him such an overweening desire for riches that, +to obtain them, he would sacrifice every thing else, exile himself to +a far country for years, selling his very life and soul for gold? + +Such a thought of him was so terrible--that is, would have been were +it tenable--that Hilary for an instant felt herself shiver all over. +The next she spoke out--in justice to him she forced herself to speak +out--all her honest soul. + +"I do believe that this going abroad to make a fortune, which young +men so delight in, is often a most fatal mistake. They give up far +more than they gain--country, home, health. I think a man has no +right to sell his life any more than his soul for so many thousands a +year." + +Robert Lyon smiled--"No, and I am not selling mine. With my temperate +habits I have as good a chance of health at Bombay as in +London--perhaps better. And the years I must be absent I would have +been absent almost as much from you--I mean they would have been +spent in work as engrossing and as hard. They will soon pass, and +then I shall come home rich--rich. Do you think I am growing +mercenary?" + +"No." + +"Tell me what you do think about me?" + +"I--can not quite understand." + +"And I cannot make you understand. Perhaps I will, some day when I +come back again. Till then, you must trust me, Hilary." + +It happens occasionally, in moments of all but tolerable pain, that +some small thing, a word, a look, a touch of a hand, lets in such a +gleam of peace that nothing ever extinguishes the light of it: it +burns on for years and years, sometimes clear, sometimes obscured, +but as ineffaceable from life and memory as a star from its place in +the heavens. Such, both then, and through the lonely years to come, +were those five words, "You must trust me. Hilary." + +She did; and in the perfection of that trust her own separate +identity, with all its consciousness of pain, seemed annihilated; she +did not think of herself at all, only of him, and with him, and for +him. So, for the time being, she lost all sense of personal +suffering, and their walk that night was as cheerful and happy as if +they were to walk together for weeks and months and years, in +undivided confidence and content, instead of its being the last--the +very last. + +Some one has said that all lovers have, soon or late, to learn to be +only friends: happiest and safest are those in whom the friendship is +the foundation--always firm and ready to fall back upon, long after +the fascination of passion dies. It may take a little from the +romance of these two if I own that Robert Lyon talked to Hilary not a +word about love, and a good deal about pure business, telling her all +his affairs and arrangements, and giving her as clear an idea of his +future life as it was possible to do within the limits of one brief +half hour. + +Then casting a glance round, and seeing that Ascott was quite out of +ear-shot, he said, with that tender fall of the voice that felt, as +some poet hath it, + + "Like a still embrace," + +"Now tell me as much as you can about yourself." + +At first there seemed nothing to tell; but gradually he drew from +Hilary a good deal. Johanna's feeble health, which caused her +continuing to teach to be very unadvisable; and the gradual +diminishing of the school--from what cause they could not +account--which made it very doubtful whether some change would not +soon or late be necessary. + +What this change should be she and Mr. Lyon discussed a little--as +far as in the utterly indefinite position of affairs was possible. +Also, from some other questions of his, she spoke to him about +another dread which had lurked in her mind, and yet to which she +could give no tangible shape, about Ascott. He could not remove it, +he did not attempt; but he soothed it a little, advising with her as +to the best way of managing the willful lad. His strong, clear sense, +just judgment, and, above all, a certain unspoken sense of union, as +if all that concerned her and hers he took naturally upon himself as +his own, gave Hilary such comfort that, even on this night, with a +full consciousness of all that was to follow, she was happy--nay, she +had not been so happy for years. Perhaps (let the truth be told), the +glorious truth of true love, that its recognition, spoken or silent, +constitutes the only perfect joy of life that of two made perhaps she +had never been so really happy since she was born. + +The last thing he did was to make her give him an assurance that in +any and all difficulty she would apply to him. + +"To me, and to no one else, remember. No one but myself must help +you. And I will, so, long as I am alive. Do you believe this?" + +She looked up at him by the lamp light, and said, "I do." + +"And you promise?" + +"Yes." + +Then they loosed arms, and Hilary knew that they should never walk +together again till--when and how? + +Returning, of course, he walked with Miss Leaf; and throughout the +next day, a terribly wet Sunday, spent by them entirely in the little +parlor, they had not a minute of special or private talk together. He +did not seem to wish it; indeed, almost avoided it. + +Thus slipped away the strange, still day--a Sunday never to be +forgotten. At night, after prayers were, over, Mr. Lyon rose +suddenly, saying he must leave them now; he was obliged to start from +Stowbury at daybreak. + +"Shall we not see you again?" asked Johanna. + +"No. This will be my last Sunday in England. Good-by!" + +He turned excessively pale, shook hands silently with them +all--Hilary last--and almost before they recognized the fact, he was +gone. + +With him departed, not all Hilary's peace or faith or courage of +heart, for to all who love truly, while the best beloved lives, and +lives worthily, no parting is hopeless and no grief overwhelming; but +all the brightness of her youth, all the sense of joy that young +people have in loving, and in being beloved again, in fond meetings +and fonder partings, in endless walks and talks, in sweet kisses and +clinging arms. Such happiness was not for her: when she saw it the +lot of others, she said to herself sometimes with a natural sharp +sting of pain, but oftener with a solemn acquiescence, "It is the +will of God; it is the will of God." + +Johanna, too, who would have given her life almost to bring some +color back to the white face of her darling, of whom she asked no +questions, and who never complained nor confessed any thing, many and +many a night when Hilary either lay awake by her side, or tossed and +moaned in her sleep, till the elder sister took her in her arms like +a baby--Johanna, too, said to herself, "This is the will of God." + +I have told thus much in detail the brief sad story of Hilary's +youth, to show how impossible it was that Elizabeth Hand could live +in the house with these two women without being strongly influenced +by them, as every person--especially every woman--influences for good +or for evil every other person connected with her, or dependent upon +her. Elizabeth was a girl of close observation and keen perception. +Besides, to most people, whether or not their sympathy be universal, +so far as the individual is concerned, any deep affection generally +lends eyes, tact, and delicacy. + +Thus when on the Monday morning at breakfast Miss Selina observed, +"What a fine day Mr. Lyon was having for his journey; what a lucky +fellow he was; how he would be sure to make a fortune, and if so, she +wondered whether they should ever see or hear any thing of him +again"--Elizabeth, from the glimpse she caught of Miss Hilary's face, +and from the quiet way in which Miss Leaf merely answered, "Time will +show;" and began talking to Selina about some other +subject--Elizabeth resolved never in any way to make the smallest +allusion to Mr. Robert Lyon. Something had happened, she did not know +what; and it was not her business to find out; the family affairs, so +far as she was trusted with them, were warmly her own, but into the +family secrets she had no right to pry. + +Yet, long after Miss Selina had ceased to "wonder" about him, or even +to name him--his presence or absence did not touch her personally, +and she was always the centre of her own small world of interest--the +little maidservant kept in her mind, and pondered over at odd times +every possible solution of the mystery of this gentleman's sudden +visit; of the long wet Sunday when he sat all day talking with her +mistresses in the parlor; of the evening prayer, when Miss Leaf had +twice to stop, her voice faltered so; and of the night when, long +after all the others had gone to bed, Elizabeth, coming suddenly into +the parlor, had found Miss Hilary sitting alone over the embers of +the fire, with the saddest, saddest look! so that the girl had softly +shut the door again without ever speaking to "Missis." + +Elizabeth did more; which, strange as it may appear, a servant who is +supposed to know nothing of any thing that has happened can often do +better than a member of the family who knows every thing, and this +knowledge is sometimes the most irritating consciousness a sufferer +has. She followed her young mistress with a steady watchfulness, so +quiet and silent that Hilary never found it out; saved her every +little household care, gave her every little household treat. Not +much to do, and less to be chronicled; but the way in which she did +it was all. + +During the long dull winter days, to come in and find the parlor fire +always bright, the hearth clean swept, and the room tidy; never to +enter the kitchen without the servant's face clearing up into a +smile; when her restless irritability made her forget things and grow +quite vexed in the search after them, to see that somehow her shoes +were never misplaced, and her gloves always came to hand in some +mysterious manner--these trifles; in her first heavy days of +darkness, soothed Hilary more than words could tell. + +And the sight of Miss Hilary going about the house and school room as +usual, with that poor white face of hers; nay, gradually bringing to +the family fireside, as usual, her harmless little joke, and her +merry laugh at it and herself--who shall say what lessons may not +have been taught by this to the humble servant, dropping deep sown +into her heart, to germinate and fructify, as her future life's needs +required? + +It might have been so--God knows! He alone can know, who, through +what (to us) seem the infinite littleness of our mortal existence, is +educating us into the infinite greatness of His and our immortality. + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +Autumn soon lapsed into winter: Christmas came and went, bringing, +not Ascott, as they hoped and he had promised, but a very serious +evil in the shape of sundry bills of his, which, he confessed in a +most piteous letter to his Aunt Hilary, were absolutely unpayable out +of his godfather's allowance. They were not large--or would not have +seemed so to rich people--and they were for no more blamable luxuries +than horse hire, and a dinner or two to friends out in the country; +but they looked serious to a household which rarely was more than +five pounds beforehand with the world. + +He had begged Aunt Hilary to keep his secret, but that was evidently +impossible; so on the day the school accounts were being written out +and sent in, and their amount anxiously reckoned, she laid before her +sisters the lad's letter, full of penitence and promises: "I will be +careful--I will indeed--if you will help me out this once, dear Aunt +Hilary; and don't think too ill of me. I have done nothing wicked. +And you don't know London; you don't know, with a lot of young +fellows about one, how very hard it is to say no." + +At that unlucky postscript the Misses Leaf sorrowfully exchanged +looks. Little the lad thought about it; but these few words were the +very sharpest pang Ascott had ever given to his aunts. + +"What's bred in the bone will come out in the flesh." "Like father +like son." "The sins of the parents shall be visited on the +children." So runs many a proverb: so confirms the unerring decree of +a just God, who would not be a just God did He allow Himself to break +His own righteous laws for the government of the universe; did He +falsify the requirements of His own holy and pure being, by +permitting any other wages for sin than death. And though, through +His mercy, sin forsaken escapes sin's penalty, and every human being +has it in his own power to modify, if not to conquer, any hereditary +moral as well as physical disease, thereby avoiding the doom and +alleviating the curse, still the original law remains in force, and +ought to remain, an example and a warning. As true as that every +individual sin that a man commits breeds multitudes more, is it that +every individual sin may transmit his own peculiar type of weakness +or wickedness to a whole race, disappearing in one generation, +re-appearing in another, exactly the same as physical peculiarities +do, requiring the utmost caution of education to counteract the +terrible tendencies of nature--the "something in the blood" which is +so difficult to eradicate: which may even make the third and fourth +generation execrate the memory of him or her who was its origin. + +The long life-curse of Henry Leaf the elder, and Henry Leaf the +younger, had been--the women of the family well knew--that they were +men who "couldn't say No." So keenly were the three sisters alive to +this fault--it could hardly be called a crime, and yet in its +consequences it was so--so sickening the terror of it which their own +wretched experience had implanted in their minds, that during +Ascott's childhood and youth his very fractiousness and roughness, +his little selfishness, and his persistence in his own will against +theirs, had been hailed by his aunts as a good omen that he would +grow up "so unlike his poor father." + +If the two unhappy Henry Leafs--father and son--could have come out +of their graves that night and beheld these three women, daughters +and sisters, sitting with Ascott's letter on the table, planning how +the household's small expenses could be contracted, its still smaller +luxuries relinquished, in order that the boy might honorably pay for +pleasures he might so easily have done without! If they could have +seen the weight of apprehension which then sank like a stone on these +long-tried hearts, never to be afterward removed: lightened +sometimes, but always--however Ascott might promise and amend--always +there! On such a discovery, surely, these two "poor ghosts" would +have fled away moaning, wishing they had died childless, or that +during their mortal lives any amount of self restraint and self +compulsion had purged from their natures the accursed thing; the sin +which had worked itself out in sorrow upon every one belonging to +them, years after their own heads were laid in the quiet dust. + +"We must do it," was the conclusion the Misses Leaf unanimously came +to; even Selina; who with all her faults, had a fair share of good +feeling and of that close clinging to kindred which is found in +fallen households, or households whom the sacred bond of common +poverty, has drawn together in a way that large, well-to-do home +circles can never quite understand. + +"We must not let the boy remain in debt; it would be such a disgrace +to the family." + +"It is not the remaining in debt, but the incurring of it, which is +the real disgrace to Ascott and the family." + +"Hush Hilary," said Johanna, pointing to the opening door; but it was +too late. + +Elizabeth, coming suddenly in--or else the ladies had been so +engrossed with their conversation that they had not noticed her--had +evidently heard every word of the last sentence. Her conscious face +showed it; more especially the bright scarlet which covered both her +cheeks when Miss Leaf said "Hush!" She stood, apparently irresolute +as to whether she should run away again; and then her native honesty +got the upper hand, and she advanced into the room. + +"If you please, missis, I didn't mean to--but I've heard--" + +"What have you heard; that is, how much?" + +"Just what Miss Hilary said. Don't be afeared. I shan't tell. I never +chatter about the family. Mother told me not." + +"You owe a great deal, Elizabeth, to your good mother. Now go away." + +"And another time." said Miss Selina, "knock at the door." + +This was Elizabeth's first initiation into what many a servant has to +share--the secret burden of the family. After that day, though they +did not actually confide in her, her mistresses used no effort to +conceal that they had cares; that the domestic economies must, this +winter, be especially studied; there must be no extra fires, no +candles left burning to waste; and once a week or so, a few +butterless breakfasts or meatless dinners must be partaken of +cheerfully, in both parlor and kitchen. The Misses Leaf never stinted +their servant in any thing in which they did not stint themselves. + +Strange to say, in spite of Miss Selina's prophecies, the girl's +respectful conduct did not abate: on the contrary, it seemed to +increase. The nearer she was lifted to her mistress's level, the more +her mind grew, so that she could better understand her mistresses +cares, and the deeper her consciousness of the only thing which gives +one human being any real authority over another--personal character. + +Therefore, though the family means were narrowed, and the family +luxuries few, Elizabeth cheerfully put up with all; she even felt a +sort of pride in wasting nothing and in making the best of every +thing, as the others did. Perhaps, it may be said she was an +exceptional servant; and yet I would not do her class the wrong to +believe so-I would rather believe that there are many such among it; +many good, honest, faithful girls, who only need good mistresses unto +whom to be honest and faithful, and they would be no less so than +Elizabeth Hand. + +The months went by--heavy and anxious months; for the school +gradually dwindled away, and Ascott's letter--now almost the only +connection his aunts had with the outer world, for poverty +necessarily diminished even their small Stowbury society--became more +and more unsatisfactory; and the want of information in them was not +supplied by those other letters which had once kept Johanna's heart +easy concerning the boy. + +Mr. Lyon had written once before sailing, nay, after sailing, for he +had sent it home by the pilot from the English Channel; then there +was, of course, silence. October, November, December, January, +February, March--how often did Hilary count the months, and wonder +how soon a letter would come, whether a letter ever would come again. +And sometimes--the sharp present stinging her with its small daily +pains, the future looking dark before her and them all--she felt so +forlorn, so forsaken, that but for a certain tiny well-spring of +hope, which rarely dries up till long after three-and twenty, she +could have sat down and sighed, "My good days are done." + +Rich people break their hearts much sooner than poor people; that is, +they more easily get into that morbid state which is glorified by the +term, "a broken heart." Poor people can not afford it. Their constant +labor "physics pain." Their few and narrow pleasures seldom pall. +Holy poverty! black as its dark side is, it has its bright side too, +that is, when it is honest, fearless, free from selfishness. +wastefulness, and bickerings; above all, free from the terror of +debt. + +"We'll starve, we'll go into the work house rather than we'll go into +debt!" cried Hilary once, in a passion of tears, when she was in sore +want of a shawl, and Selina urged her to get it, and wait till she +could pay for it. "Yes; the work house! It would be less shame to be +honorably indebted to the laws of the land than to be meanly +indebted, under false pretences, to any individual in it". + +And when, in payment for some accidental lessons, she got next month +enough money to buy a shawl, and a bonnet, too--nay, by great +ingenuity, another bonnet for Johanna--Hilary could have danced and +sang--sang, in the gladness and relief of her heart, the glorious +euthanasia of poverty. + +But these things happened only occasionally; the daily life was hard +still; ay, very hard, even though at last came the letter from +"foreign parts;" and following it, at regular intervals, other +letters. They were full of facts rather than feelings--simple, +straightforward; worth little as literary compositions; school-master +and learned man as he was, there was nothing literary or poetical +about Mr. Lyon; but what he wrote was like what he spoke, the +accurate reflection of his own clear, original mind and honest, +tender heart. + +His letters gave none the less comfort because, nominally, they were +addressed to Johanna. This might have been from some crotchet of +over-reserve, delicacy, or honor--the same which made him part from +her for years with no other word than 'You must trust me, Hilary;' +but whatever it was she respected it, and she did trust him. And +whether Johanna answered his letters or not, month by month they +unfailingly came, keeping her completely informed of all his +proceedings, and letting out, as epistles written from over the seas +often do, much more of himself and his character than he was probably +aware that he betrayed. + +And Hilary, whose sole experience of mankind had been the scarcely +remembered father, the too well remembered brother, and the anxiously +watched nephew, thanked God that there seemed to be one man in the +world whom a woman could lean her heart upon, and not feel the +support break like a reed beneath her--one man whom she could +entirely believe in, and safely and sacredly trust. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +Time slipped by. Robert Lyon had been away more than three years. But +in the monotonous life of the three sisters at Stowbury, nothing was +changed. Except, perhaps, Elizabeth, who had grown quite a woman; +might have passed almost for thirty; so solidly old fashioned were +her figure and her manners. + +Ascott Leaf had finished his walking the hospitals and his +examinations, and was now fitted to commence practice for himself. +His godfather had still continued his allowance, though once or +twice, when he came down to Stowbury, he had asked his aunts to help +him in small debts the last time in one a little more serious; when, +after some sad and sore consultation, it had been resolved to tell +him he must contrive to live within his own allowance. For they were +poorer than they used to be; many more schools had arisen in the +town, and theirs had dwindled away. It was becoming a source of +serious anxiety whether they could possibly make ends meet; and when, +the next Christmas, Ascott sent them a five pound note--an actual +five pound note, together with a fond, grateful letter that was worth +it all--the aunts were deeply thankful, and very happy. + +But still the school declined. One night they were speculating upon +the causes of this, and Hilary was declaring, in a half jocular, half +earnest way, that it must be because a prophet is never a prophet in +his own country. + +"The Stowbury people will never believe how clever I am. Only, it is +a useless sort of cleverness, I fear. Greek, Latin, and mathematics +are no good to infants under seven, such as Stowbury persists in +sending to us." + +"They think I am only fit to teach little children--and perhaps it is +true," said Miss Leaf. + +"I wish you had not to teach at all. I wish I was a daily +governess--I might be, and earn enough to keep the whole family; +only, not here." + +"I wonder," said Johanna, thoughtfully, "if we shall have to make a +change." + +"A change!" It almost pained the elder sister to see how the younger +brightened up at the word. "Where to--London? Oh, I have so longed to +go and live in London! But I thought you would not like it, Johanna." + +That was true. Miss Leaf, whom feeble health had made prematurely +old, would willingly have ended her days in the familiar town; but +Hilary was young and strong. Johanna called to mind the days when she +too had felt that rest was only another name for dullness; and when +the most difficult thing possible to her was what seemed now so +easy--to sit down and endure. + +Besides, unlike herself, Hilary had her life all before her. It might +be a happy life, safe in a good man's tender keeping; those unfailing +letters from India seemed to prophecy that it would. But no one could +say. Miss Leaf's own experience had not led her to place much faith +in either men or happiness. + +Still, whatever Hilary's future might be, it would likely be a very +different one from that quiet, colorless life of hers. And as she +looked at her younger sister, with the twilight glow on her +face--they were taking an evening stroll up and down the +terrace--Johanna hoped and prayed it might be so. Her own lot seemed +easy enough for herself; but for Hilary--she would like to see Hilary +something better than a poor schoolmistress at Stowbury. + +No more was said at that time, but Johanna had the deep, still, +Mary-like nature, which "kept" things, and "pondered them in her +heart." So that when the subject came up again she was able to meet +it with that sweet calmness which was her especial +characteristic--the unruffled peace of a soul which no worldly storms +could disturb overmuch, for it had long since cast anchor in the +world unseen. + +The chance which revived the question of the Great Metropolitan +Hegira, as Hilary called it, was a letter from Mr. Ascott, as +follows: + +"MISS LEAF. MADAM,--I shall be obliged by your informing me if it is +your wish, as it seems to be your nephew's, that instead of returning +to Stowbury, he should settle in London as a surgeon and general +practitioner? His education complete, I consider that I have done my +duty by him; but I may assist him occasionally still, unless he turns +out--as his father did before him--a young man who prefers being +helped to helping himself, in which case I shall have nothing more to +do with him. I remain, Madam, your obedient servant, + PETER ASCOTT." + +The sisters read this letter, passing it round the table, none of +them apparently liking to be the first to comment upon it. At length +Hilary said: "I think that reference to poor Henry is perfectly +brutal." + +"And yet he was very kind to Henry. And if it had not been for his +common sense in sending poor little Ascott and the nurse down to +Stowbury the baby might have died. But you don't remember any thing +of that time, my dear," said Johanna, sighing. + +"He has been kind enough, though he has done it in such a patronizing +way," observed Selina. "I suppose that's the real reason of his doing +it. He thinks it fine to patronize us, and show kindness to our +family; he, the stout, bullet-headed grocer's boy, who used to sit +and stare at us all church time." + +"At you--you mean. Wasn't he called your beau?" said Hilary +mischievously, upon which Selina drew herself up in great +indignation. + +And then they fell to talking of that anxious question--Ascott's +future. A little they reproached themselves that they had left the +lad so long in London--so long out of the influence that might have +counteracted the evil, sharply hinted in his godfather's letter. But +once away--to lure him back to their poor home was impossible. + +"Suppose we were to go to him," suggested Hilary. + +The poor and friendless possess one great advantage--they have nobody +to ask advice of; nobody to whom it matters much what they do or +where they go. The family mind has but to make itself up, and act +accordingly. Thus within an hour or two of the receipt of Mr. +Ascott's letter Hilary went into the kitchen, and told Elizabeth that +as soon as her work was done Miss Leaf wished to have a little talk +with her. + +"Eh! what's wrong? Has Miss Selina been a-grumbling at me?" + +Elizabeth was in one of her bad humors, which, though of course they +never ought to have, servants do have as well as their superiors. +Hilary perceived this by the way she threw the coals on and tossed +the chairs about. But to-day her heart was full of far more serious +cares than Elizabeth's ill temper. She replied, composedly-- + +"I have not heard that either of my sisters is displeased with you. +What they want to talk to you about is for your own good. We are +thinking of making a great change. We intend to leave Stowbury and +going to live in London." + +"Going to live in London!" + +Now, quick as her tact and observation were--her heart taught her +these things--Elizabeth's head was a thorough Saxon one, slow to +receive impressions. It was a family saying, that nothing was so hard +as to put a new idea into Elizabeth except to get it out again. + +For this reason Hilary preferred paving the way quietly, before +startling her with the sudden intelligence of their contemplated +change. + +"Well, what do you say to the plan?" asked she, good-humoredly. + +"I dunnot like it at all," was the brief gruff answer of Elizabeth +Hand. + +Now it was one of Miss Hilary's doctrines that no human being is good +for much unless he or she has what is called "a will of one's own." +Perhaps this, like many another creed, was with her the result of +circumstances. But she held it firmly, and with that exaggerated +one-sidedness of feeling which any bitter family or personal +experience is sure to leave behind--a strong will was her first +attraction to every body. It had been so in the case of Robert Lyon, +and not less in Elizabeth's. + +But this quality has its inconveniences. When the maid began sweeping +up her hearth with a noisy, angry gesture, the mistress did the +wisest and most dignified thing a mistress could do under the +circumstances and which she knew was the sharpest rebuke she could +administer to the sensitive Elizabeth--she immediately quitted the +kitchen. + +For an hour after the parlor bell did not ring; and though it was +washing day, no Miss Hilary appeared to help in folding up the +clothes. Elizabeth, subdued and wretched, waited till she could wait +no longer; then knocked at the door, and asked humbly if she should +bring in supper? + +The extreme kindness of the answer, to the effect that she must come +in, as they wanted to speak to her, crushed the lingering fragments +of ill humor out of the girl. + +"Miss Hilary has told you our future plans, Elizabeth; now we wish to +have a little talk with you about yours." + +"Eh?" + +"We conclude you will not wish to go with us to London; and it would +be hardly advisable you should. You can get higher wages now than any +we can afford to give you; indeed, we have more than once thought of +telling you so, and offering you your choice of trying for a better +place." + +"You're very kind," was the answer, stolid rather than grateful. + +"No; I think we are merely honest. We should never think of keeping a +girl upon lower wages than she was worth. Hitherto, however, the +arrangement has been quite fair you know, Elizabeth, you have given +us a deal of trouble in the teaching of you." And Miss Leaf smiled, +half sadly, as if this, the first of the coming changes, hurt her +more than she liked to express. "Come, my girl," she added, "you +needn't look so serious. We are not in the least vexed with you; we +shall be very sorry to lose you, and we will give you the best of +characters when you leave." + +"I dunnot--mean--to leave." + +Elizabeth threw out the words like pellets, in a choked fashion, and +disappeared suddenly from the parlor. + +"Who would have thought it!" exclaimed Selina; "I declare the girl +was crying." + +No mistake about that; though when, a few minutes after, Miss Hilary +entered the kitchen, Elizabeth tried in a hurried, shamefaced way to +hide her tears by being very busy over something. Her mistress took +no notice, but began, as usual on washing days, to assist in various +domestic matters, in the midst of which she said, quietly, "And so, +Elizabeth, you would really like to go to London?" + +"No! I shouldn't like it at all; never said I should. But if you go, +I shall go too; though Missis is so ready to get shut o' me." + +"It was for your own good, you know." + +"You always said it was for a girl's good to stop in one place; and +if you think I'm going to another. I aren't that's all." + +Rude as the form of the speech was--almost the first rude speech that +Elizabeth had ever made to Miss Hilary, and which, under other +circumstances she would have felt bound severely to reprove--the +mistress passed it over. That which lay beneath it, the sharpness of +wounded love, touched her heart. She felt that, for all the girl's +rough manner, it would have been hard to go into her London kitchen +and meet a strange London face, instead of that fond homely one of +Elizabeth Hand's. + +Still, she thought it right to explain to her that London life might +have many difficulties, that; for the present at least, her wages +could not be raised, and the family might at first be in even more +straitened circumstances than they were at Stowbury. + +"Only at first, though, for I hope to find plenty of pupils, and +by-and-by our nephew will get into practice." + +"Is it on account of him you're going, Miss Hilary?" + +"Chiefly." + +Elizabeth gave a grunt which said as plainly as words could say, "I +thought so;" and relapsed into what she, no doubt, believed to be +virtuous indignation, but which, as it was testified against the +wrong parties, was open to the less favorable interpretation of ill +humor--a small injustice not uncommon with us all. + +I do not pretend to paint this young woman as a perfect character. +She had her fierce dislikes as well as her strong fidelities; her +faults within and without, which had to be struggled with, as all of +us have to struggle to the very end of our days. Oftentimes not till +the battle is high over--sometimes not till it is quite over--does +God give us the victory. + +Without more discussion on either side, it was agreed that Elizabeth +should accompany her mistresses. Even Mrs. Hand seemed to be pleased +thereat, her only doubt being lest her daughter should meet and be +led astray by that bad woman, Mrs. Cliffe, Tommy Cliffe's mother, who +was reported to have gone to London. But Miss Hilary explained that +this meeting was about as probable as the rencontre of two needles in +a hay-rick; and besides, Elizabeth was not the sort of girl to be +easily "led astray" by any body. + +"No, no; her's a good wench, though I says it," replied the mother, +who was too hard worked to have much sentiment to spare. "I wish the +little 'uns may take pattern by our Elizabeth. You'll send her home, +may be, in two or three years' time, to let us have a look at her?" + +Miss Hilary promised, and then took her way back through the familiar +old town--so soon to be familiar no more--thinking anxiously, in +spite of herself, upon those two or three years, and what they might +bring. + +It happened to be a notable day--that sunshiny 28th of June--when the +little, round-cheeked damsel, who is a grandmother now, had the crown +of three kingdoms first set upon her youthful head; and Stowbury, +like every other town in the land, was a perfect bower of green +arches, garlands, banners; white covered tables were spread in the +open air down almost every street, where poor men dined, or poor +women drank tea; and every body was out and abroad, looking at or +sharing in the holiday' making, wild with merriment, and brimming +over with passionate loyalty to the Maiden Queen. + +That day is now twenty-four years ago; but all those who remember it +must own there never has been a day like it, when, all over the +country, every man's heart throbbed with chivalrous devotion, every +woman's with womanly tenderness, toward this one royal girl, who, God +bless her! has lived to retain and deserve it all. + +Hilary called for, and protected through the crowd, the little, +timid, widow lady who had taken off the Misses Leaf's hands their +house and furniture, and whom they had made very happy--as the poor +often can make those still poorer than themselves--by refusing to +accept any thing for the "good will" of the school. Then she was +fetched by Elizabeth, who had been given a whole afternoon's holiday; +and mistress and maid went together home, watching the last of the +festivities, the chattering groups that still lingered in the +twilight streets, and listening to the merry notes of the "Triumph" +which came down through the lighted windows of the Town Hall, where +the open-air tea drinkers had adjourned to dance country dances, by +civic permission, and in perfectly respectable jollity. + +"I wonder," said Hilary--while, despite some natural regret, her +spirit stretched itself out eagerly from the narrowness of the place +where she was born into the great wide world; the world where so many +grand things were thought and written and done; the world Robert Lyon +had so long fought with, and was fighting bravely still--"I wonder, +Elizabeth, what sort of place London is, and what our life will be in +it?" + +Elizabeth said nothing. For the moment her face seemed to catch the +reflected glow of her mistress's, and then it settled down into that +look of mingled resistance and resolution which was habitual to her. +For the life that was to be, which neither knew--oh, if they had +known!--she also was prepared. + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +The day of the Grand Hegira came. + +"I remember," said Miss Leaf, as they rumbled for the last time +through the empty morning streets of poor old Stowbury: "I remember +my grandmother telling me that when my grandfather was courting her, +and she out of coquetry refused him, he set off on horseback to +London, and she was so wretched to think of all the dangers he ran on +the journey, and in London itself, that she never rested till she got +him back, and then immediately married him." + +"No such catastrophe is likely to happen to any of us, except, +perhaps, to Elizabeth," said Miss Hilary, trying to get up, a little +feeble mirth, any thing to pass away the time and lessen the pain of +parting, which was almost too much for Johanna. "What do you say? Do +you mean to get married in London, Elizabeth?" + +But Elizabeth could make no answer, even to kind Miss Hilary. They +had not imagined she felt the leaving her native place so much. She +had watched intently the last glimpse of Stowbury church tower, and +now sat with reddened eyes, staring blankly out of the carriage +window, + +"Silent as a stone." + +Once or twice a large slow tear gathered on each of her eyes, but it +was shaken off angrily from the high check bones, and never settled +into absolute crying. They thought it best to take no notice of her. +Only, when reaching the new small station, where the "resonant steam +eagles" were, for the first time, beheld by the innocent Stowbury +ladies, there arose a discussion as to the manner of traveling. Miss +Leaf said, decidedly "Second class; and then we can keep Elizabeth +with us." Upon which Elizabeth's mouth melted into something between +a quiver and a smile. + +Soon it was all over, and the little house-hold was compressed into +the humble second class carriage, cheerless and cushionless, whirling +through indefinite England in a way that confounded all their +geography and topography. Gradually as the day darkened into heavy, +chilly July rain, the scarcely kept up spirits of the four passengers +began to sink. Johanna grew very white and worn, Selina became, to +use Ascott's phrase, "as cross as two sticks," and even Hilary, +turning her eyes from the gray sodden looking landscape without, +could find no spot of comfort to rest on within the carriage, except +that round rosy face of Elizabeth Hand's. + +Whether it was from the spirit of contradiction existing in most such +natures, which, especially in youth, are more strong than sweet, or +from a better feeling, the fact was noticeable, that when every one +else's spirits went down Elizabeth's went up. Nothing could bring her +out of a "grumpy" fit so satisfactorily as her mistresses falling +into one. When Miss Selina now began to fidget hither and thither, +each tone of her fretful voice seeming to go through her eldest +sister's every nerve, till even Hilary said, impatiently, "Oh, +Selina, can't you be quiet?" then Elizabeth rose from the depth of +her gloomy discontent up to the surface immediately. + +She was only a servant; but Nature bestows that strange vague thing +that we term "force of character" independently of position. Hilary +often remembered afterward, how much more comfortable the end of the +journey was than she had expected--how Johanna lay at ease, with her +feet in Elizabeth's lap, wrapped in Elizabeth's best woolen shawl; +and how, when Selina's whole attention was turned to an ingenious +contrivance with a towel and fork and Elizabeth's basket, for +stopping the rain out of the carriage roof--she became far less +disagreeable, and even a little proud of her own cleverness. And so +there was a temporary lull in Hilary's cares, and she could sit +quiet, with her eyes fixed on the rainy landscape, which she did not +see, and her thoughts wandering toward that unknown place and unknown +life into which they were sweeping, as we all sweep, ignorantly, +unresistingly, almost unconsciously, into new destinies. Hilary, for +the first time, began to doubt of theirs. Anxious as she had been to +go to London, and wise as the proceeding appeared, now that the die +was cast and the cable cut, the old simple, peaceful life at Stowbury +grew strangely dear. + +"I wonder if we shall ever go back again, or what is to happen to us +before we do go back," she thought, and turned, with a half defined +fear, toward her eldest sister, who looked so old and fragile beside +that sturdy, healthful servant girl. "Elizabeth!" Elizabeth, rubbing +Miss Leaf's feet, started at the unwonted sharpness of Miss Hilary's +tone. + +"There; I'll do that for my sister. Go and look out of the window at +London." + +For the great smoky cloud which began to rise in the rainy horizon +was indeed London. Soon through the thickening nebula of houses they +converged to what was then the nucleus of all railway traveling, the +Euston Terminus, and were hustled on to the platform, and jostled +helplessly to and fro these poor country ladies! Anxiously they +scanned the crowd of strange faces for the one only face they knew in +the great metropolis--which did not appear. + +"It is very strange; very wrong of Ascott. Hilary, you surely told +him the hour correctly. For once, at least, he might have been in +time" + +So chafed Miss Selina, while Elizabeth, who by some miraculous effort +of intuitive genius, had succeeded in collecting the luggage, was now +engaged in defending it from all comers, especially porters, and +making of it a comfort able seat for Miss Leaf. + +"Nay, have patience, Selina. We will give him just five minutes more, +Hilary." + +And Johanna sat down, with her sweet, calm, long suffering face +turned upward to that younger one, which was, as youth is apt to be, +hot, and worried, and angry. And so they waited till the terminus was +almost deserted, and the last cab had driven off, when, suddenly, +dashing up the station yard out of another, came Ascott. + +He was so sorry, so very sorry, downright grieved, at having kept his +aunts waiting. But his watch was wrong--some fellows at dinner +detained him--the train was before its time surely. In fact, his +aunts never quite made out what the excuse was; but they looked into +his bright handsome face, and their wrath melted like clouds before +the sun. He was so gentlemanly, so well dressed--much better dressed +than even at Stowbury--and he seemed so unfeignedly glad to see them. +He handed them all into the cab--even Elizabeth. though whispering +meanwhile to his Aunt Hilary, "What on earth did you bring her for?" +and their was just going to leap on to the box himself, when he +stopped to ask "Where he should tell cabby to drive to?" + +"Where to?" repeated his aunts in undisguised astonishment. They had +never thought of any thing but of being taken home at once by their +boy. + +"You see," Ascott said, in a little confusion, "you wouldn't be +comfortable with me. A young fellow's lodgings are not like a house +of one's own, and, besides--" + +"Besides, when a young fellow is ashamed of his old aunts, he can +easily find reasons." + +"Hush, Selina!" interposed Miss Leaf. "My dear boy, your old aunts +would never let you inconvenience yourself for them. Take us to an +inn for the night, and to morrow we will find lodgings for +ourselves." + +Ascott looked greatly relieved. + +"And you are not vexed with me, Aunt Johanna?" said he, with +something of his old childish tone of compunction, as he saw--he +could not help seeing--the utter weariness which Johanna tried so +hard to hide. + +"No, my dear, not vexed. Only I wish we had known this a little +sooner that we might have made arrangements. Now, where shall we go?" + +Ascott mentioned a dozen hotels, but they found he only knew them by +name. At last Miss Leaf remembered one, which her father used to go +to, on his frequent journeys to London, and whence, indeed, he had +been brought home to die. And though all the recollections about it +were sad enough, still it felt less strange than the rest, in this +dreariness of London. So she proposed going to the "Old Bell," +Holborn. + +"A capital place!" exclaimed Ascott, eagerly. "And I'll take and +settle you there: and we'll order supper, and make a jolly night of +it. All right. Drive on, cabby." + +He jumped on the box, and then looked in mischievously, flourishing +his lit cigar and shaking his long hair--his Aunt Selina's two great +abominations--right in her indignant face: but withal looking so +merry and good tempered that she shortly softened into a smile. + +"How handsome the boy is growing!" + +"Yes," said Johanna, with a slight sigh; "and did you notice? how +exceedingly like his--" + +The sentence was left unfinished. Alas! if every young man, who +believes his faults and follies injure himself alone, could feel what +it must be, years afterward, to have his nearest kindred shrink from +saying as the saddest, most ominous thing they could say of his son, +that the lad is growing "so like his father!" + +It might have been--they assured each other that it was--only the +incessant roll, roll of the street sounds below their windows, which +kept the Misses Leaf awake half the night of this their first night +in London. And when they sat down to breakfast--having waited an hour +vainly for their nephew--it might have been only the gloom of the +little parlor which cast a slight shadow over them all. Still the +shadow was there. + +It deepened despite the sunshiny morning into which the last night's +rain had brightened till Holborn Bars looked cheerful, and Holborn +pavement actually clean, so that, as Elizabeth said, "you might eat +your dinner off it;" which was the one only thing she condescended to +approve in London. She had sat all evening mute in her corner, for +Miss Leaf would not send her away into the terra incognita of a +London hotel. Ascott, at first considerably annoyed at the presence +of what he called a "skeleton at the feast," had afterward got over +it; and run on with a mixture of childish glee and mannish pomposity +about his plans and intentions--how he meant to take a house, he +thought, in one of the squares, or a street leading out of them: how +he would put up the biggest of brass plates, with "Mr. Leaf, +surgeon." and soon get an extensive practice, and have all his aunts +to live with him. And his aunts had smiled and listened, forgetting +all about the silent figure in the corner, who perhaps had gone to +sleep, or had also listened. + +"Elizabeth, come and look out at London." + +So she and Miss Hilary whiled away another heavy three quarters of an +hour in watching and commenting on the incessantly shifting crowd +which swept past Holborn Bars. Miss Selina sometimes looked out too, +but more often sat fidgeting and wondering why Ascott did not come; +while Miss Leaf, who never fidgeted, became gradually more and more +silent. Her eyes were fixed on the door, with an expression which, if +Hilary could have remembered so far back, would have been to her +something not painfully new, but still more painfully old--a look +branded into her face by many an anxious hour's listening for the +footstep that never came, or only came to bring distress. It was the +ineffaceable token of that long, long struggle between affection and +conscience, pity and scarcely repressible contempt, which, for more +than one generation, had been the appointed burden of this family--at +least the women of it--till sometimes it seemed to hang over them +almost like a fate. + +About noon Miss Leaf proposed calling for the hotel bill. Its length +so alarmed the country ladies that Hilary suggested not staying to +dine, but going immediately in search of lodgings. + +"What, without a gentleman! Impossible! I always understood ladies +could go nowhere in London without a gentleman!" + +"We shall come very ill off then, Selina. But any how I mean to try. +You know the region where, we have heard, lodgings are cheapest and +best--that is, best for us. It can not be far from here. Suppose I +start at once?" + +"What, alone?" cried Johanna, anxiously. + +"No, dear, I'll take the map with me, and Elizabeth. She is not +afraid." + +Elizabeth smiled, and rose, with that air of dogged devotedness with +which she would have prepared to follow Miss Hilary to the North +Pole, if necessary. So, after a few minutes of arguing with Selina, +who did not press her point overmuch, since she herself had not to +commit the impropriety of the expedition. After a few minutes more of +hopeless lingering about--till even Miss Leaf said they had better +wait no longer--mistress and maid took a farewell nearly as pathetic +as if they had been really Arctic voyagers, and plunged right into +the dusty glare and hurrying crowd of the "sunny side" of Holborn in +July. + +A strange sensation, and yet there was something exhilarating in it. +The intense solitude that there is in a London crowd these country +girls--for Miss Hilary herself was no more than a girl--could not as +yet realize. They only felt the life of it; stirring, active, +incessantly moving life; even though it was of a kind that they knew +as little of it as the crowd did of them. Nothing struck Hilary more +than the self-absorbed look of passers-by: each so busy on his own +affairs, that, in spite of Selina's alarm, for all notice taken of +them, they might as well be walking among the cows and horses in +Stowbury field. + +Poor old Stowbury! They felt how far away they were from it when a +ragged, dirty, vicious looking girl offered them a moss rose bud for +"one penny, only one penny;" which Elizabeth, lagging behind, bought, +and found it only a broken off bud stuck on to a bit of wire. + +"That's London ways, I suppose," said she, severely, and became so +misanthropic that she would hardly vouchsafe a glance to the hand +some square they turned into, and merely observed of the tall houses, +taller than any Hilary had ever seen, that she "wouldn't fancy +running up and down them stairs." + +But Hilary was cheerful in spite of all. She was glad to be in this +region, which, theoretically, she knew by heart--glad to find herself +in the body, where in the spirit she had come so many a time. The +mere consciousness of this seemed to refresh her. She thought she +would be much happier in London; that in the long years to come that +must be borne, it would be good for her to have something to do as +well as to hope for; something to fight with as well as to endure. +Now more than ever came pulsing in and out of her memory a line once +repeated in her hearing, with an observation of how "true" it was. +And though originally it was applied by a man to a woman, and she +smiled sometimes to think how "unfeminine" some people--Selina for +instance--would consider her turning it the other way, still she did +so. She believed that, for woman as for man, that is the purest and +noblest love which is the most self-existent, most independent of +love returned; and which can say, each to the other equally on both +sides, that the whole solemn purpose of life is, under God's service, + +"If not to win, to feel more worthy thee." + +Such thoughts made her step firmer and her heart lighter; so that she +hardly noticed the distance they must have walked till the close +London air began to oppress her, and the smooth glaring London +pavements made her Stowbury feet ache sorely. + +"Are you tired, Elizabeth? Well, we'll rest soon. There must be +lodgings near here. Only I can't quite make out--" + +As Miss Hilary looked up to the name of the street the maid noticed +what a glow came into her mistress's face, pale and tired as it was. +Just then a church clock struck the quarter hour. + +"That must be St. Pancras. And this--yes, this is Burton Street, +Burton Crescent." + +"I'm sure Missis wouldn't like to live there;" observed Elizabeth, +eyeing uneasily the gloomy rez de-chaussee, familiar to many a +generation of struggling respectability, where, in the decadence of +the season, every second house bore the announcement "apartments +furnished." + +"No," Miss Hilary replied, absently. Yet she continued to walk up and +down the whole length of the street; then passed out into the dreary, +deserted looking Crescent, where the trees were already beginning to +fade; not, however, into the bright autumn tint of country woods, but +into a premature withering, ugly and sad to behold. + +"I am glad he is not here--glad, glad!" thought Hilary, as she +realized the unutterable dreariness of those years when Robert Lyon +lived and studied in his garret from month's end to month's +end--these few dusty trees being the sole memento of the green +country life in which he had been brought up, and which she knew he +so passionately loved. Now she could understand, that "calenture" +which he had sometimes jestingly alluded to, as coming upon him at +times, when he felt literally sick for the sight of a green field or +a hedge full of birds. She wondered whether the same feeling would +ever come upon her in this strange desert of London, the vastness of +which grew upon her every hour. + +She was glad he was away; yes, heart glad! And yet, if this minute +she could only have seen him coming round the Crescent, have met his +smile, and the firm, warm clasp of his hand-- + +For an instant there rose up in her one of those wild, rebellious +outcries against fate, when to have to waste years of this brief life +of ours, in the sort of semi-existence that living is, apart from the +treasure of the heart and delight of the eyes, seems so cruelly, +cruelly hard! + +"Miss Hilary." + +She started, and "put herself under lock and key" immediately. "Miss +Hilary; you do look so tired!" + +"Do I? Then we will go and sit down in this baker's shop, and get +rested and fed. We cannot afford to wear ourselves out, you know. We +have a great deal to do to-day." + +More indeed, than she calculated, for they walked up one street and +down another, investigating at least twenty lodgings before any +appeared which seemed fit for them. Yet some place must be found +where Johanna's poor, tired head could rest that night. At last, +completely exhausted, with that oppressive exhaustion which seems to +crush mind as well as body after a day's wandering in London. +Hilary's courage began to ebb. Oh for an arm to lean on, a voice to +listen for, a brave heart to come to her side, saying, "Do not be +afraid, there are two of us!" And she yearned, with an absolutely +sick yearning such as only a woman who now and then feels the utter +helplessness of her womanhood can know, for the only arm she cared to +lean on, the only voice dear enough to bring her comfort, the only +heart that she felt she could trust. + +Poor Hilary! And yet why pity her? To her three alternatives could +but happen: were Robert Lyon true to her she would be his entirely +and devotedly, to the end of her days; did he forsake her, she would +forgive him should he die, she would be faithful to him eternally. +Love of this kind may know anguish, but not the sort of anguish that +lesser and weaker loves do. If it is certain of nothing else, it can +always be certain of itself. + + "Its will is strong; + 'It suffers; but it can not suffer long." + +And even in its utmost pangs is an underlying peace which often +approaches to absolute joy. + +Hilary roused herself, and bent her mind steadily on lodgings till +she discovered one from the parlor of which you could see the trees +of Burton Crescent and hear the sound of Saint Pancras's clock. + +"I think we may do here--at least for a while," said she cheerfully; +and then Elizabeth heard her inquiring if an extra bedroom could be +had if necessary. + +There was only one small attic. "Ascott never could put up with +that," said Hilary, half to herself. Then suddenly--"I think I will +see Ascott before I decide. Elizabeth, will you go with me, or remain +here?" + +"I'll go with you, if you please, Miss Hilary." + +"If you please," sounded not unlike, "if I please," and Elizabeth had +gloomed over a little. "Is Mr. Ascott to live with us?" + +"I suppose so." + +No more words were interchanged till they reached Gower street, when +Miss Hilary observed, with evident surprise, what a handsome street +it was. + +"I must have made some mistake. Still we will find out Mr. Ascott's +number, and inquire." + +No, there was no mistake. Mr. Ascott Leaf had lodged there for three +months, but had given up his rooms that very morning. + +"Where had he gone to?" + +The servant--a London lodging house servant all over--didn't know; +but she fetched the landlady, who was after the same pattern of the +dozen London landladies with whom Hilary had that day made +acquaintance, only a little more Cockney, smirking, dirty, and +tawdrily fine. + +"Yes, Mr. Leaf had gone, and he hadn't left no address. Young College +gentlemen often found it convenient to leave no address. P'raps he +would if he'd known there would be a young lady a calling to see +him." + +"I am Mr. Leaf's aunt," said Hilary, turning as hot as fire. + +"Oh, in-deed," was the answer, with civil incredulousness. + +But the woman was sharp of perception--as often-cheated London +landladies learn to be. After looking keenly at mistress and maid, +she changed her tone; nay, even launched out into praises of her late +lodger: what a pleasant gentleman he was; what good company he kept, +and how he had promised to recommend her apartments to his friends. + +"And as for the little some'at of rent, Miss--tell him it makes no +matter, he can pay me when he likes. If he don't call soon p'raps I +might make bold to send his trunk and his books over to Mr. Ascott's +of--dear me, I forget the number and the square." + +Hilary unsuspiciously supplied both. + +"Yes, that's it--the old gen'leman as Mr. Leaf went to dine with +every other Sunday, a very rich old gentleman, who, he says, is to +leave him all his money. Maybe a relation of yours, Miss?" + +"No," said Hilary; and adding something about the landlady's hearing +from Mr. Leaf very soon, she hurried out of the house, Elizabeth +following. + +"Won't you be tired if you walk so fast, Miss Hilary?" + +Hilary stopped, choking. Helplessly she looked up and down the +forlorn, wide, glaring, dusty street; now sinking into the dull +shadow of a London afternoon. + +"Let us go home!" And at the word a sob burst out--just one +passionate pent up sob. No more. She could not afford to waste +strength in crying. + +"As you say, Elizabeth, I am getting tired, and that will not do. Let +me see; something must be decided." And she stood still, passing her +hand over her hot brow and eyes. "I will go back and take the +lodgings, leave you there to make all comfortable, and then fetch my +sisters from the hotel. But stay first, I have forgotten something." + +She returned to the house in Gower Street, and wrote on one of her +cards an address--the only permanent address she could think of--that +of the city broker who was in the habit of paying them their yearly +income of £50. + +"If any creditors inquire for Mr. Leaf, give them this. His friends +may always hear of him at the London University." + +"Thank you, ma'am," replied the now civil landlady. "Indeed, I wasn't +afraid of the young gentleman giving us the slip. For though he was +careless in his bills he was every inch the gentleman. And I wouldn't +object to take him in again. Or p'raps you yourself, ma'am, might be +a-wanting rooms." + +"No, I thank you. Good morning." And Hilary hurried away. + +Not a word did she say to Elizabeth, or Elizabeth to her, till they +got into the dull, dingy parlor--henceforth, to be their sole apology +for "home:" and then she only talked about domestic +arrangements--talked fast and eagerly, and tried to escape the +affectionate eyes which she knew were so sharp and keen. Only to +escape them--not to blind them; she had long ago found out that +Elizabeth was too quick-witted for that, especially in any thing that +concerned "the family." She felt convinced the girl had heard every +syllable that passed at Ascott's lodgings: that she knew all that was +to be known, and guessed what was to be feared as well as Hilary +herself. + +"Elizabeth"--she hesitated long, and doubted whether she should say +the thing before she did say it--"remember we are all strangers in +London, and family matters are best kept within the family. Do not +mention either in writing home, or to any body here, about--about--" + +She could not name Ascott; she felt so horribly ashamed. + + + +CHAPTER X. + +Living in lodgings, not temporarily, but permanently, sitting down to +make one's only "home" in Mrs. Jones's parlor or Mrs. Smith's first +floor, of which not a stick or a stone that one looks at is one's +own, and whence one may be evicted or evade, with a week's notice or +a week's rent, any day--this sort of life is natural and even +delightful to some people. There are those who, like strawberry +plants, are of such an errant disposition, that grow them where you +will, they will soon absorb all the pleasantness of their habitat, +and begin casting out runners elsewhere; may, if not frequently +transplanted, would actually wither and die. Of such are the pioneers +of society--the emigrants, the tourists, the travelers round the +world; and great is the advantage the world derives from them, +active, energetic, and impulsive as they are. Unless, indeed, their +talent for incessant locomotion degenerates into rootless +restlessness, and they remain forever rolling stones, gathering no +moss, and acquiring gradually a smooth, hard surface, which adheres +to nothing, and to which nobody dare venture to adhere. + +But there are others possessing in a painful degree this said quality +of adhesiveness, to whom the smallest change is obnoxious; who like +drinking out of a particular cup, and sitting in a particular chair; +to whom even a variation in the position of furniture is unpleasant. +Of course, this peculiarity has its bad side, and yet it is not in +itself mean or ignoble. For is not adhesiveness, faithfulness, +constancy--call it what you will--at the root of all citizenship, +clanship, and family love? Is it not the same feeling which, granting +they remain at all, makes old friendships dearer than any new? Nay, +to go to the very sacredest and closest bond, is it not that which +makes an old man see to the last in his old wife's faded face the +beauty which perhaps nobody ever saw except himself, but which he +sees and delights in still, simply because it is familiar and his +own. + +To people who possess a large share of this rare--shall I say +fatal?--characteristic of adhesiveness, living in lodgings is about +the saddest life under the sun. Whether some dim foreboding of this +fact crossed Elizabeth's mind as she stood at the window watching for +her mistresses' first arrival at "home," it is impossible to say. She +could feel, though she was not accustomed to analyze her feelings. +But she looked dull and sad. Not cross, even Ascott could not have +accused her of "savageness." + +And yet she had been somewhat tried. First, in going out what she +termed "marketing," she had traversed a waste of streets, got lost +several times, and returned with light weight in her butter, and sand +in her moist sugar; also with the conviction that London tradesmen +were the greatest rogues alive. Secondly, a pottle of strawberries, +which she had bought with her own money to grace the tea-table with +the only fruit Miss Leaf cared for, had turned out a large delusion, +big and beautiful at top, and all below small, crushed, and stale. +She had thrown it indignantly, pottle and all, into the kitchen fire. + +Thirdly, she had a war with the landlady, partly on the subject of +their fire--which, with her Stowbury notions on the subject of coals, +seemed wretchedly mean and small--and partly on the question of table +cloths at tea, which Mrs. Jones had "never heard of," especially when +the use of plate and lines was included in the rent. And the +dinginess of the article produced at last out of an omnium-gatherum +sort of kitchen cupboard, made an ominous impression upon the country +girl, accustomed to clean, tidy, country ways--where the kitchen was +kept as neat as the parlor, and the bedrooms were not a whit behind +the sitting rooms in comfort and orderliness. Here it seemed as if, +supposing people could show a few respectable living rooms, they were +content to sleep any where, and cook any how, out of anything, in the +midst of any quantity of confusion and dirt. Elizabeth set all this +down as "London," and hated it accordingly. + +She had tried to ease her mind by arranging and rearranging the +furniture--regular lodging house furniture--table, six chairs, +horse-hair sofa, a what not, and the chiffonnier, with a tea-caddy +upon it, of which the respective keys had been solemnly presented to +Miss Hilary. But still the parlor looked homeless and bare; and the +yellowish paper on the walls, the large patterned, many colored +Kidderminster on the floor, gave an involuntary sense of discomfort +and dreariness. Besides, No. 15 was on the shady side of the +street--cheap lodgings always are; and no one who has not lived in +the like lodgings--not a house--can imagine what it is to inhabit +perpetually one room where the sunshine just peeps in for an hour a +day, and vanishes by eleven A. M.; leaving behind in winter a chill +dampness, and in summer a heavy, dusty atmosphere, that weighs like +lead on the spirits in spite of one's self. No wonder that, as is +statistically known and proved, cholera stalks, fever rages, and the +registrar's list is always swelled along the shady side of a London +street. + +Elizabeth felt this, though she had not the dimmest idea why. She +stood watching the sunset light fade out of the topmost windows of +the opposite house--ghostly reflection of some sunset over fields and +trees far away; and she listened to the long monotonous cry melting +away round the crescent, and beginning again at the other end of the +street--"Straw-berries--straw-ber-ries!" Also, with an eye to +tomorrow's Sunday dinner, she investigated the cart of the tired +costermonger, who crawled along beside his equally tired donkey, +reiterating at times, in tones hoarse with a day's bawling, his +dreary "Cauli-flower! Cauli-flower!--Fine new pease, sixpence peck!" + +But, alas! the pease were neither fine nor new; and the cauliflowers +were regular Saturday night's cauliflowers. Besides, Elizabeth +suddenly doubted whether she had any right, unordered, to buy these +things which, from being common garden necessaries, had become +luxuries. This thought, with some others that it occasioned, her +unwonted state of Idleness and the dullness of every thing about +her--what is so dull as a "quiet" London street on a summer +evening?--actually made Elizabeth stand, motionless and meditative, +for a quarter of an hour. Then she started to hear two cabs drive up +to the door; the "family" had at length arrived. + +Ascott was there too. Two new portmanteaus and a splendid hat-box +east either ignominy or glory upon the poor Stowbury luggage; +and--Elizabeth's sharp eye noticed--there was also his trunk which +she had seen lying detained for rent in his Gower Street lodgings. +But he looked quite easy and comfortable: handed out his Aunt +Johanna, commanded the luggage about, and paid the cabmen with such a +magnificent air, that they touched their bats to him, and winked at +one another as much as to say. "That's a real gentleman!" + +In which statement the landlady evidently coincided, and courtesied +low when Miss Leaf introducing him as "my nephew," hoped that a room +could be found for him. Which at last there was, by his appropriating +Miss Leaf's, while she and Hilary took that at the top of the house. +But they agreed, Ascott must have a good airy room to study in. + +"You know, my dear boy," said his Aunt Johanna to him--and at her +tender tone he looked a little downcast, as when he was a small +fellow and had been forgiven something -- "You know you will have to +work very hard." + +"All right, aunt! I'm your man for that! This will be a jolly room; +and I can smoke up the chimney capitally!" + +So they came down stairs quite cheerfully, and Ascott applied himself +with the best of appetites to what he called a "hungry" tea. True, +the ham, which Elizabeth had to fetch from an eating house some +streets off, cost two shillings a pound, and the eggs, which caused +her another war below over the relighting of a fire to boil them, +were dismissed by the young gentleman as "horrid stale." Still, +woman-like, when there is a man in the question, his aunts let him, +have his why. It seemed as if they had resolved to try their utmost +to make the new home to which he came, or rather was driven, a +pleasant home, and to bind him to it with cords of love, the only +cords worth any thing, though sometimes--Heaved knows why--even they +fail, and are snapped and thrown aside like straws. + +Whenever Elizabeth went in and out of the parlor she always heard +lively talk going on among the family; Ascott making his jokes, +telling about his college life, and planning his life to come as a +surgeon in full practice, on the most extensive scale. And when she +brought in the chamber candles, she saw him kiss his aunts +affectionately, and even help his Aunt Johanna--who looked +frightfully pale and tired, but smiling still--to her bed-room door. + +"You'll not sit up long, my dear? No reading to night?" said she, +anxiously. + +"Not a bit of it. And I'll be up with the lark to-morrow morning. I +really will auntie. I'm going to turn over a new leaf, you know." + +She smiled again at the immemorial joke, kissed and blessed him, and +the door shut up on her and Hilary. + +Ascott descended to the parlor, threw himself on the sofa with an air +of great relief, and an exclamation of satisfaction that "the women" +were all gone. He did not perceive Elizabeth, who, hidden behind, was +kneeling to arrange something in the chiffonnier, till she rose up +and proceeded to fasten the parlor shutters. + +"Hollo! are you there? Come, I'll do that when I go to bed. You may +'slope' if you like." + +"Eh, Sir." + +"Slope, mizzle, cut your stick; don't you understand. Any how, don't +stop here, bothering me." + +"I don't mean to," replied Elizabeth; gravely, rather than gruffly, +as if she had made up her mind to things as they were, and was +determined to be a belligerent party no longer. Besides, she was +older now; too old to have things forgiven to her that might be +overlooked in a child; and she had received a long lecture from Miss +Hilary on the necessity of showing respect to Mr. Ascott, or Mr. +Leaf, as it was now decided he was to be called, in his dignity and +responsibility as the only masculine head of the family. As he lay +and lounged there, with his eyes lazily shut, Elizabeth stood a +minute gazing at him. Then, steadfast in her new good behavior, she +inquired "if he wanted any thing more to-night?" + +"Confound you! no! Yes; stop." And the young man took a furtive +investigation of the plain, honest face, and not over-graceful, +ultra-provincial figure, which still characterized his aunt's "South +Sea Islander." + +"I say, Elizabeth, I want you to do something for me." He spoke so +civilly, almost coaxingly, that Elizabeth turned round surprised. +"Would you just go and ask the landlady if she has got such thing as +a latch key?" + +"A what, Sir?" + +"A latch-key--a--oh, she knows. Every London house has it. Tell her +I'll take care of it, and lock the front door all right. She needn't +be afraid of thieves." + +"Very well, Sir." + +Elizabeth went, but shortly reappeared with the information that Mrs. +Jones had gone to bed: in the kitchen, she supposed, as she could not +get in. But she laid on the table the large street door key. + +"Perhaps that's what you wanted, Mr. Leaf. Though I think you needn't +be the least afraid of robbers, for there's three bolts, and a chain +besides." + +"All right!" cried Ascott, smothering down a laugh. "Thank you! +That's for you," throwing a half-crown across the table. + +Elizabeth took it up demurely, and put it down again. Perhaps she did +not like him enough to receive presents from him; perhaps she +thought, being an honest minded girl, that a young man who could not +pay his rent had no business to be giving away half-crowns; or else +she herself had not been so much as many servants are, in the habit +of taking them. For Miss Hilary had put into Elizabeth some of her +own feeling as to this habit of paying an inferior with money for any +little civility or kindness which, from an equal, would be accepted +simply as kindness, and only requited with thanks. Any how, the coin +remained on the table, and the door was just shutting upon Elizabeth, +when the young gentleman turned round again. + +"I say, since my aunts are so horridly timid of robbers and such +like, you'd better not tell them any thing about the latch-key." + +Elizabeth stood a minute perplexed, and then replied briefly: "Miss +Hilary isn't a bit timid; and I always tells Miss Hilary every +thing." + +Nevertheless, though she was so ignorant as never to have heard of a +latch-key, she had the wit to see that all was not right. She even +lay awake, in her closet off Miss Leaf's room, whence she could hear +the murmur of her two mistresses talking together, long after they +retired--lay broad awake for an hour or more, trying to put things +together--the sad things that she felt certain must have happened +that day, and wondering what Mr. Ascott could possibly want with the +key. Also, why he had asked her about it, instead of telling his +aunts at once; and why he had treated her in the matter with such +astonishing civility. + +It may be said a servant had no business to think about these things, +to criticize her young master's proceedings, or wonder why her +mistresses were sad: that she had only to go about her work like an +automaton, and take no interest in any thing. I can only answer to +those who like such service, let them have it: and as they sow they +will assuredly reap. But long after Elizabeth, young and hearty, was +soundly snoring on her hard, cramped bed, Johanna and Hilary Leaf, +after a brief mutual pretence of sleep, soon discovered by both, lay +consulting together over ways and means. How could the family +expenses, beginning with twenty-five shillings per week as rent, +possibly be met by the only actual certain family income, their £50 +per annum from a mortgage? For the Misses Leaf were or that +old-fashioned stamp which believed that to reckon an income by mere +probabilities is either insanity or dishonesty. + +Common arithmetic soon proved that this £50 a year could not maintain +them; in fact they must soon draw on the little sum--already dipped +into to-day, for Ascott--which had been produced by the sale of the +Stowbury furniture. That sale, they now found had been a mistake; and +they half feared whether the whole change from Stowbury to London had +not been a mistake--one of those sad errors in judgment which we all +commit sometimes, and have to abide by, and make the best of, and +learn from if we can. Happy those who "Dinna greet ower spilt +milk"--a proverb wise as cheerful, which Hilary, knowing well who it +came from, repeated to Johanna to comfort her--teaches a second brave +lesson, how to avoid spilling the milk a second time. And then they +consulted anxiously about what was to be done to earn money. + +Teaching presented itself as the only resource. In those days women's +work and women's rights had not been discussed so freely as at +present. There was a strong feeling that the principal thing required +was our duties--owed to ourselves, our home, our family and friends. +There was a deep conviction--now, alas! slowly disappearing--that a +woman, single or married, should never throw herself out of the safe +circle of domestic life till the last extremity of necessity; that it +is wiser to keep or help to keep a home, by learning how to expend +its income, cook its dinners, make and mend its clothes, and, by the +law that "prevention is better than cure," studying all those +preservative means of holding a family together--as women, and women +alone, can--than to dash into men's sphere of trades and professions, +thereby, in most instances, fighting an unequal battle, and coming +out of it maimed, broken, unsexed; turned into beings that are +neither men nor women, with the faults and corresponding sufferings +of both, and the compensations of neither. + +"I don't see," said poor Hilary, "what I can do but teach. And oh, if +I could only get daily pupils, so that I might come home or nights, +and creep into the fireside; and have time to mend the stockings and +look after Ascott's linen, that he need not be so awfully +extravagant." + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +Aunt Hilary fixed her honest eyes on the lad's face--the lad, so +little younger than herself, and yet who at tunes, when he let out +sayings such as this, seemed so awfully, so pitifully old; and she +felt thankful that, at all risks and costs, they had come to London +to be beside him, to help him, to save him, if he needed saving, as +women only can. For, after all, he was but a boy. And though as he +walked by her side, stalwart and manly, the thought smote her +painfully that many a young fellow of his age was the stay and bread +winner of some widowed mother or sister, nay even of wife and child, +still she repeated cheerfully. "What can one expect from him? He is +only a boy." + +God help the women who, for those belonging to them--husbands, +fathers, brothers, lovers, sons--have ever so tenderly to apologize. + +When they came in sight of St. Pancras's Church, Ascott said, +suddenly, "I think you'll knew your way now, Aunt Hilary." + +"Certainly. Why?" + +"Because--you wouldn't be vexed if I left you? I have an engagement; +some fellows that I dine with, out at Hampstead, or Richmond, or +Blackwell, every Sunday. Nothing wicked, I assure you. And you know +it's capital for one's health to get a Sunday in fresh air." + +"Yes; but Aunt Johanna will be sorry to miss you." + +"Will she? Oh, you'll smooth her down. Stay! Tell her I shall be back +to tea." + +"We shall be having tea directly." + +"I declare I had quite forgotten. Aunt Hilary, you must change your +hours. They don't suit me at all. No men can ever stand early +dinners. By, by! You are the very prettiest auntie. Be sure you get +home safe. Hollo, there! That's my omnibus." + +He jumped on the top of it, and was off. + +Aunt Hilary stood quite confounded, and with one of those strange +sinkings of the heart which had come over her several times this day. +It was not that Ascott showed any unkindness--that there was any +actual badness in his bright and handsome young face. Still there was +a want there--want of earnestness, steadfastness, truthfulness, a +something more discoverable as the lack of something else than as +aught in itself tangibly and perceptibly wrong. It made her sad; it +caused her to look forward to his future with an anxious heart. It +was so different from the kind of anxiety, and yet settled repose, +with which she thought of the only other man in whose future she felt +the smallest interest. Of Robert Lyon, she was certain that whatever +misfortune visited him he would bear it in the best way it could be +borne; whatever temptation assailed him he would fight against it as +a brave and good Christian should fight. But Ascott? + +Ascott's life was as yet an unanswered query. She could but leave it +in Omnipotent hands. + +So she found her way home, asking it once or twice of civil +policemen, and going a little distance round--dare I make this +romantic confession about so sensible and practical a little +woman?--that she might walk once up Burton Street and down again. But +nobody knew the fact, and it did nobody any harm. + +Meantime at No 15 the afternoon had passed heavily enough. Miss +Selina had gone to lie down; she always did of Sundays, and +Elizabeth, after making her comfortable, by the little attentions the +lady always required, had descended to the dreary wash house, which +had been appropriated to herself, under the name of a "private +kitchen," in the which, after all the cleanings and improvements she +could achieve, sat like Marius among the rains of Carthage, and +sighed for the tidy bright house place at Stowbury. Already, from her +brief experience, she had decided that London people were horrid +shams, because they did not in the least care to have their kitchens +comfortable. She wondered how she should ever exist in this one, and +might have carried her sad and sullen face up stairs, if Miss Leaf +had not come down stairs, and glancing about with that ever gentle +smile of hers, said kindly, "Well, it is not very pleasant, but you +have made the best of it, Elizabeth. We must all put up with +something, you know. Now, as my eyes are not very good to-day, +suppose you come up and read me a chapter." + +So, in the quiet parlor, the maid sat down opposite her mistress, and +read aloud out of that Book which says distinctly: "Servants, be +obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with +fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as unto Christ: knowing, +that whatsoever good thing a man doeth, the same shall he receive of +the Lord, whether he be bond or free." + +And yet says immediately after: "Ye masters, to the same things unto +them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in +heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him." + +And I think that Master whom Paul served, not in preaching only, but +also in practice, when he sent back the slave Onesimus to Philemon, +praying that he might be received, "no' now as a servant, but above a +servant, a brother beloved," that Divine Master must have looked +tenderly upon these two women--both women, though of such different +age and position, and taught them through His Spirit in His word, as +only He can teach. + +The reading was disturbed by a carriage driving up to the door, and a +knock, a tremendously grand and forcible footman's knock, which made +Miss Leaf start in her easy chair. + +"But it can't be visitors to us. We know nobody. Sit still, +Elizabeth." + +It was a visitor, however, though by what ingenuity he found them out +remained, when they came to think of it, a great puzzle. A card was +sent in by the dirty servant of Mrs. Jones, speedily followed by a +stout, bald headed, round faced man--I suppose I ought to write +"gentleman"--in whom, though she had not seen him for years, Miss +Leaf found no difficulty in recognizing the grocer's prentice boy, +now Mr. Peter Ascott, of Russell Square. + +She rose to receive him: there was always a stateliness in Miss +Leaf's reception of strangers; a slight formality belonging to her +own past generation, and to the time when the Leafs were a "county +family." Perhaps this extra dignity, graceful as it was, overpowered +the little man; or else, being a bachelor, he was unaccustomed to +ladies' society: but he grew red in the face, twiddled his hat, and +then cast a sharp inquisitive glance toward her. + +"Miss Leaf, I presume, ma'am. The eldest?" + +"I am the eldest Miss Leaf, and very glad to have an opportunity of +thanking you for your long kindness to my nephew. Elizabeth, give Mr. +Ascott a chair." + +While doing so, and before her disappearance, Elizabeth took a rapid +observation of the visitor, whose name and history were perfectly +familiar to her. Most small towns have their hero, and Stowbury's was +Peter Ascott, the grocer's boy, the little fellow who had gone up to +London to seek his fortune, and had, strange to say, found it. +Whether by industry or luck--except that industry is luck, and luck +is only another word for industry--he had gradually risen to be a +large city merchant, a dry-salter I conclude it would be called, with +a handsome house, carriage, etc. He had never revisited his native +place, which indeed could not be expected of him, as he had no +relations, but, when asked, as was not seldom of course, he +subscribed liberally to its charities. + +Altogether he was a decided hero in the place, and though people +really knew very little about him, the less they knew the more they +gossiped, holding him up to the rising generation as a modern Dick +Whittington, and reverencing him extremely as one who had shed glory +on his native town. Even Elizabeth had conceived a great idea of Mr. +Ascott. When she saw this little fat man, coarse and common looking +in spite of his good clothes and diamond ring, and in manner a +curious mixture of pomposity and awkwardness, she laughed to herself, +thinking what a very uninteresting individual it was about whom +Stowbury had told so many interesting stories. However, she went up +to inform Miss Selina, and prevent her making her appearance before +him in the usual Sunday dishabille in which she indulged when no +visitors were expected. + +After his first awkwardness, Mr. Peter Ascott became quite at his +ease with Miss Leaf. He began to talk--not of Stowbury, that was +tacitly ignored by both--but of London, and then of "my house in +Russell Square," "my carriage," "my servants"--the inconvenience of +keeping coachmen who would drink, and footmen who would not clean the +plate properly; ending by what was a favorite moral axiom of his, +that "wealth and position are heavy responsibilities." + +He himself seemed, however, not to have been quite overwhelmed by +them; he was fat and flourishing--with an acuteness and power in the +upper half of his face which accounted for his having attained his +present position. The lower half, somehow Miss Leaf did not like it, +she hardly knew why, though a physiognomist might have known. For +Peter Ascott had the underhanging, obstinate, sensual lip, the large +throat--bull-necked, as it has been called--indications of that +essentially animal nature which may be born with the nobleman as with +the clown; which no education can refine, and no talent, though it +may co-exist with it, can ever entirely remove. He reminded one, +perforce, of the rough old proverb; "You can't make a silk purse out +of a sow's ear." + +Still, Mr. Ascott was not a bad man, though something deeper than his +glorious indifference to grammar, and his dropped h's--which, to +steal some one's joke, might have been swept up in bushels from Miss +Leaf's parlor--made it impossible for him ever to be, by any culture +whatever, a gentleman. + +They talked of Ascott, as being the most convenient mutual subject; +and Miss Leaf expressed the gratitude which her nephew felt, and she +earnestly hoped would ever show, toward his kind godfather. + +Mr. Ascott looked pleased. + +"Um--yes, Ascott's not a bad fellow--believe he means well: but weak, +ma'am, I'm afraid he's weak. Knows nothing of business--has no +business habits whatever. However, we must make the best of him; I +don't repent any thing I've done for him." + +"I hope not," said Miss Leaf, gravely. + +And then there ensued an uncomfortable pause, which was happily +broken by the opening of the door, and the sweeping in of a large, +goodly figure. + +"My sister, Mr. Ascott; my sister Selina." + +The little stout man actually started, and, as he bowed, blushed up +to the eyes. + +Miss Selina was, as I have stated, the beauty of the family, and had +once been an acknowledged Stowbury belle. Even now, though nigh upon +forty, when carefully and becomingly dressed, her tall figure, and +her well featured, fair complexioned, unwrinkled face, made her still +appear a very personable woman. At any rate, she was not faded +enough, nor the city magnate's heart cold enough to prevent a sudden +revival of the vision which--in what now seemed an almost +antediluvian stage of existence--had dazzled, Sunday after Sunday, +the eyes of the grocer's lad. If there is one pure spot in a man's +heart--oven the very worldliest of men--it is usually his boyish +first love. + +So Peter Ascott looked hard at Miss Selina, then into his hat, then, +as good luck would have it, out of the window, where he caught sight +of his carriage and horses. These revived his spirits, and made him +recognize what he was--Mr. Ascott, of Russell Square, addressing +himself in the character of a benevolent patron to the Leaf family. + +"Glad to see you, Miss. Long time since we met--neither of us so +young as we have been--but you do wear well, I must say." + +Miss Selina drew back; she was within an inch of being highly +offended, when she too happened to catch a glimpse of the carriage +and horses. So she sat down and entered into conversation with him; +and when she liked, nobody could be more polite and agreeable than +Miss Selina. So it happened that the handsome equipage crawled round +and round the Crescent, or stood pawing the silent Sunday street +before No. 15, for very nearly an hour, even till Hilary came home. +It was vexatious to have to make excuses for Ascott: particularly as +his godfather said with a laugh, that "young fellows would be young +fellows," they needn't expect to see the lad till midnight, or till +to-morrow morning. + +But though in this, and other things, he somewhat annoyed the ladies +from Stowbury, no one could say he was not civil to them--exceedingly +civil. He offered them Botanical Garden tickets--Zoological Garden +tickets; he even, after some meditation and knitting of his shaggy +grey eyebrows, bolted out with an invitation for the whole family to +dinner at Russell Square the following Sunday. + +"I always give my dinners on Sunday. I've no time any other day," +said he, when Miss Leaf gently hesitated. "Come or not, just as you +like." + +Miss Selina, to whom the remark was chiefly addressed, bowed the most +gracious acceptance. The visitor took very little notice of Miss +Hilary. Probably, if asked, he would have described her as a small, +shabbily-dressed person, looking very like a governess. Indeed, the +fact of her governess-ship seemed suddenly to recur to him; he asked +her if she meant to set up another school, and being informed that +she rather wished private pupils, promised largely that she should +have the full benefit of his "patronage" among his friends. Then he +departed, leaving a message for Ascott to call next day, as he wished +to speak to him. + +"For you must be aware, Miss Leaf, that though your nephew's +allowance is nothing--a mere drop in the bucket out of my large +income--still, when it comes year after year, and no chance of his +shifting for himself, the most benevolent man in the world feels +inclined to stop the supplies. Not that I shall do that--at least not +immediately: he is a fine young fellow, whom I'm rather proud to have +helped a step up the ladder, and I've a great respect"--here he bowed +to Miss Selina--"a great respect for your family. Still there must +come a time when I shall be obliged to shut up my purse-strings. You +understand, ma'am." + +"I do," Miss Leaf answered, trying to speak with dignity, and yet +with patience, for she saw Hilary's face beginning to flame. "And I +trust, Mr. Ascott, my nephew will soon cease to be an expense to you. +It was your own voluntary kindness that brought it upon yourself, and +I hope you have not found, never will find, either him or us +ungrateful." + +"Oh, as to that, ma'am, I don't look for gratitude. Still, if Ascott +does work his way into a good position--and he'll be the first of his +family that ever did, I reckon--but I beg your pardon, Miss Leaf. +Ladies, I'll bid you good day. Will your servant call my carriage?" + +The instant he was gone Hilary burst forth-- + +"If I were Ascott, I'd rather starve in a garret, break stones in the +high road, or buy a broom and sweep a crossing, than I'd be dependent +on this man, this pompous, purse-proud, illiterate fool!" + +"No, not a fool," reproved Johanna. "An acute, clear-headed, nor, I +think, bad-hearted man. Coarse and common, certainly; but if we were +to hate every thing coarse or common, we should find plenty to hate. +Besides, though he does his kindness in an unpleasant way, think how +very, very kind he has been to Ascott." + +"Johanna, I think you would find a good word for the de'il himself, +as we used to say," cried Hilary, laughing. "Well, Selina; and what +is your opinion of our stout friend?" + +Miss Selina, bridling a little, declared that she did not see so much +to complain of in Mr. Ascott. He was not educated, certainly, but he +was a most respectable person. And his calling upon them so soon was +most civil and attentive. She thought, considering his present +position, they should forget--indeed, as Christians they were bound +to forget--that he was once their grocer's boy, and go to dine with +him next Sunday. + +"For my part, I shall go, though it is Sunday. I consider it quite a +religious duty--my duty towards my neighbor." + +"Which is to love him as yourself. I am sure, Selina, I have no +objection. It would be a grand romantic wind-up to the story which +Stowbury used to tell--of how the 'prentice boy stared his eyes out +at the beautiful young lady; and you would get the advantage of 'my +house in Russell Square,' 'my carriage and servants,' and be able to +elevate your whole family. Do, now! set your cap at Peter Ascott." +Here Hilary, breaking out into one of her childish fits of +irrepressible laughter, was startled to see Selina's face in one +blaze of indignation. + +"Hold your tongue, you silly chit, and don't chatter about things you +don't understand." + +And she swept majestically out of the room. + +"What have I done? Why she is really vexed. If I had thought she +would have taken it in earnest I would never have said a word. Who +would have thought it!" + +But Miss Selina's fits of annoyance were so common that the sisters +rarely troubled themselves long on the matter. And when at tea-time +she came down in the best of spirits, they met her half-way, as they +always did, thankful for these brief calms in the family atmosphere, +which never lasted too long. It was a somewhat heavy evening. They +waited supper till after ten; and yet Ascott did not appear. Miss +Leaf read the chapter as usual; and Elizabeth was sent to bed, but +still no sign of the absentee. + +"I will sit up for him. He cannot be many minutes new," said his Aunt +Hilary, and settled herself in the solitary parlor, which one candle +and no fire made as cheerless as could possibly be. There she waited +till midnight before the young man came in. Perhaps he was struck +with compunction by her weary white face--by her silent lighting of +his candle, for he made her a thousand apologies. + +"'Pon my honor, Aunt Hilary, I'll never keep you up so late again. +Poor dear auntie, how tired she looks!" and he kissed her +affectionately. "But if you were a young fellow, and got among other +young fellows, and they over-persuaded you." + +"You should learn to say, No." + +"Ah"--with a sigh--"so I ought, if I were as good as my Aunt Hilary." + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +Months slipped by; the trees in Burton Crescent had long been all +bare; the summer cries of itinerant vegetable dealers and flower +sellers had vanished out of the quiet street.--The three sisters +almost missed them, sitting in that one dull parlor from morning till +night, in the intense solitude of people who, having neither heart +nor money to spend in gayeties, live forlorn in London lodgings, and +knowing nobody, have nobody to visit, nobody to visit them. + +Except Mr. Ascott, who still called, and occasionally stayed to tea. +The hospitalities, however, were all on their side. The first +entertainment--to which Selina insisted upon going, and Johanna +thought Hilary and Ascott had better go too--was splendid enough, but +they were the only ladies present; and though Mr. Ascott did the +honors with great magnificence, putting Miss Selina at the head of +his table, where she looked exceedingly well, still the sisters +agreed it was better that all further invitations to Russell Square +should be declined. Miss Selina herself said it would be more +dignified and decorous. + +Other visitors they had none. Ascott never offered to bring any of +his friends; and gradually they saw very little of him. He was +frequently out, especially at meal times, so that his aunts gave up +the struggle to make the humble dinners better and more to his +liking, and would even have hesitated to take the money which he was +understood to pay for his board, had he ever offered it, which he did +not. Yet still whenever he did happen to remain with them a day, or +an evening, he was good and affectionate, and always entertained them +with descriptions of all he would do as soon as he got into practice. + +Meantime they kept house as economically as possible upon the little +ready money they had, hoping that more would come in--that Hilary +would get pupils. + +But Hilary never did. To any body who knows London this will not be +surprising.--The wonder was in the Misses Leaf being so simple as to +imagine that a young country lady, settling herself in lodgings in an +obscure metropolitan street, without friends or introduction, could +ever expect such a thing. No thing but her own daring, and the +irrepressible well-spring of hope that was in her healthy youth, +could have sustained her in what, ten years after, would have +appeared to her, as it certainty was, downright insanity. But Heaven +takes care of the mad, the righteously and unselfishly mad, and +Heaven took care of poor Hilary. + +The hundred labors she went through--weariness of body and travail of +soul, the risks she ran, the pitfalls she escaped--what need to +record here? Many have recorded the like, many more have known them, +and acknowledged that when such histories are reproduced in books how +utterly imagination fades before reality. Hilary never looked +back-upon that time herself without a shuddering wonder how she could +have dared all and gone through all. Possibly she never could, but +for the sweet old face, growing older yet sweeter every day, which +smiled upon her the minute she opened the door of that dull parlor, +and made even No. 15 look like home. + +When she told, sometimes gayly, sometimes with burning, bursting +tears, the tale of her day's efforts and day's failures, it was +always comfort to feel Johanna's hand on her hair Johanna's voice +whispering over her, "Never mind, my child, all will come right in +time All happens for good." + +And the face, withered and worn, yet calm as a summer sea, full of +the "peace which passeth all understanding," was a living comment on +the truth of these words. + +Another comfort Hilary had--Elizabeth.--During her long days of +absence, wandering from one end of London to the other, after +advertisements that she had answered, or governess institutions that +she had applied to the domestic affairs fell almost entirely into the +hands of Elizabeth. It was she who bought in, and kept a jealous eye, +not unneeded, over provisions; she who cooked and waited, and +sometimes even put a helping hand, coarse, but willing, into the +family sewing and mending. This had now become so vital a necessity +that it was fortunate Miss Leaf had no other occupation, and Miss +Selina no other entertainment, than stitch, stitch, stitch, at the +ever-beginning, never-ending wardrobe wants which assail decent +poverty every where, especially in London. + +"Clothes seem to wear out frightfully fast," said Hilary one day, +when she was putting on her oldest gown, to suit a damp, foggy day, +when the streets were slippery with the mud of settled rain. + +"I saw such beautiful merino dresses in a shop in Southampton Row," +insinuated Elizabeth; but her mistress shook her head. + +"No, no; my old black silk will do capitally, and I can easily put on +two shawls. Nobody knows me; and people may wear what they like in +London. Don't look so grave, Elizabeth. What does it signify if I can +but keep myself warm? Now, run away." + +Elizabeth obeyed, but shortly reappeared with a bundle--a large, old +fashioned thick shawl. + +"Mother gave it me; her mistress gave it her; but we've never worn +it, and never shall. If only you didn't mind putting it on, just this +once--this terrible soaking day!" + +The scarlet face, the entreating tones--there was no resisting them. +One natural pang Hilary felt--that in her sharp poverty she had +fallen so low as to be indebted to her servant, and then she too +blushed, less for shame at accepting the kindness than for her own +pride that could not at once receive it as such. + +"Thank you, Elizabeth," she said, gravely and gently, and let herself +be wrapped in the thick shawl. Its gorgeous reds and yellows would, +she knew, make her noticeable, even though "people might wear any +thing in London." Still, she put it on with a good grace, and all +through her peregrinations that day it warmed not only her shoulders, +but her heart. + +Coming home, she paused wistfully before a glittering shoe shop; her +poor little feet were so soaked and cold. Could she possibly afford a +new pair of boots? It was not a matter of vanity--she had passed +that. She did not care now how ugly and shabby looked the "wee feet" +that had once been praised; but she felt it might be a matter of +health and prudence. Suppose she caught cold--fell ill--died: died, +leaving Johanna to struggle alone; died before Robert Lyon came home. +Both thoughts struck sharp. She was too young still, or had not +suffered enough, calmly to think of death and dying. + +"It will do no harm to inquire the price. I might stop it out in +omnibuses." + +For this was the way that every new article of dress had to be +procured--"stopping it cut" of something else. + +After trying several pairs-with a fierce, bitter blush at a small +hole which the day's walking had worn in her well darned stockings, +and which she was sure the shopman saw, as well as an old lady who +sat opposite--Hilary bought the plainest and stoutest of boots. The +bill overstepped her purse by six pence, but she promised that sum on +delivery, and paid the rest. She had got into a nervous horror of +letting any account stand over for a single day. + +Look tenderly, reader, on this picture of struggles so small, of +sufferings so uninteresting and mean. I paint it not because it is +original, but because it is so awfully true. Thousands of women, well +born, well reared, know it to be true--burned into them by the cruel +conflict of their youth; happy they if it ended in their youth, while +mind and body had still enough vitality and elasticity to endure! I +paint it, because it accounts for the accusation sometimes +made--especially by men--that women are naturally stingy. Possibly +so: but in many instances may it not have been this petty struggle +with petty wants this pitiful calculating of penny against penny, how +best to save here and spend there, which narrows a woman's nature in +spite of herself? It sometimes takes years of comparative ease and +freedom from pecuniary cares to counteract the grinding, lowering +effects of a youth of poverty. + +And I paint this picture, too, literally, and not on its picturesque +side--it, indeed, poverty has a picturesque side--in order to show +another side which it really has--high, heroic, made up of dauntless +endurance, self sacrifice, and self control Also, to indicate that +blessing which narrow circumstances alone bestow, the habit of +looking more to the realities than to the shows of things, and of +finding pleasure in enjoyments mental rather than sensuous, inward +rather than external. When people can truly recognize this they cease +either to be afraid or ashamed of poverty. + +Hilary was not ashamed:--not even now, when hers smote sharper and +harder than it had ever done at Stowbury. She felt it a sore thing +enough; but it never humiliated nor angered her. Either she was too +proud or not proud enough; but her low estate always seemed to her +too simply external a thing to affect her relations with the world +outside. She never thought of being annoyed with the shopkeeper, who, +though he trusted her with the sixpence, carefully took down her name +and address: still less to suspecting the old lady opposite, who sat +and listened to the transaction--apparently a well-to-do customer, +clad in a rich black silk and handsome sable furs--of looking down +upon her and despising her. She herself never despised any body, +except for wickedness. + +So she waited contentedly, neither thinking of herself, nor of what +others thought of her; but with her mind quietly occupied by the two +thoughts, which in any brief space of rest always recurred, calming +down all annoyances, and raising her above the level of petty +pains--Johanna and Robert Lyon. Under the influence of these her +tired face grew composed, and there was a wishful, far away, fond +look in her eyes, which made it not wonderful that the said old +lady--apparently an acute old soul in her way--should watch her, as +we do occasionally watch strangers in whom we have become suddenly +interested. + +There is no accounting for these interests, or to the events to which +they give rise. Sometimes they are pooh-pooh-ed as "romantic," +"unnatural," "like a bit in a novel;" and yet they are facts +continually occurring, especially to people of quick intuition, +observation, and sympathy. Nay, even the most ordinary people have +known or heard of such, resulting in mysterious, life-long loves; +firm friendships; strange yet often wonderful happy marriages; sudden +revolutions of fortune and destiny: things utterly unaccountable for, +except by the belief in the inscrutable Providence which + + "Shapes our ends, + Rough-how them as we will." + +When Hilary left the shop she was startled by a voice at her elbow. + +"I beg your pardon, but if your way lies up Southampton Row, would +you object to give an old woman a share of that capital umbrella of +yours?" + +"With pleasure," Hilary answered, though the oddness of the request +amused her. And it was granted really with pleasure; for the old lady +spoke with those "accents of the mountain tongue" which this foolish +Hilary never recognized without a thrill at the heart. + +"May be you think an old woman ought to take a cab, and not be +intruding upon strangers; but I am hale and hearty, and being only a +streets length from my own door, I dislike to waste unnecessary +shillings." + +"Certainly," acquiesced Hilary, with a half sigh: shillings were only +too precious to her. + +"I saw you in the boot shop, and you seemed the sort of young lady +who would do a kindness to an old body like me; so I said to myself, +'Ill ask her.'" + +"I am glad you did." Poor girl! she felt unconsciously pleased at +finding herself still able to show a kindness to any body. + +They walked on and on--it was certainly a long street's length--to +the stranger's door, and it took Hilary a good way round from hers; +but she said nothing of this, concluding, of course, that her +companion was unaware of where she lived; in which she was mistaken. +They stopped at last before a respectable house near Brunswick +Square, bearing a brass plate, with the words "Miss Balquidder." + +"That is my name, and very much obliged to you, my dear. How it +rains! Ye're just drenched." + +Hilary smiled and shook her damp shawl. "I shall take no harm. I am +used to go out in all weathers." + +"Are you a governess?" The question was so direct and kindly, that it +hardly seemed an impertinence. + +"Yes; but I have no pupils, and I fear I shall never get any." + +"Why not?" + +"I suppose, because I know nobody here. It seems so very hard to get +teaching in London. But I beg your pardon." + +"I beg yours," said Miss Balquidder--not without a certain +dignity--"for asking questions of a stranger. But I was once a +stranger here myself, and had a 'sair fecht,' as we say in Scotland, +before I could earn even my daily bread. Though I wasn't a governess, +still I know pretty well what the sort of life is, and if I had +daughters who must work for their bread, the one thing I would urge +upon them should be--'Never become a governess.' " + +"Indeed. For what reason?" + +"I'll not tell you now, my dear, standing with all your wet clothes +on; but as I said, if you will do me the favor to call." + +"Thank you!" said Hilary, not sufficiently initiated in London +caution to dread making a new acquaintance. Besides, she liked the +rough hewn, good natured face; and the Scotch accent was sweet to her +ear. + +Yet when she reached home she was half shy of telling her sisters the +engagement she had made. Selina was extremely shocked, and considered +it quite necessary that the London Directory, the nearest clergyman, +or, perhaps, Mr. Ascott, who living in the parish, must know--should +be consulted as to Miss Balquidder's respectability. + +"She has much more reason to question ours," recollected Hilary, with +some amusement; for I never told her my name or address. She does not +know a single thing about me. + +Which fact, arguing the matter energetic ally two days after, the +young lady might not have been so sure of, could she have penetrated +the ceiling overhead. In truth, Miss Balquidder, a prudent person, +who never did things by halves, and, like most truly generous people, +was cautious even in her extremist fits of generosity, at that very +moment was sitting in Mrs. Jones's first floor, deliberately +discovering every single thing possible to be learned about the Leaf +family. + +Nevertheless, owing to Selina's indignant pertinacity, Hilary's own +hesitation, and a dim hope of a pupil which rose up and faded like +the rest, the possible acquaintance lay dormant for two or three +weeks; till, alas! the fabulous wolf actually came to the door; and +the sisters, after paying their week's rent, looked aghast at one +another, not knowing where in the wide world the next week's rent was +to come from. + +"Thank God, we don't owe any thing: not a penny!" gasped Hilary. + +"No; there is comfort in that," said Johanna. And the expression of +her folded hands and upward face was not despairing, even though that +of the poor widow, when her barrel of meal was gone, and her cruse of +oil spent, would hardly have been sadder. + +"I am sure we have wasted nothing, and cheated nobody;--surely God +will help us." + +"I know He will, my child." + +And the two sisters, elder and younger, kissed one another, cried a +little, and then sat down to consider what was to be done. + +Ascott must be told how things were with them. Hitherto they had not +troubled him much with their affairs: indeed, he was so little at +home. And after some private consultation, both Johanna and Hilary +decided that it was wisest to let the lad come and go as he liked; +not attempting--as he once indignantly expressed it--"to tie him to +their apron strings." For instinctively these maiden ladies felt that +with men, and, above all, young men, the only way to bind the +wandering heart was to leave it free, except by trying their utmost +that home should be always a pleasant home. + +It was touching to see their efforts, when Ascott came in of +evenings, to enliven for his sake the dull parlor at No. 15. How +Johanna put away her mending, and Selina ceased to grumble, and +Hilary began her lively chat, that never failed to brighten and amuse +the household. Her nephew even sometimes acknowledged that wherever +he went, he met nobody so "clever" as Aunt Hilary. + +So, presuming upon her influence with him, on this night, after the +rest were gone to bed, she, being always the boldest to do any +unpleasant thing, said to him. + +"Ascott, how are your business affairs progressing? When do you think +you will be able to get into practice?" + +"Oh, presently. There's no hurry." + +"I am not so sure of that. Do you know, my dear boy"--and she opened +her purse, which contained a few shillings--"this is all the money we +have in the world." + +"Nonsense," said Ascott, laughing. "I beg your pardon," he added, +seeing it was with her no laughing matter; "but I am so accustomed to +be hard up that I don't seem to care. It always comes right +somehow--at least with me." + +"How?" + +"Oh, I don't exactly know; but it does. Don't fret, Aunt Hilary. I'll +lend you a pound or two." + +She drew back. These poor, proud, fond women, who, if their boy, +instead of a fine gentleman, had been a helpless invalid, would have +tended him, worked for him, nay, begged for him--cheerfully, oh, how +cheerfully! wanting nothing in the whole world but his love--they +could not ask him for his money. Even now, offered thus, Hilary felt +as if to take it would be intolerable. + +Still the thing must be done. + +"I wish, Ascott"--and she nerved herself to say what somebody ought +to say to him--"I would you would not lend but pay us the pound a +week you said you could so easily spare." + +"To be sure I will. What a thoughtless fellow I have been! +But--but--I fancied you would have asked me if you wanted it. Never +mind, you'll get it all in a lump. Let me see--how much will it come +to? You are the best head going for arithmetic, Aunt Hilary. Do +reckon it all up?" She did so; and the sum total made Ascott open his +eyes wide. + +"Upon my soul I had no idea it was so much. I'm very sorry, but I +seem fairly cleaned out this quarter--only a few sovereigns left to +keep the mill going. You shall have them, or half of them, and I'll +owe you the rest. Here!" + +He emptied on the table, without counting, four or five pounds. +Hilary took two, asking him gravely "If he was sure he could spare so +much? She did not wish to inconvenience him." + +"Oh, not at all; and I wouldn't mind if it did; you have been good +aunts to me." + +He kissed her, with a sudden fit of compunction, and bade her +good-night, looking as if he did not care to be "bothered" any more. + +Hilary retired, more sad, more hopeless about him than if he had +slammed the door in her face, or scolded her like a trooper. Had he +met her seriousness in the same spirit, even though it had been a +sullen or angry spirit--and little as she said he must have felt she +wished him to feel--that his aunts were displeased with him; but that +utterly unrepressible light-heartedness of his--there was no doing +any thing with it. There was so to speak, "no catching hold" of +Ascott. He meant no harm. She repeated over and over again that the +lad meant no harm. He had no evil ways; was always pleasant, +good-natured, and affectionate, in his own careless fashion; but was +no more to be relied on than a straw that every wind blows hither and +thither; or, to use a common simile, a butterfly that never sees any +thing farther than the nearest flower. His was, in short, the +pleasure-loving temperament, not positively sinful or sensual, but +still holding pleasure as the greatest good; and regarding what +deeper natures call "duty," and find therein their strong-hold and +consolation, as a mere bugbear or a sentimental theory, or an +impossible folly. + +Poor lad! and he had the world to fight with; how would it use him? +Even if no heavy sorrows for himself or others smote him, his +handsome face would have to grow old, his strong frame to meet +sickness--death.--How would he do it? That is the thought which +always recurs. What is the end of such men as these? Alas! the answer +would come from hospital wards, alms-houses and work-houses, debtors' +prisons and lunatic asylums. + +To apprehensions like this--except the last, happily it was as yet +too far off--Hilary had been slowly and sadly arriving about Ascott +for weeks past; and her conversation with him to-night seemed to make +them darken down upon her with added gloom. As she went up stairs she +set her lips together hard. + +"I see there is nobody to do any thing except me. But I must not tell +Johanna." + +She lay long awake, planning every conceivable scheme for saving +money; till at length, her wits sharpened by the desperation of the +circumstances, there flashed upon her an idea that came out of a talk +she had had with Elizabeth that morning. True, it was a perfectly new +and untried chance--and a mere chance; still it was right to overlook +nothing. She would not have ventured to tell Selina of it for the +world, and even to Johanna, she only said--finding her as wakeful as +herself--said it in a careless manner, as if it had relation to +nothing, and she expected nothing from it-- "I think, as I have +nothing else to do, I will go and see Miss Balquidder to-morrow +morning." + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +Miss Balquidder's house was a handsome one, handsomely furnished, and +a neat little to aid-servant showed Hilary at once into the +dining-parlor, where the mistress sat before a business-like +writing-table, covered with letters, papers, etc., all arranged with +that careful order in disorder which indicates, even in the smallest +things, the possession of an accurate, methodical mind, than which +there are few greater possessions, either to its owner or to the +world at large. + +Miss Balquidder was not a personable woman; she had never been so +even in youth; and age had told its tale upon those large, strong +features--"thoroughly Scotch features," they would have been called +by those who think all Scotchwomen are necessarily big, raw-boned, +and ugly; and have never seen that wonderfully noble beauty--not +prettiness, but actual beauty in its highest physical as well as +spiritual development--which is not seldom found across the Tweed. + +But while there was nothing lovely, there was nothing unpleasant or +uncomely in Miss Balquidder. Her large figure, in its plain black +silk dress; her neat white cap, from under which peeped the little +round curls of flaxen hair, neither gray nor snowy, but real +"lint-white locks" still; and her good-humored, motherly +look--motherly rather than old-maidish--gave an impression which may +be best described by the word "comfortable."--She was a "comfortable" +woman. She had that quality--too rarely, alas! in all people, and +rarest in women going solitary down the hill of life--of being able, +out of the deep content of her own nature, to make other people the +same. + +Hilary was cheered in spite of herself: it always conveys hope to the +young, when in sore trouble, if they see the old looking happy. + +"Welcome, my dear! I was afraid you had forgotten your promise." + +"Oh no," said Hilary, responding heartily to the hearty clasp of a +hand large as a man's, but soft as a woman's. + +"Why did you not come sooner?" + +More than one possible excuse flashed thro' Hilary's mind, but she +was too honest to give it. She gave none at all. Nor did she like to +leave the impression that this was merely a visit, when she knew she +had only come from secondary and personal motives. + +"May I tell you why I came to-day?--Because I want advice and help, +and I think you can give it, from something I heard about you +yesterday." + +"Indeed! From whom?" + +"In rather a roundabout way; from Mrs. Jones, who told our +maid-servant." + +"The same girl I met on the staircase at your bones? I beg your +pardon, but I know where you live, Miss Leaf; your landlady happens +to be an acquaintance of mine." + +"So she said: and she told our Elizabeth that you were a rich and +benevolent woman, who took a great interest in helping other women; +not in money"--blushing scarlet at be idea--"I don't mean that, but +in procuring them work. I want work--oh! so terribly. If you only +knew--" + +"Sit down, my dear;" for Hilary was rambling much, her voice +breaking, and her eyes filling, in spite of all her self-command. + +Miss Balquidder--who seemed accustomed to wait upon herself--went out +of the room, and returned with cake and glasses; then she took the +wine from the side-board, poured some oat for herself and Hilary, and +began to talk. + +"It is nearly my luncheon-time, and I am a great friend to regular +eating and drinking. I never let any thing interfere with my own +meals, or other folks' either, if I can help it. I would as soon +expect that fire to keep itself up without coals, as my mind to go on +working if I don't look after my body. You understand? You seem to +have good health, Miss Leaf. I hope you are a prudent girl, and take +care of it." + +"I think I do;" and Hilary smiled. "At any rate my sister does for +me, and also Elizabeth." + +"Ah, I liked the look of that girl. If families did but know that the +most useful patent of respectability they can carry about with them +is their maid-servant! That is how I always judge my new +acquaintances." + +"There's reason in it, too," said Hilary, amused and drawn out of +herself by the frank manner and the cordial voice--I use the +adjective advisedly; none the less sweet because its good terse +English had a decided Scotch accent, with here and there a Scotch +word. Also there was about Miss Balquidder a certain dry humor +essentially Scotch--neither Irish "wit" nor English "fun," but Scotch +humor; a little ponderous perhaps, yet sparkling: like the sparkles +from a large lump of coal, red-warm at the heart, and capable of +warming a whole household. As many a time it had warmed the little +household at Stowbury--for Robert Lyon had it in perfection. Like a +waft as from old times, it made Hilary at once feel at home with Miss +Balquidder. Equally, Miss Balquidder might have seen something in +this girl's patient, heroic, forlorn youth which reminded her of her +own. Unreasoning as these sudden attractions appear, there is often a +hidden something beneath which in reality makes them both natural and +probable, as was the case here. In half an hour these two women were +sitting talking like old friends; and Hilary had explained her +present position, needs and desires. They ended in the one +cry--familiar to how many thousands more of helpless young women!--"I +want work!" + +Miss Balquidder listened thoughtfully. Not that it was a new +story--alas! she heard it every day; but there was something new in +the telling of it; such extreme directness and simplicity, such utter +want of either false pride or false shame, No asking of favors, and +yet no shrinking from well-means kindness; the poor woman speaking +freely to the rich one, recognizing the common womanhood of both, and +never supposing for an instant that mere money or position could make +any difference between them. + +The story ended, both turned, as was the character of both, to the +practical application of it--what it was exactly that Hilary needed, +and what Miss Balquidder could supply. + +The latter said, after a turn or two up and down the room, with her +hands behind her--the only masculine trick she had-- + +"My dear, before going further, I ought to tell you one thing--I am +not a lady." + +Hilary looked at her in no little bewilderment. + +"That is," explained Miss Balquidder, laughing, "not an educated +gentlewoman like you. I made my money myself--in trade. I kept an +outfitter's shop." + +"You must have kept it uncommonly well," was the involuntary reply, +which, in its extreme honesty and naivete, was perhaps the best thing +that Hilary could have said. + +"Well, perhaps I did," and Miss Balquidder laughed her hearty laugh, +betraying one of her few weaknesses--a consciousness of her own +capabilities as a woman of business, and a pleasure at her own +deserved success. + +"Therefore, you see. I can not help you as a governess. Perhaps I +would not if I could, for, so far as I see, a good clearance of one +half the governesses into honest trades would be for their own +benefit, and greatly to the benefit of the other half. But that's not +my affair. I only meddle with things I understand. Miss Leaf, would +you be ashamed of keeping a shop?" + +It is no reflection upon Hilary to confess that this point-blank +question startled her.--Her bringing up had been strictly among the +professional class; and in the provinces sharper than even in London +is drawn the line between the richest tradesman who "keeps a shop," +and the poorest lawyer, doctor, or clergyman who ever starved in +decent gentility. It had been often a struggle for Hilary Leaf's +girlish pride to have to teach A B C to little boys and girls whose +parents stood behind counters; but as she grew older she grew wiser, +and intercourse with Robert Lyon had taught her much. She never +forgot, one day, when Selina asked him something about his +grandfather or great-grandfather, and he answered quickly, smiling, +"Well, I suppose I had one, but I really never heard." Nevertheless +it takes long to conquer entirely the class prejudices of years, nay, +more, of generations. In spite of her will Hilary felt herself wince, +and the color rush all over her face, at Miss Balquidder's question. + +"Take time to answer, and speak out, my dear. Don't be afraid. You'll +not offend me." + +The kindly cheerful tone made Hilary recover her balance immediately. + +"I never thought of it before; the possibility of such a thing did +not occur to me; but I hope I should not be ashamed of any honest +work for which I was competent. Only--to serve in a shop--to want +upon strangers--I am so horribly shy of strangers." And again the +sensitive color rushed in a perfect tide over checks and forehead. + +Miss Balquidder looked, half amused, compassionately at her. + +"No, my dear, you would not make a good shop-woman, at least there +are many who are better fitted for it than you; and it is my maxim +that people should try to find out, and to do, only that which they +are best fitted for. If they did we might not have so many cases of +proud despair and ambitious failure in the world. It looks very grand +and interesting sometimes to try and do what you can't de, and then +tear your hair, and think the world has ill-used you--very grand, but +very silly: when all the while, perhaps, there is something else you +can do thoroughly well; and the world will be exceedingly obliged to +you for doing it, and not doing the other thing.--As doubtless the +world was to me, when, instead of being a mediocre musician, as I +once wished to be--it's true, my dear--I took to keeping one of the +best ladies' outfitting warehouses in London." + +While she talked her companion had quite recovered herself, and Miss +Balquidder then went on to explain, what I will tell more briefly, if +less graphically, than the good Scotchwoman, who, like all who have +had a hard struggle in their youth, liked a little to dilate upon it +in easy old age. Hard as it was, however, it had ended early, for at +fifty she found herself a woman of independent property, without kith +or kin, still active, energetic, and capable of enjoying life. She +applied her mind to find out what she could best do with herself and +her money. + +"I might have bought a landed estate to be inherited by--nobody; or a +house in Belgravia, and an opera-box, to be shared by--nobody. We all +have our pet luxuries; none of these were exactly mine." + +"No," assented Hilary, somewhat abstractedly. She was thinking--if +she could make a fortune, and--and give it away!--if, by any means, +any honorable, upright heart could be made to understand that it did +not signify, in reality, which side the money came from; that it +sometimes showed deeper, the very deepest attachment, when a proud, +poor man had self-respect and courage enough to say to a woman, "I +love you, and I will marry you; I am not such a coward as to be +afraid of your gold." + +But, oh! what a ridiculous dream!--and she sat there, the penniless +Hilary Leaf, listening to Miss Balquidder, the rich lady, whose life +seemed so easy. For the moment, perhaps, her own appeared hard. But +she had hope, and she was young. She knew nothing of the years and +years that had had to be lived through before those kind eyes looked +as clear and cloudless as now; before the voice had gained the sweet +evenness of tone which she liked to listen to, and felt that it made +her quiet and "good," almost like Johanna's. + +"You see, my dear," said Miss Balquidder, "when one has no duties, +one must just make them; when we have nobody to care for us, we must +take to caring for every body. I suppose"--here a slight pause +indicated that this life, like all women's lives, had had its tale, +now long, long told--"I suppose I was not meant to be a wife; but I +am quite certain I was meant to be a mother. And"--with her peculiar, +bright, humorous look--"you'd be astonished, Miss Leaf, if you knew +what lots of 'children' I have in all parts of the world." + +Miss Balquidder then went on to explain, that finding, from her own +experience, how great was the number, and how sore the trial of young +women who nowadays are obliged to work--obliged to forget that there +is such a thing as the blessed privilege of being worked for--she had +set herself, in her small way, to try and help them. Her pet project +was to induce educated women to quit the genteel starvation of +governesships for some good trade thereby bringing higher +intelligence into a class which needed, not the elevation of the work +itself, which was comparatively easy and refined, but of the workers. +She had therefore invested sum after sum of her capital in setting up +various small shops in the environs of London, in her own former +line, and others--stationers, lace-shops, etc.--trades which could be +well carried on by women.--Into the management of these she put as +many young girls as she could find really fitted for it, or willing +to learn, paying them regular salaries, large or small, according to +their deserts. + +"Fair work, fair pay; not one penny more or less; I never do it; it +would not be honest. I overlook each business myself, and it is +carried on in my name. Sometimes it brings me in a little profit; +sometimes not. Of course," she added, smiling. "I would rather have +profits than losses; still, I balance one against the other, and it +leaves me generally a small interest for my money--two or three per +cent., which is all I care about. Thus, you see. I and my young +people make a fair bargain on both sides; it's no charity. I don't +believe in charity." + +"No," said Hilary, feeling her spirit rise. She was yet young enough, +yet enough unworn by the fight to feel the deliciousness of +work--honest work for honest pay. "I think I could do it," she added. +"I think, with a little practice, I really could keep a shop." + +"At all events, perhaps you could do what I find more difficult to +get done, and well done, for it requires a far higher class of women +than generally apply: you could keep the accounts of a shop; you +should be the head, and it would be easy to find the hands, Let me +see; there is a young lady, she has managed my stationer's business +at Kensington these two years, and now she is going to be married. +Are you good at figures; do you understand book-keeping?" + +And suddenly changing into the woman of business, and one who was +evidently quite accustomed both to arrange and command, Miss +Balquidder put Hilary through a sort of extempore arithmetical +catechism, from which she came off with flying colors. + +"I only wish there were more like you. I wish there were more young +ladies brought up like--" + +"Like boys!" said Hilary, laughing, "for I always used to say that +was my case." + +"No, I never desire to see young women made into men." And Miss +Balquidder seemed a little scandalized. "But I do wish girls were +taught fewer accomplishments, and more reading, writing, and +arithmetic; were made as accurate, orderly, and able to help +themselves as boys are. But to business. Will you take the management +of my stationer's shop?" + +Hilary's breath came hard and fast. Much as she had longed for work, +to get this sort of work--to keep a stationer's shop? What would her +sisters say? what would he say! But she dared not think of that just +now. + +"How much should I be able to earn, do you think?" + +Miss Balquidder considered a moment, and then said, rather shortly, +for it was not exactly acting on her own principles; she knew the pay +was above the work. "I will give you a hundred a year." + +A hundred a year! actually certain, and over and above any other +income. It seemed a fortune to poor Hilary. + +"Will you give me a day or two to think about it and consult my +sisters?" + +She spoke quietly, but Miss Balquidder could see how agitated she +was; how she evidently struggled with many feelings that would be +best struggled with alone. The good old lady rose. + +"Take your own time, my dear; I will keep the situation open for you +for one week from this date. And now I must send you away, for I have +a great deal to do." + +They parted quite like friends; and Hilary went out, walking quickly, +feeling neither the wind nor the rain. Yet when she reached No. 15 +she could not bring herself to enter, but took another turn or two +round the Crescent, trying to be quite sure of her own mind before +she opened the matter to her sisters.-- + +And there was one little battle to be fought which the sisters did +know. + +It was perhaps foolish, seeing she did not belong to him in any open +way, and he had no external right over her life or her actions, that +she should go back and back to the question, "What would Robert Lyon +say?" + +He knew she earned her daily bread; sometimes this had seemed to vex +and annoy him, but it must be done; and when a thing was inevitable, +it was not Mr. Lyon's way to say much about it. But being a governess +was an accredited and customary mode of a young lady's earning her +livelihood. This was different. If he should think it too public, too +unfeminine: he had such a horror of a woman's being any thing but a +woman, as strong and brave as she could, but in a womanly way; doing +any thing, however painful, that she was obliged to do, but never out +of choice or bravado, or the excitement of stepping out of her own +sphere into man's. Would Robert Lyon think less of her, Hilary, +because she had to earn to take care of herself, to protect herself, +and to act in so many ways for herself, contrary to the natural and +right order of things? That old order--God forbid it should ever +change!--which ordained that the women should be "keepers at home;" +happy rulers of that happy little world, which seemed as far off as +the next world from this poor Hilary. + +"What if he should look down upon me? What if he should return and +find me different from what he expected?" + +And bitter tears burned in her eyes, as she walked rapidly and +passionately along the deserted street. Then a revulsion came. + +"No; love is worth nothing that is not worth every thing, and to be +trusted through every thing. If he could forget me--could love any +one better than me--me myself, no matter what I was--ugly or pretty, +old or young, rich or poor--I would not care for his love. It would +not be worth my having; I'd let it go. Robert, though it broke my +heart, I'd let you go." + +Her eyes flashed; her poor little hand clenched itself under her +shawl; and then, as a half reproach, she heard in fancy the steady +loving voice--which could have calmed her wildest paroxysm of passion +and pain--"You must trust me, Hilary." + +Yes, he was a man to be trusted. No doubt very much like other men, +and by no means such a hero to the world at large as this fond girl +made him out to be; but Robert Lyon had, with all people, and under +all circumstances, the character of reliableness. He had also--you +might read it in his face--a quality equally rare, faithfulness. Not +merely sincerity, but faithfulness; the power of conceiving one clear +purpose, or one strong love--in unity of strength--and of not only +keeping true to it at the time, but of holding fast to it with a +single-minded persistency that never even takes in the idea of +voluntary change, as long as persistency is right or possible. + +"Robert, Robert!" sobbed this forlorn girl, as if slowly waking up to +a sense of her forlorness, and of the almost universal fickleness, +not actual falseness, but fickleness, which prevails in the world and +among mankind. "O Robert, be faithful! faithful to yourself--faithful +to me!" + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +When Miss Hilary reached home Elizabeth opened the door to her; the +parlor was deserted. + +Miss Leaf had gone to lie down, and Miss Selina was away to see the +Lord Mayor's Show with Mr. Peter Ascott. + +"With Mr. Peter Ascott!" Hilary was a little surprised; but on second +thoughts she found it natural; Selina was glad of any amusement--to +her, not only the narrowness but the dullness of their poverty was +inexpressibly galling. "She will be back to dinner, I suppose?" + +"I don't know," said Elizabeth briefly. + +Had Miss Hilary been less preoccupied, she would have noticed +something not quite right about the girl--something that at any other +time would have aroused the direct question, "What is the matter, +Elizabeth?" For Miss Hilary did not consider it beneath her dignity +to observe that things might occasionally go wrong with this solitary +young woman, away from her friends, and exposed to all the annoyances +of London lodgings; that many trifles might happen to worry and +perplex her. If the mistress could not set them right, she could at +least give the word of kindly sympathy, as precious to "a poor +servant" as to the Queen on her throne. + +This time, however, it came not, and Elizabeth disappeared below +stairs immediately. + +The girl was revolving in her own mind a difficult ethical question. +To-day, for the first time in her life, she had not "told Miss Hilary +every thing." Two things had happened, and she could not make up her +mind as to whether she ought to communicate them. + +Now Elizabeth had a conscience, by nature a very tender one, and +which, from circumstances, had been cultivated into a much higher +sensitiveness than, alas! is common among her class, or, indeed, in +any class. This, if an error, was Miss Hilary's doing; it probably +caused Elizabeth a few more miseries, and vexations, and painful +shocks in the world than she would have had had she imbibed only the +ordinary tone of morality, especially the morality of ordinary +domestic servants; but it was an error upon which, in summing up her +life, the Recording Angel would gravely smile. + +The first trial had happened at breakfast time. Ascott, descending +earlier than his wont, had asked her. Did any gentleman, short and +dirty, with a hooked nose, inquire for him yesterday? + +Elizabeth thought a minute, and recollected that some person +answering the above not too flattering description had called, but +refused to leave his name, saying he did not know the ladies, but was +a particular friend of Mr. Leaf's. + +Ascott laughed. "So he is--a very particular friend; but my aunts +would not fancy him, and I don't want him to come here. Say, if he +calls, that I'm gone out of town." + +"Very well, sir. Shall you start before dinner?" said Elizabeth, +whose practical mind immediately recurred to that meal, and to the +joint, always contrived to be hot on the days that Ascott dined at +home. + +He seemed excessively tickled. "Bless you, you are the greatest +innocent! Just say what I tell you, and never mind--hush! here's Aunt +Hilary." + +And Miss Hilary's anxious face, white with long wakefulness, had put +out of Elizabeth's head the answer that was coming; indeed the matter +slipped from her mind altogether, in consequence of another +circumstance which gave her much more perplexity. + +During her young mistress's absence, supposing Miss Selina out too, +and Miss Leaf up stairs, she had come suddenly into the parlor +without knocking. There, to her amazement, she saw Miss Selina and +Mr. Ascott standing, in close conversation, over the fire. They were +so engrossed that they did not notice her, and she shut door again +immediately. But what confounded her was, that she was certain, +absolutely certain, Mr. Ascott had his arm round Miss Selina's waist! + +Now that was no business of hers, and yet the faithful domestic was a +good deal troubled; still more so, when, by Miss Leaf's excessive +surprise at hearing of the visitor who had come and gone, carrying +Miss Selina away to the city, she was certain the elder sister was +completely in the dark as to any thing going to happen in the family. + +Could it be a wedding? Could Miss Selina really love, and be +intending to marry, that horrid little man? For strange to say, this +young servant had, what many a young beauty of rank and fashion has +not, or has lost forever--the true, pure, womanly creed, that loving +and marrying are synonymous terms; that to let a man put his arm +round your waist when you do not intend to marry him, or to intend to +marry him for money or any thing else when you do not really love +him, are things quite impossible and incredible to any womanly mind. +A creed somewhat out of date, and perhaps existing only in stray +nooks of the world; but thank God! it does exist. Hilary had it, and +she had taught it to Elizabeth. + +"I wonder whether Miss Hilary knows of this? I wonder what she would +say to it?" + +And now arose the perplexing ethical question aforesaid, as to +whether Elizabeth ought to tell her. + +It was one of Miss Hilary's doctrines--the same for the kitchen as +for the parlor, nay, preached strongest in the kitchen, where the +mysteries of the parlor are often so cruelly exposed--that a secret +accidentally found out should be kept as sacred as if actually +confided; also, that the secret of an enemy should no more be +betrayed than that of a beloved and trusting friend. + +"Miss Selina isn't my enemy," smiled Elizabeth: "but I'm not overfond +of her, and so I'd rather not tell of her, or vex her if I can help +it. Any how, I'll keep it to myself for a bit." + +But the secret weighed heavily upon her, and besides, her honest +heart felt a certain diminution of respect for Miss Selina. What +could she see to like in that common looking, commonplace man, whom +she could not have met a dozen times, of whose domestic life she knew +nothing, and whose personality Elizabeth, with the sharp observation +often found in her class, probably because coarse people do not care +to hide their coarseness from servants, had speedily set down at her +own valuation-- + +"Neither carriage nor horses, nor nothing, will ever make him a +gentleman?" + +He, however, sent Miss Selina home magnificently in the said +carriage; Ascott with her, who had been picked up somewhere in the +City and who came in to his dinner, without the slightest reference +to going "out of town." + +But in spite of her Lord Mayor's Show, and the great attention which +she said she had received from "various members of the Common Council +of the City of London," Miss Selina was, for her, meditative, and did +not talk quite so much as usual. There was in the little parlor an +uncomfortable atmosphere, as if all of them had something on their +minds. Hilary felt the ice must be broken, and if she did not do it +nobody else would. So she said, stealing her hand into Johanna's +under shelter of the dim fire-light, "Selina, I wanted to have a +little family consultation. I have just received an offer." + +"An offer!" repeated Miss Selina, with a visible start. "Oh, I +forgot; you went to see your friend, Miss Balquidder, this morning. +Did you get any thing out of her? Has she any nephews and nieces +wanting a governess?" + +"She has no relations at all. But I will just tell you the story of +my visit." + +"I hope it's interesting," said Ascott, who was lying on the sofa, +half asleep, his general habit after dinner. He woke, however, during +his Aunt Hilary's relation, and when she reached its climax, that the +offer was for her to manage a stationer's shop, he burst out heartily +laughing: + +"Well, that is a rich idea. I'll come and buy of you. You'll look so +pretty standing behind a counter." + +But Selina said, angrily, "You cannot even think of such a thing. It +would be a disgrace to the family." + +"No," said Hilary, clasping tightly her eldest sister's hand--they +two had already talked the matter over: "I can not see any disgrace. +If our family is so poor that the women must earn their living as +well as the men, all we have to see is that it should be honestly +earned. What do you say, Ascott?" + +She looked earnestly at him; she wanted sorely to find out what he +really thought. + +But Ascott took it, as he did every thing, very easily. "I don't see +why Aunt Selina should make such a fuss. Why need you do anything, +Aunt Hilary? Can't we hold out a little longer, and live upon tick +till I get into practice? Of course, I shall then take care of you +all; I'm the head of the family. How horribly dark this room is!" + +He started up, and gave the fire a fierce poke, which consumed in +five minutes a large lump of coal that Hilary had hoped--oh, cruel, +sordid economy--would have lasted half the evening. + +She broke the uneasy silence which followed by asking Johanna to give +her opinion. + +Johanna roused herself and spoke: + +"Ascott says right; he is the head of the family, and, by-and-by. I +trust will take care of us all. But he is not able to do it now, and +meantime we must live." + +"To be sure, we must Auntie." + +"I mean, my boy, we must live honestly; we must not run into debt:" +and her voice sharpened as with the reflected horror of her young +days--if, alas! there ever had been any youth for Henry Leaf's eldest +daughter. "No, Ascott, out of debt out of danger. For myself"--she +laid her thin old fingers on his arm, and looked up at him with a +pitiful mixture of reliance and hopelessness--"I would rather see you +breaking stones in the road than living like a gentleman, as you call +it, and a swindler, as I call it, upon other people's money." + +Ascott sprang up, coloring violently. "You use strong language, Aunt +Johanna. Never mind. I dare say you are right. However, it's no +business of mine. Good-night, for I have an engagement." + +Hilary said, gravely, she wished he would stay and join in the family +consultation. + +"Oh no; I bate talking over things. Settle it among yourselves. As I +said, it isn't my business." + +"You don't care, then, what becomes of us all? I sometimes begin to +think so." + +Struck by the tone, Ascott stopped in the act of putting on his lilac +kid gloves. "What have I done? I may be a very bad fellow, but I'm +not quite so bad as that. Aunt Hilary." + +"She didn't mean it, my boy," said Aunt Johanna, tenderly. + +He was moved, more by the tenderness than the reproach. He came and +kissed his eldest aunt in that warm-hearted, impulsive way, which had +won him forgiveness for many a boyish fault. It did so now. + +"I know I'm not half good enough to you, Auntie, but I mean to be. I +mean to work hard, and be a rich man some day; and then you may be +sure I shall not let my Aunt Hilary keep a shop. Now, good-night, for +I must meet a fellow on business--really business--that may turn out +good for us all, I assure you." + +He went away whistling, with that air of untroubled, good-natured +liveliness peculiar to Ascott Leaf, which made them say continually +that he was "only a boy," living a boy's life, as thoughtless and as +free. When his handsome face disappeared the three women sat down +again round the fire. + +They made no comments on him whatever; they were women, and he was +their own. But--passing him over as if he had never existed--Hilary +began to explain to her sisters all particulars of her new scheme for +maintaining the family. She told these details in a matter of-fact +way, as already arranged; and finally hoped Selina would make no more +objections. + +"It is a thing quite impossible," said Selina, with dignity. + +"Why impossible? I can certainly do the work; and it can not make me +less of a lady. Besides, we had better not be ladies if we can not be +honest ones. And, Selina, where is the money to come from? We have +none in the house; we can not get any till Christmas." + +"Opportunities might occur. We have friends." + +"Not one in London; except, perhaps, Mr. Ascott, and I would not ask +him for a farthing. You don't see, Selina, how horrible it would be +to be helped, unless by some one dearly loved. I couldn't bear it! +I'd rather beg, starve: almost steal!" + +"Don't be violent, child." + +"Oh, but it's hard!" and the cry of long-smothered pain burst out. +"Hard enough to have to earn one's bread in a way one doesn't like; +harder still to have to be parted from Johanna from Monday morning +till Saturday night. But it must be, I'll go. It's a case between +hunger, debt, and work: the first is unpleasant, the second +impossible, the third is my only alternative. You must consent, +Selina, for I will do it." + +"Don't!" Selina spoke more gently, and not without some natural +emotion. "Don't disgrace me, child; for I may as well tell you--I +meant to do so to-night--Mr. Ascott has made me an offer of marriage, +and I--I have accepted it." Had a thunder-bolt fallen in the middle +of the parlor at No. 15, its inmates--that is, two of them--could not +have been more astounded. + +No doubt this surprise was a great instance of simplicity on their +part. Many women would have prognosticated, planned the thing from +the first; thought it a most excellent match; seen glorious visions +of the house in Russell Square, of the wealth and luxury that would +be the portion of "dear Selina," and the general benefit that the +marriage would be to the whole Leaf family. + +But these two were different from others. They only saw their sister +Selina, a woman no longer young, and not without her peculiarities, +going to be married to a man she knew little or nothing about--a man +whom they themselves had endured rather than liked, and for the sake +of gratitude. He was trying enough merely as a chance visitor; but to +look upon Mr. Ascott as a brother-in-law, as a husband-- "Oh, Selina! +you can not be in earnest?" + +"Why not? Why should I not be married as well as my neighbors?" said +she, sharply. + +Nobody arguing that point, both being indeed too bewildered to argue +at all, she continued, majestically, + +"I assure you, sisters, there could not be a more unexceptionable +offer. It is true, Mr. Ascott's origin was rather humble; but I can +overlook that. In his present wealth, and with his position and +character, he will make the best of husbands." + +Not a word was answered; what could be answered? Selina was free to +marry if she liked, and whom she liked. Perhaps, from her nature, it +was idle to expect her to marry in any other way than this; one of +the thousand and one unions where the man desires a handsome, +lady-like wife for the head of his establishment, and the woman +wishes an elegant establishment to be mistress of; so they strike a +bargain--possibly as good as most other bargains. + +Still, with one faint lingering of hope, Hilary asked if she had +quite decided. + +"Quite. He wrote to me last night, and I gave him his answer this +morning." + +Selina certainly had not troubled any body with her "love affairs." +It was entirely a matter of business. + +The sisters saw at once that she had made up her mind. Henceforward +there could be no criticism of Mr. Peter Ascott. + +Now all was told, she talked freely of her excellent prospects. + +"He had behaved handsomely--very much so. He makes a good settlement +on me, and says how happy he will be to help my family, so as to +enable you always to make a respectable appearance." + +"We are exceedingly obliged to him." + +"Don't be sharp, Hilary. He means well. And he must feel that this +marriage is a sort of--ahem! condescension on my part, which I never +should have dreamed of twenty years ago." + +Selina sighed; could it be at the thought of that twenty years ago? +Perhaps, shallow as she seemed, this woman might once have had some +fancy, some ideal man whom she expected to meet and marry; possibly a +very different sort of man from Mr. Peter Ascott. However, the sigh +was but momentary; she plunged back again into all the arrangements +of her wedding, every one of which, down to the wedding-dress, she +had evidently decided. + +"And therefore you see," she added, as it the unimportant, almost +forgotten item of discussion had suddenly occurred to her, "it's +quite impossible that my sister should keep a shop. I shall tell Mr. +Ascott, and you will see what he says to it." + +But when Mr. Ascott appeared next day in solemn state as an accepted +lover he seemed to care very little about the matter. He thought it +was a good thing for every body to be independent; did not see why +young women--he begged pardon, young ladies--should not earn their +own bread if they liked. He only wished that the shop were a little +further off than Kensington, and hoped the name of Leaf would not be +put over the door. + +But the bride-elect, indignant and annoyed, begged her lover to +interfere, and prevent the scheme from being carried out. + +"Don't vex yourself, my dear Selina," said he, dryly--how Hilary +started to hear the stranger use the household name--"but I can't see +that it's my business to interfere. I marry you, I don't marry your +whole family." + +"Mr. Ascott is quite right; we will end the subject," said Johanna, +with grave dignity while Hilary sat with burning cheeks, thinking +that, miserable as the family had been, it had never till now known +real degradation. + +But her heart was very sore that day. It the morning had come the +letter from India never omitted, never delayed; Robert Lyon was +punctual as clock-work in every thing he did. It came, but this month +it was a short and somewhat sad letter--hinting of failing health, +uncertain prospects; full of a bitter longing to come home, and a +dread that it would be years before that longing was realized. + +"My only consolation is," he wrote, for once betraying himself a +little, "that however hard my life out here may be, I bear it alone." + +But that consolation was not so easy to Hilary. That they two should +be wasting their youth apart, when just a little heap of yellow +coins--of which men like Mr. Ascott had such profusion--would bring +them together; and, let trials be many or poverty hard, give them the +unutterable joy of being once more face to face and heart to +heart--oh, it was sore, sore! + +Yet when she went up from the parlor, where the newly-affianced +couple sat together, "making-believe" a passion that did not exist, +and acting out the sham courtship, proper for the gentleman to pay +and the lady to receive--when she shut her bedroom door, and there, +sitting in the cold, read again and again Robert Lyon's letter to +Johanna, so good, so honest; so sad, yet so bravely enduring--Hilary +was comforted. She felt that true love, in its most unsatisfied +longings, its most cruel delays, nay, even its sharpest agonies of +hopeless separation, is sweeter ten thousand times than the most +"respectable" of loveless marriages such as this. + +So, at the week's end, Hilary went patiently to her work at +Kensington, and Selina began the preparations for her wedding. + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +In relating so much about her mistresses, I have lately seemed to +overlook Elizabeth Hand. + +She was a person easy enough to be overlooked. She never put herself +forward, not even now, when Miss Hilary's absence caused the weight +of housekeeping and domestic management to fall chiefly upon her. She +went about her duties as soberly and silently as she had done in her +girlhood; even Miss Leaf could not draw her into much +demonstrativeness: she was one of those people who never "come out" +till they are strongly needed, and then-- But it remained to be +proved what this girl would be. + +Years afterward Hilary remembered with what a curious reticence +Elizabeth used to go about in those days: how she remained as +old-fashioned as ever; acquired no London ways, no fripperies of +dress or flippancies of manner. Also, that she never complained of +anything; though the discomforts of her lodging-house life must have +been great--greater than her mistresses had any idea of at the time. +Slowly, out of her rough, unpliant girlhood, was forming that +character of self-reliance and self-control, which, in all ranks, +makes of some women the helpers rather than the helped, the laborers +rather than the pleasure-seekers; women whose constant lot it seems +to be to walk on the shadowed side of life, to endure rather than to +enjoy. + +Elizabeth had very little actual enjoyment. She made no +acquaintances, and never asked for holidays. Indeed she did not seem +to care for any. Her great treat was when, on a Sunday afternoon, +Miss Hilary sometimes took her to Westminster Abbey or St. Paul's; +when her pleasure and gratitude always struck her mistress--may, even +soothed her, and won her from her own many anxieties. It is such a +blessing to be able to make any other human being, even for an hour +or two, entirely happy. + +Except these bright Sundays, Elizabeth's whole time was spent in +waiting upon Miss Leaf, who had seemed to grow suddenly frail and +old. It might be that living without her child six days out of the +seven was a greater trial than had at first appeared to the elder +sister, who until now had never parted with her since she was born; +or it was perhaps a more commonplace and yet natural cause, the +living in London lodgings, without even a change of air from room to +room; and the want of little comforts and luxuries, which, with all +Hilary's care, were as impossible as ever to their limited means. + +For Selina's engagement, which, as a matter of decorum, she had +insisted should last six months, did not lessen expenses. Old gowns +were shabby, and omnibuses impossible to the future Mrs. Ascott of +Russell Square; and though, to do her justice, she spent as little as +to her self-pleasing nature was possible, still she spent something. + +"It's the last; I shall never cost you any more," she would say, +complacently; and revert to that question of absorbing interest, her +trousseau, an extremely handsome one, provided liberally by Mr. +Ascott. Sorely had this arrangement jarred upon the pride of the Leaf +family; yet it was inevitable. But no personal favors would the other +two sisters have accepted from Mr. Ascott, even had he offered +them--which he did not--save a dress each for the marriage, and a +card for the marriage breakfast, which, he also arranged, was to take +place at a hotel. + +So, in spite of the expected wedding, there was little change in the +dull life that went on at No. 15. Its only brightness was when Miss +Hilary came home from Saturday to Monday. And in those brief +glimpses, when, as was natural, she on her side, and they on theirs, +put on their best face, so to speak, each trying to hide from the +other any special care, it so fell out that Miss Hilary never +discovered a thing which, week by week, Elizabeth resolved to speak +to her about, and yet never could. For it was not her own affair; it +seemed like presumptuously middling in the affairs of the family. +Above all, it involved the necessity of something which looked like +tale-bearing and backbiting of a person she disliked, and there was +in Elizabeth--servant as she was--an instinctive chivalrous honor +which made her especially anxious to be just to her enemies. + +Enemy, however, is a large word to use; and yet day by day her +feelings grew more bitter toward the person concerned--namely. Mr. +Ascott Leaf. It was not from any badness in him: he was the sort of +young man always likely to be a favorite with what would be termed +his "inferiors;" easy, good-tempered, and gentlemanly, giving a good +deal of trouble certainly, but giving it so agreeably that few +servants would have grumbled, and paying for it--as he apparently +thought every thing could be paid for--with a pleasant word and a +handful of silver. + +But Elizabeth's distaste for him had deeper roots. The principal one +was his exceeding indifference to his aunts' affairs, great and +small, from the marriage, which he briefly designated as a "jolly +lark," to the sharp economies which, even with the addition of Miss +Hilary's salary, were still requisite.--None of these latter did he +ever seem to notice, except when they pressed upon himself; when he +neither scolded nor argued, but simply went out and avoided them. + +He was now absent from home more than ever, and apparently tried as +much as possible to keep the household in the dark as to his +movements--leaving at uncertain times, never saying what hour he +would be back, or if he said so, never keeping to his word. This was +the more annoying as there were a number of people continually +inquiring for him, hanging about the house, and waiting to see him +"on business;" and some of these occasionally commented on the young +gentleman in such unflattering terms that Elizabeth was afraid they +would reach the ear of Mrs. Jones, and henceforward tried always to +attend to the door herself. + +But Mrs. Jones was a wide awake woman. She had not let lodgings for +thirty years for nothing. Ere long she discovered, and took good care +to inform Elizabeth of her discovery, that Mr. Ascott Leaf was what +is euphuistically termed "in difficulties." + +And here one word, lest in telling this poor lad's story I may be +supposed to tell it harshly or uncharitably, as if there was no crime +greater than that which a large portion of society seems to count as +none; as if, at the merest mention of the ugly word debt, this rabid +author flew out, and made all the ultra virtuous persons whose +history is here told fly out, like turkeys, after a bit of red cloth +which is a very harmless scrap of red cloth after all. + +Most true, some kind of debt deserves only compassion. The merchant +suddenly failing; the tenderly reared family who by some strange +blunder or unkind kindness have been kept in ignorance of their real +circumstances, and been spending pounds for which there was only +pence to pay; the individuals, men or women, who, without any laxity +of principle, are such utter children in practice, that they have to +learn the value and use of money by hard experience, much as a child +does, and are little better than children in all that concerns L. S. +D. to the end of their days. + +But these are debtors by accident, not error. The deliberate debtor, +who orders what he knows he has no means of paying for; the pleasure +loving debtor, who can not renounce one single luxury for conscience' +sake; the well-meaning, lazy debtor, who might make "ends meet," but +does not, simply because he will not take the trouble; upon such as +these it is right to have no mercy--they deserve none. + +To which of these classes young Ascott Leaf belonged his story will +show. I tell it, or rather let it tell itself, and point its own +moral; it is the story of hundreds and thousands. + +That a young fellow should not enjoy his youth would be hard; that it +should not be pleasant to him to dress well, live well, and spend +with open hand upon himself as well as others, no one will question. +No one would ever wish it otherwise. Many a kindly spendthrift of +twenty-one makes a prudent paterfamilias at forty, while a man who in +his twenties showed a purposeless niggardliness, would at sixty grow +into the most contemptible miser alive. There is something even in +the thoughtless liberality of youth to which one's heart warms, even +while one's wisdom reproves.--But what struck Elizabeth was that +Ascott's liberalities were always toward himself, and himself only. + +Sometimes when she took in a parcel of new clothes, while others yet +unpaid for were tossing in wasteful disorder about his room, or when +she cleaned indefinite pairs of handsome boots, and washed dozens of +the finest cambric pocket-handkerchiefs, her spirit grew hot within +her to remember Miss Hilary's countless wants and contrivances in the +matter of dress, and all the little domestic comforts which Miss +Leaf's frail health required--things which never once seemed to cross +the nephew's imagination. Of course not, it will be said; how could a +young man be expected to trouble himself about these things? + +But they do though. Answer, many a widow's son; many a heedful +brother of orphan sisters; many a solitary clerk living and paying +his way upon the merest pittance; is it not better to think of others +than one's self? Can a man, even a young man, find his highest +happiness in mere personal enjoyment? + +However, let me cease throwing these pebbles of preaching under the +wheels of my story; as it moves on it will preach enough for itself. + +Elizabeth's annoyances, suspicions, and conscience-pricks as to +whether she ought or ought not to communicate both, came to an end at +last. Gradually she made up her mind that, even if it did look like +tale bearing, on the following Saturday night Miss Hilary must know +all. + +It was an anxious week; for Miss Leaf had fallen ill. Not seriously; +and she never complained until her sister had left, when she returned +to her bed and did not again rise. She would not have Miss Hilary +sent for, nor Miss Selina, who was away paying a ceremonious +prenuptial visit to Mr. Ascott's partner's wife at Dulwich. + +"I don't want any thing that you can not do for me. You are becoming +a first rate nurse. Elizabeth," she said, with that passive, peaceful +smile which almost frightened the girl; it seemed as if she were +slipping away from this world and all its cares into another +existence. Elizabeth felt that to tell her any thing about her +nephew's affairs was perfectly impossible. How thankful she was that +in the quiet of the sick-room her mistress was kept in ignorance of +the knocks and inquiries at the door, and especially of a certain +ominous paper which had fallen into Mrs. Jones's hands, and informed +her, as she took good care to inform Elizabeth, that any day "the +bailiffs" might be after her young master. + +"And the sooner the whole set of you clear out of my house the +better; I am a decent respectable woman," said Mrs. Jones, that very +morning; and Elizabeth had had to beg her as a favor not to disturb +her sick mistress, but to wait one day, till Miss Hilary came home. + +Also, when Ascott, ending with a cheerful and careless countenance +his ten minutes' after breakfast chat in his aunt's room, had met +Elizabeth on the staircase, he had stopped to bid her say if any body +wanted him he was gone to Birmingham, and would not be home till +Monday. And on Elizabeth's hesitating, she having determined to tell +no more of these involuntary lies, he had been very angry, and then +stooped to entreaties, begging her to do as he asked, or it would be +the ruin of him. Which she understood well enough when, all the day, +she--grown painfully wise, poor girl!--watched a Jewish-looking man +hanging about the house, and noticing every body that went in or out +of it. + +Now, sitting at Miss Leaf's window, she fancied she saw this man +disappear into the gin-palace opposite, and at the same moment a +figure darted hurriedly round the street corner, and into the door of +No. 15. Elizabeth looked to see if her mistress were asleep, and then +crept quietly out of the room, shutting the door after her. +Listening, she heard the sound of the latch-key, and of some one +coming stealthily up stairs. + +"Hollo!--Oh, it's only you, Elizabeth." + +"Shall I light your candle, sir?" + +But when she did the sight was not pleasant. Drenched with rain, his +collar pulled up, and his hat slouched, so as in some measure to act +as a disguise, breathless and trembling--hardly any body would have +recognized in this discreditable object that gentlemanly young man, +Mr. Ascott Leaf. + +He staggered into his room and threw himself across the bed. + +"Do you want anything, Sir?" said Elizabeth, from the door. + +"No--yes--stay a minute. Elizabeth, are you to be trusted?" + +"I hope I am, Sir." + +"The bailiffs are after me. I've just dodged them. If they know I'm +here the game's all up--and it will kill my aunt." + +Shocked as she was, Elizabeth was glad to hear him say that--glad to +see the burst of real emotion with which he flung himself down on the +pillow, muttering all sorts of hopeless self-accusations. + +"Come, Sir, 'tis no use taking on so," said she, much as she would +have spoken to a child, for there was something childish rather than +man like in Ascott's distress. Nevertheless, she pitied him, with the +unreasoning pity a kind heart gives to any creature, who, blameworthy +or not, has fallen into trouble. "What do you mean to do?" + +"Nothing. I'm cleaned out. And I haven't a friend in the world." + +He turned his face to the wall in perfect despair. + +Elizabeth tried hard not to sit in judgment upon what the catechism +would call her "betters;" and yet her own strong instinct of almost +indefinite endurance turned with something approaching contempt from +this weak, lightsome nature, broken by the first touch of calamity. + +"Come, it's no use making things worse than they are. If no body +knows that you are here, lock your door and keep quiet. I'll bring +you some dinner when I bring up Missis' tea, and not even Mrs. Jones +will be any the wiser." + +"You're a brick, Elizabeth--a regular brick!" cried the young fellow, +brightening up at the least relief. "That will be capital.--Get me a +good slice of beef, or ham, or something. And mind you, don't +forget!--a regular stunning bottle of pale ale." + +"Very well, Sir." + +The acquiescence was somewhat sullen, and had he watched Elizabeth's +face he might have seen there an expression not too flattering. But +she faithfully brought him his dinner, and kept his secret, even +though, hearing from over the staircase Mrs. Jones resolutely deny +that Mr. Leaf had been at home since morning, she felt very much as +if she were conniving at a lie. With a painful, half-guilty +consciousness she waited for her mistress's usual question. "Is my +nephew come home?" but fortunately it was not asked.-- + +Miss Leaf lay quiet and passive, and her faithful nurse settled her +for the night with a strangely solemn feeling, as if she were leaving +her to her last rest, safe and at peace before the overhanging storm +broke upon the family. + +But all shadow of this storm seemed to have passed away from him who +was its cause. As soon as the house was still Ascott crept down and +fell to his supper with as good an appetite as possible. He even +became free and conversational. + +"Don't look so glum, Elizabeth. I shall soon weather through. Old +Ascott will fork out; he couldn't help it. I'm to be his nephew you +know. Oh, that was a clever catch of Aunt Selina's. If only Aunt +Hilary would try another like it." + +"If you please, Sir, I'm going to bed." + +"Off with you, then, and I'll not forget the gown at Christmas. +You're a sharp young woman, and I'm much obliged to you." And for a +moment he looked as if he were about to make the usual unmannerly +acknowledgment of civility from a young gentleman to a servant maid, +viz., kissing her, but he pulled a face and drew back. He really +couldn't; she was so very plain. At this moment there came a violent +ring, and "Fire!" was shouted through the key-hole of the door. +Terrified, Elizabeth opened it, when, with a burst of laughter, a man +rushed in and laid hands upon Ascott. + +It was the sheriff's officer. + +When his trouble came upon him Ascott's manliness returned. He turned +very white, but he made no opposition; had even enough of his wits +about him--or something better than wits--to stop Mrs. Jones from +rushing up in alarm and indignation to arouse Miss Leaf. + +"No; she'll know it quite soon enough.--Let her sleep till morning. +Elizabeth, look here." He wrote upon a card the address of the place +he was to be taken to. "Give Aunt Hilary this. Say if she can think +of a way to get me out of this horrid mess; but I don't +deserve--Never mind. Come on, you fellows." + +He pulled his hat over his eyes, jumped into the cab, and was gone. +The whole thing had not occupied five minutes. + +Stupefied, Elizabeth stood and considered what was best to be done. +Miss Hilary must be told; but how to get at her in the middle of the +night, thereby leaving her mistress to the mercy of Mrs. Jones. It +would never do. Suddenly she thought of Miss Balquidder.--She might +send a message. No, not a message--for the family misery and disgrace +must not be betrayed to a stranger--but a letter to Kensington. With +an effort Elizabeth composed herself sufficiently to write one--her +first--to her dear Miss Hilary. + +"HONORED MADAM,--Mr. Leaf has got himself into trouble, and is taken +away somewhere; and I dare not tell missis; and I wish you was at +home, as she is not well, but better than she has been, and she shall +know nothing about it till you come.--Your obedient and affectionate +servant, +ELIZABETH HAND." + +Taking Ascott's latch-key she quitted the house and slipped out into +the dark night, almost losing her way among the gloomy squares, where +she met not a creature except the solitary policeman, plashing +steadily along the wet pavement. When he turned the glimmer of his +bull's eye upon her she started like a guilty creature, till she +remembered that she really was doing nothing wrong, and so need not +be afraid of any thing. This was her simple creed, which Miss Hilary +had taught her, and it upheld her, even till she knocked at Miss +Balquidder's door. There, poor girl, her heart sank, especially when +Miss Balquidder, in an anomalous costume and a severe voice, opened +the door herself, and asked who was there, disturbing a respectable +family at this late hour? + +Elizabeth answered, what she had before determined to say, as +sufficiently explaining her errand, and yet betraying nothing that +her mistress might wish concealed. + +"Please, ma'am, I'm Miss Leaf's servant. My missis is ill, and I want +a letter sent at once to Miss Hilary." + +"Oh! come in, then. Elizabeth, I think, your name is?" + +"Yes, ma'am." + +"What made you leave home at this hour of the night? Did your +mistress send you?" + +"No." + +"Is she so very ill? It seems sudden. I saw Miss Hilary to-day, and +she knew nothing at all about it." + +Elizabeth shrank a little before the keen eye that seemed to read her +through. + +"There's more amiss than you have told me, young woman. Is it because +your mistress is in serious danger that you want to send for her +sister?" + +"No." + +"What is it then? You had better tell me at once. I hate +concealment." + +It was a trial; but Elizabeth held her ground. + +"I beg your pardon, ma'am; but I don't think missis would like any +body to know, and therefore I'd rather not tell you." + +Now the honest Scotswoman, as she said, hated any thing underhand, +but she respected the right of every human being to maintain silence +if necessary. She looked sharply in Elizabeth's face, which +apparently re-assured her, for she said, not unkindly, + +"Very well, child, keep your mistress's secrets by all means. Only +tell me what you want. Shall I take a cab and fetch Miss Hilary at +once?" + +Elizabeth thanked her, but said she thought that would not do; it +would be better just to send the note the first thing to-morrow +morning, and then Miss Hilary would come home just as if nothing had +happened, and Miss Leaf would not be frighted by her sudden +appearance. + +"You are a good, mindful girl," said Miss Balquidder. "How did you +learn to be so sensible?" + +At the kindly word and manner, Elizabeth, bewildered and exhausted +with the excitement she had gone through, and agitated by the feeling +of having, for the first time in her life, to act on her own +responsibility, gave way a little. She did not exactly cry, but she +was very near it. + +Miss Balquidder called over the stair-head, in her quick, imperative +voice-- + +"David, is your wife away to her bed yet?" + +"No, ma'am." + +"Then tell her to fetch this young woman to the kitchen and give her +some supper. And afterward, will you see her safe home, poor lassie? +She's awfully tired, you see." + +"Yes, ma'am." + +And following David's gray head, Elizabeth, for the first time since +she came to London, took a comfortable meal in a comfortable kitchen, +seasoned with such stories of Miss Balquidder's goodness and +generosity, that when, an hour after, she went home and to sleep, it +was with a quieter and more hopeful than she could have believed +possible under the circumstances. + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +Next morning, while with that cheerful, unanxious countenance which +those about an invalid must learn continually to wear, Elizabeth was +trying to persuade her mistress not to rise, she heard a knock, and +made some excuse for escaping. She well knew what it was and who had +come. + +There, in the parlor, sat Miss Hilary, Mrs. Jones talking at her +rather than to her, for she hardly seemed to hear. But that she had +heard every thing was clear enough. Her drawn white face, the tight +clasp of her hands, showed that the ill tidings had struck her hard. + +"Go away, Mrs. Jones," cried Elizabeth, fiercely. "Miss Hilary will +call when she wants you." + +And with an ingenious movement that just fell short of a push, +somehow the woman was got on the other side of the parlor door, which +Elizabeth immediately shut. Then Miss Hilary stretched her hands +across the table and looked up piteously in her servant's face. + +Only a servant; only that poor servant to whom she could look for any +comfort in this sore trouble, this bitter humiliation. There was no +attempt at disguise or concealment between mistress and maid. + +"Mrs. Jones has told me every thing, Elizabeth. How is my sister? She +does not know?" + +"No; and I think she is a good deal better this morning. She has been +very bad all week; only she would not let me send for you. She is +really getting well now; I'm sure of that!" + +"Thank God!" And then Miss Hilary began to weep. + +Elizabeth also was thankful, even for those tears, for she had been +perplexed by the hard, dry-eyed look of misery, deeper than anything +she could comprehend, or than the circumstances seemed to warrant. + +It was deeper. The misery was not only Ascott's arrest; many a lad +has got into debt and got out again--the first taste of the law +proving a warning to him for life; but it was this ominous "beginning +of the end." The fatal end--which seemed to overhang like a +hereditary cloud, to taint as with hereditary disease, the Leaf +family. + +Another bitterness (and who shall blame it, for when love is really +love, have not the lovers a right to be one another's first +thought?)--what would Robert Lyon say? To his honest Scotch nature +poverty was nothing; honor every thing. She knew his horror of debt +was even equal to her own. This, and her belief in his freedom from +all false pride, had sustained her against many doubts lest he might +think the less of her because of her present position--might feel +ashamed could he see her sitting at her ledger in that high desk, or +even occasionally serving in the shop. + +Many a time things she would have passed over lightly on her own +account she had felt on his; felt how they would annoy and vex him. +The exquisitely natural thought which Tennyson has put into poetry-- + + "If I am dear to some one else, + Then I should be to myself more dear"-- + +had often come, prosaically enough perhaps, into her head, and +prevented her from spoiling her little hands with unnecessarily rough +work, or carelessly passing down ill streets and by-ways, where she +knew Robert Lyon, had he been in London, would never have allowed her +to go. Now what did such things signify? What need of taking care of +herself? These were all superficial, external disgraces, the real +disgrace was within. The plague-spot had burst out anew; it seemed as +if this day were the recommencement of that bitter life of penury, +misery, and humiliation, familiar through three generations to the +women of the Leaf family. + +It appeared like a fate. No use to try and struggle out of it, +stretching her arms up to Robert Lyon's tender, honest, steadfast +heart, there to be sheltered, taken care of, and made happy. No +happiness for her! Nothing but to go on enduring and enduring to the +end. + +Such was Hilary's first emotion; morbid perhaps, yet excusable. It +might have lasted longer--though in her healthy nature it could not +have lasted very long--had not the reaction come, suddenly and +completely, by the opening of the parlor door, and the appearance of +Miss Leaf. + +Miss Leaf--pale, indeed; but neither alarmed nor agitated, who +hearing somehow that her child had arrived, had hastily dressed +herself, and come down stairs, in order not to frighten Hilary. And +as she took her in her arms, and kissed her with those mother-like +kisses, which were the sweetest Hilary had as yet ever known--the +sharp anguish went out of the poor girl's heart. + +"Oh, Johanna! I can bear any thing as long as I have you" + +And so in this simple and natural way the miserable secret about +Ascott came out. + +Being once out, it did not seem half so dreadful; nor was its effect +nearly so serious as Miss Hilary and Elizabeth had feared.--Miss Leaf +bore it wonderfully; she might almost have known it beforehand; they +would have thought she had, but that she said decidedly she had not. + +"Still you need not have minded telling me; though it was very good +and thoughtful of you Elizabeth. You have gone through a great deal +for our sakes, my poor girl." + +Elizabeth burst into one smothered sob the first and the last. + +"Nay," said Miss Leaf, very kindly; for this unwonted emotion in +their servant moved them both. "You shall tell me the rest another +time. Go down now, and get Miss Hilary some breakfast." + +When Elizabeth had departed the sisters turned to one another. They +did not talk much; where was the use of it? They both knew the worst, +both as to facts and fears. + +"What must be done. Johanna?" + +Johanna, after a long pause, said, "I see but one thing--to get him +home." + +Hilary started up, and walked to and fro along the room. + +"No, not that. I will never agree to it.--We can not help him. He +does not deserve helping. If the debts were for food now, or any +necessaries; but for mere luxuries, mere fine clothes; it is his +tailor who has arrested him, you know. I would rather have gone in +rags! I would rather see us all in rags!--It's mean, selfish, +cowardly, and I despise him for it. Though he is my own flesh and +blood, I despise him." + +"Hilary!" + +"No." and the tears burst from her angry eyes, "I don't mean that I +despise him. I'm sorry for him: there is good in him, poor dear lad; +but I despise his weakness; I feel fierce to think how much it will +cost us all, and especially you, Johanna. Only think what comforts of +all sorts that thirty pounds would have brought to you!" + +"God will provide," said Johanna, earnestly. "But I know, my dear, +this is sharper to you than to me. Besides, I have been more used to +it." + +She closed her eyes, with a half shudder, as if living over again the +old days--when Henry Leaf's wife and eldest daughter used to have +to give dinner parties upon food that stuck in their throats, as if +every morsel had been stolen; which in truth it was, and yet they +were helpless, innocent thieves; when they and the children had to +wear clothes that seemed to poison them like the shirt of Dejanira; +when they durst not walk along special streets, nor pass particular +shops, for the feeling that the shop people must be staring, and +pointing, and jibing at them, "Pay me what thou owest!" + +"But things can not again be so bad as those days, Hilary. Ascott is +young; he may mend. People can mend, my child; and he had such a +different bringing up from what his father had, and his grandfather, +too. We must not be hopeless yet. You see," and making Hilary kneel +down before her, she took her by both hands, as if to impart +something of her own quietness to this poor heart, struggling as +young, honest, upright hearts do struggle with something which their +whole nature revolts against, and loathes, and scorns--"you see, the +boy is our boy; our own flesh and blood. We were very foolish to let +him away from us for so long. We might have made him better if we had +kept him at Stowbury. But he is young; that is my hope of him; and he +was always fond of his aunts, and is still, I think." + +Hilary smiled sadly. "Deeds, not words I don't believe in words." + +"Well, let us put aside believing, and only act. Let us give him +another chance." + +Hilary shook her head. "Another, and another, and another--it will be +always the same. I know it will. I can't tell how it is, Johanna; but +whenever I look at you, I feel so stern and hard to Ascott. It seems +as if there were circumstances when pity to some, to one, was wicked +injustice to others: as if there were times when it is right and +needful to lop off, at once and forever, a rotten branch rather than +let the whole tree go to rack and ruin. I would do it! I should think +myself justified in doing it." + +"But not just yet. He is only a boy--our own boy." + +And the two women, in both of whom the maternal passion existed +strong and deep, yet in the one never had found, and in the other +never might find, its natural channel, wept together over this lad, +almost as mothers weep. + +"But what can we do?" said Hilary at last. + +"Thirty pounds, and not a halfpenny to pay it with; must we borrow?" + +"Oh no--no," was the answer, with a shrinking gesture; "no borrowing. +There is the diamond ring." + +This was a sort of heir-loom from eldest daughter to eldest daughter +of the Leaf family which had been kept even as a sort of +superstition, through all temptations of poverty.--The last time Miss +Leaf looked at it she had remarked, jestingly, it should be given +some day to that important personage talked of for many a year among +the three aunts--Mrs. Ascott Leaf. + +"Who must do without it now," said Johanna, looking regretfully at +the ring; "that is, if he ever takes to himself a wife, poor boy." + +Hilary answered, beneath her breath, "Unless he alters, I earnestly +hope he never may." And there came over her involuntarily a wild, +despairing thought, Would it not be better that neither Ascott nor +herself should ever be married, that the family might die out, and +trouble the world no more? + +Nevertheless she rose up to do what she knew had to be done, and what +there was nobody to do but herself. + +"Don't mind it, Johanna; for indeed I do not. I shall go to a first +rate, respectable jeweler, and he will not cheat me; and then I shall +find my way to the sponging-house--isn't that what they call it? I +dare say many a poor woman has been there before me. I am not the +first, and shall not be the last, and no body will harm me. I think I +look honest, though my name is Leaf." + +She laughed--a bitter laugh; but Johanna silenced it in a close +embrace; and when Hilary rose up again she was quite her natural +self. She summoned Elizabeth, and began giving her all domestic +directions, just as usual; finally, bade her sister good by in a tone +as like her usual tone as possible, and left her settled on the sofa +in content and peace. + +Elizabeth followed to the door. Miss Hilary had asked her for the +card on which Ascott had written the address of the place where he +had been taken to; and though the girl said not a word, her anxious +eyes made piteous inquiry. + +Her mistress patted her on the shoulder. + +"Never mind about me; I shall come to no harm, Elizabeth." + +"It's a bad place; such a dreadful place, Mrs. Jones says." + +"Is it?" Elizabeth guessed part, not the whole of the feelings that +made Hilary hesitate, shrink even, from the duty before her, turning +first so hot, and then so pale. Only as a duty could she have done it +at all. "No matter, I must go. Take care of my sister." + +She ran down the door steps, and walked quickly through the Crescent. +It was a clear, sunshiny, frosty day--such a day as always both +cheered and calmed her. She had, despite all her cares, youth, +health, energy; and a holy and constant love lay like a sleeping +angel in her heart. Must I tell the truth, and own that before she +had gone two streets' length Hilary ceased to feel so very, very +miserable? + +Love--this kind of love of which I speak--is a wonderful thing, the +most wonderful thing in all the world. The strength it gives, the +brightness, the actual happiness, even in hardest times, is often +quite miraculous. When Hilary sat waiting in the jeweler's shop, she +watched a little episode of high life--two wealthy people choosing +their marriage plate; the bride, so careless and haughty; the +bridegroom, so unutterably mean to look at, stamped with that innate +smallness and coarseness of soul which his fine clothes only made +more apparent. And she thought--oh, how fondly she thought!--of that +honest, manly mein; of that true, untainted heart, which she felt +sure, had never loved any woman but herself; of the warm, firm hand, +carving its way thro' the world for her sake, and waiting patiently +till it could openly clasp hers, and give her every thing it had won. +She would not have exchanged him. Robert Lyon, with his penniless +love, his half-hopeless fortunes, or maybe his lot of never ending +care, for the "brawest bridegroom" under the sun. + +Under this sun--the common, everyday winter sun of Regent and Oxford +streets--she walked now as brightly and bravely as if there were no +trouble before her, no painful meeting with Ascott, no horrid +humiliation from which every womanly feeling in her nature shrunk +with acute pain. "Robert, my Robert!" she whispered in her heart, and +felt him so near to her that she was at rest, she hardly knew why. + +Possibly grand, or clever, or happy people who condescend to read +this story may despise it, think it unideal, uninteresting; treating +of small things and common people--"poor persons," in short. I can +not help it. I write for the poor; not to excite the compassion of +the rich toward them, but to show them their own dignity and the +bright side of their poverty. For it has its bright side; and its +very darkest, when no sin is mixed up therewith, is brighter than +many an outwardly prosperous life. + +"Better is a dinner of herbs, where love is, than a stalled ox and +hatred therewith. Better is a dry morsel, and quietness therewith, +than a house full of sacrifices and strife." + +With these two sage proverbs--which all acknowledge and scarcely any +really believe, or surely they would act a little more as if they +did--I leave Johanna Leaf sitting silently in her solitary parlor, +knitting stockings for her child; weaving many a mingled web of +thought withal, yet never letting a stitch go down; and Hilary Leaf +walking cheerily and fearlessly up one strange street and down +another to find out the "bad" place, where she once had no idea it +would ever have been her lot to go.--One thing she knew, and gloried +in the knowledge, that if Robert Lyon had known she was going, or +known half the cares she had to meet, he would have recrossed the +Indian seas--have risked fortune, competence, hope of the future, +which was the only cheer of his hard present--in order to save her +from them all. + +The minute history of this painful day I do not mean to tell. Hilary +never told it till, years after, she wept it out upon a bosom that +could understand the whole, and would take good care that while the +life beat in his she never should go through the like again. + +Ascott came home--that is, was brought home--very humbled, contrite, +and grateful. There was no one to meet him but his Aunt Johanna, and +she just kissed him quietly, and bade him come over to the fire; he +was shivering, and somewhat pale. He had even two tears in his +handsome eyes, the first Ascott had been known to shed since he was a +boy. That he felt a good deal, perhaps as much as was in his nature +to feel, there could be no doubt. So his two aunts were glad and +comforted; gave him his tea and the warmest seat at the hearth; said +not a harsh word to him, but talked to him about indifferent +things.--Tea being over, Hilary was anxious to get every thing +painful ended before Selina came home--Selina, who, they felt by +instinct, had now a separate interest from themselves, and had better +not be told this sad story if possible; so she asked her nephew "if +he remembered what they had to do this evening?" + +"Had to do? Oh, Aunt Hilary, I'm so tired! can't you let me be quiet? +Only this one night. I promise to bring you everything on Monday." + +"Monday will be too late. I shall be away. And you know you can't do +without my excellent arithmetic," she added with a faint smile. "Now, +Ascott, be a good boy--fetch down all those bills and let us go over +them together." + +"His debts came to more than the thirty pounds then?" said his Aunt +Johanna, when he was gone. + +"Yes. But the ring sold for fifty." And Hilary drew to the table, got +writing materials, and sat waiting, with a dull, silent patience in +her look, at which Johanna sighed and said no more. + +The aunt and nephew spent some time in going over that handful of +papers, and approximating to the sum total, in that kind of awful +arithmetic when figures cease to be mere figures, but grow into +avenging monsters, bearing with them life or death. + +"Is that all! You are quite sure it is all?" said Hilary at last, +pointing to the whole amount, and looking steadily into Ascott's +eyes. + +He flushed up, and asked what she meant by doubting his word? + +"Not that, but you might easily have made a mistake; you are so +careless about money matters." + +"Ah, that's it. I'm just careless, and so I come to grief. But I +never mean to be careless any more. I'll be as precise as you. I'll +balance my books every week--every day if you like--exactly as you do +at that horrid shop, Aunt Hilary." + +So he was rattling on, but Hilary stopped him by pointing to the +figures. + +"You see, this sum is more than we expected. How is it to be met? +Think for yourself. You are a man now." + +"I know that," said Ascott, sullenly; "but what's the use of +it?--money only makes the man, and I have none. If the ancient Peter +would but die now and leave me his heir, though to be sure Aunt +Selina might be putting her oar in. Perhaps--considering I'm Aunt +Selina's nephew--if I were to walk into the old chap now he might be +induced to fork out! Hurrah! that's a splendid idea." + +"What idea?" + +"I'll borrow the money from old Ascott." + +"That means, because he has already given, you would have him keep on +giving--and you would take and take and take--Ascott, I'm ashamed of +you." + +But Ascott only burst out laughing. "Nonsence!--he has money and I +have none; why shouldn't he give it me?" + +"Why?"--she repeated, her eyes flashing and her little feminine +figure seeming to grow taller as she spoke--"I'll tell you, since you +don't seem yourself to understand it. Because a young man, with +health and strength in him, should blush to eat any bread but what he +himself earns. Because he should work at any thing and every thing, +stint himself of every luxury and pleasure, rather than ask or +borrow, or, except under rare circumstances, rather than be indebted +to any living soul for a single half-penny. I would not, if I were a +young man." + +"What a nice young man you would make, Aunt Hilary!" + +There was something in the lad's imperturbable good humor at once +irritating and disarming. Whatever his faults, they were more +negative than positive; there was no malice prepense about him, no +absolute personal wickedness. And he had the strange charm of manner +and speech which keeps up one's outer surface of habitual affection +toward a person long after all its foundations of trust and respect +have hopelessly crumbled away. + +"Come now, my pretty aunt must go with me. She will manage the old +ogre much better than I. And he must be managed somehow. It's all +very fine talking of independence, but isn't it hard that a poor +fellow should be living in constant dread of being carried off to +that horrid, uncleanly, beastly den--bah! I don't like thinking of +it--and all for the want of twenty pounds? You must go to him, Aunt +Hilary." + +She saw they must--there was no help for it. Even Johanna said so. It +was after all only asking for Ascott's quarterly allowance three days +in advance, for it was due on Tuesday. But what jarred against her +proud, honest spirit was the implication that such a request gave of +taking as a right that which had been so long bestowed as a favor. +Nothing but the great strait they were in could ever have driven her +to consent that Mr. Ascott should be applied to at all; but since it +must be done, she felt that she had better do it herself. Was it from +some lurking doubt or dread that Ascott might not speak the entire +truth, as she had insisted upon its being spoken, before Mr. Ascott +was asked for any thing? since whatever he gave must be given with a +full knowledge on his part of the whole pitiable state of affairs. + +It was with a strange, sad feeling--the sadder because he never +seemed to suspect it, but talked and laughed with her as usual--that +she took her nephew's arm and walked silently through the dark +squares, perfectly well aware that he only asked her to go with him +in order to do an unpleasant thing which he did not like to do +himself, and that she only went with him in the character of watch, +or supervisor, to try and save him from doing something which she +herself would be ashamed should be done. + +Yet he was ostensibly the head, hope, and stay of the family. Alas! +many a family has to submit to, and smile under an equally melancholy +and fatal sham. + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +Mr. Ascott was sitting half asleep in his solitary dining room, his +face rosy with wine, his heart warmed also, probably from the same +cause. Not that he was in the least "tipsy"--that low-word +applicable only to low people, and not men of property, who have a +right to enjoy all the good things of this life. He was scarcely even +"merry," merely "comfortable," in that cozy, benevolent state which +middle aged or elderly gentlemen are apt to fall into after a good +dinner and good wine, when they have no mental resources, and the +said good dinner and good wine constitutes their best notion of +felicity. + +Yet wealth and comfort are not things to be despised. Hilary herself +was not insensible to the pleasantness of this warm, well-lit, +crimson-atmosphered apartment. She as well as her neighbors liked +pretty things about her, soft, harmonious colors to look at and wear, +well-cooked food to eat, cheerful rooms to live in. If she could have +had all these luxuries with those she loved to share them, no doubt +she would have been much happier. But yet she felt to the full that +solemn truth that "a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of +things that he possesses;" and though hers was outwardly so dark, so +full of poverty, anxiety, and pain, still she knew that inwardly it +owned many things, one thing especially, which no money could buy, +and without which fine houses, fine furniture, and fine +clothes--indeed, all the comforts and splendors of existence, would +be worse that valueless, actual torment. So as she looked around her +she felt not the slightest envy of her sister Selina. + +Nor of honest Peter, who rose up from his arm-chair, pulling the +yellow silk handkerchief from his sleepy face, and, it must be +confessed, receiving his future connections very willingly, and even +kindly. + +Now how was he to be told? How when she and Ascott sat over the wine +and desert he had ordered for them, listening to the rich man's +complaisant pomposities, were they to explain that they had come a +begging, asking him, as the climax to his liberalities, to advance a +few pounds in order to keep the young man whom he had for years +generously and sufficiently maintained out of prison? This, smooth it +over as one might, was, Hilary felt, the plain English of the matter, +and as minute after minute lengthened, and nothing was said of their +errand, she sat upon thorns. + +But Ascott drank his wine and ate his walnuts quite composedly. + +At last Hilary said, in a sort of desperation, "Mr. Ascott, I want to +speak to you." + +"With pleasure, my dear young lady. Will you come to my study?--I +have a most elegantly furnished study, I assure you. And any affair +of yours--" + +"Thank you, but it is not mine; it concerns my nephew here." + +And then she braced up all her courage, and while Ascott busied +himself over his walnuts--he had the grace to look excessively +uncomfortable--she told, as briefly as possible, the bitter truth. + +Mr. Ascott listened, apparently without surprise, and any how, +without comment. His self-important loquacity ceased, and his +condescending smile passed into a sharp, reticent, business look. He +knitted his shaggy brows, contracted that coarsely-hung, but resolute +mouth, in which lay the secret of his success in life, buttoned up +his coat, and stuck his hands behind him over his coat-tails. As he +stood there on his own hearth, with all his comfortable splendors +about him--a man who had made his own money, hardly and honestly, who +from the days when he was a poor errand-lad had had no one to trust +to but himself, yet had managed always to help himself, ay, and +others too--Hilary's stern sense of justice contrasted him with the +graceful young man who sat opposite to him, so much his inferior, and +so much his debtor. She owned that Peter Ascott had a right to look +both contemptuously and displeased. + +"A very pretty story, but I almost expected it," said he. + +And there he stopped. In his business capacity he was too acute a man +to be a man of many words, and his feelings, if they existed, were +kept to himself. + +"It all comes to this, young man," he continued, after an +uncomfortable pause, in which Hilary could have counted every beat of +her heart, and even Ascott played with his wine glass in a nervous +kind of way--"you want money, and you think I'm sure to give it, +because it wouldn't be pleasant just now to have discreditable +stories going about concerning the future Mrs. Ascott's relatives. +You're quite right, it wouldn't. But I'm too old a bird to be caught +with chaff for all that. You must rise very early in the morning to +take me in." + +Hilary started up in an agony of shame. "That's not fair, Mr. Ascott. +We do not take you in. Have we not told you the whole truth? I was +determined you should know it before we asked you for one farthing of +your money. If there were the smallest shadow of a chance for Ascott +in any other way, we never would have come to you at all. It is a +horrible, horrible humiliation!" + +It might be that Peter Ascott had a soft place in his heart, or that +this time, just before his marriage, was the one crisis which +sometimes occurs in a hard man's life, when, if the right touch +comes, he becomes malleable ever after; but he looked kindly at the +poor girl, and said, in quite a gentle way, "Don't vex yourself, my +dear. I shall give the young fellow what he wants: nobody ever called +Peter Ascott stingy. But he has cost me enough already: he must shift +for himself now. Hand me over that check-book, Ascott; but remember +this is the last you'll ever see of my money." + +He wrote the memorandum of the check inside the page, then tore off +the check itself, and proceeded to write the words "Twenty pounds," +date it, and sign it, lingering over the signature, as if he had a +certain pride in the honest name "Peter Ascott," and was well aware +of its monetary value on Change and elsewhere. + +"There, Miss Halary, I flatter myself that's not a bad signature, nor +would be easily forged. One can not be too careful over-- What's +that? a letter, John?" + +By his extreme eagerness, almost snatching it from his footman's +hands, it was one of importance. He made some sort of rough apology, +drew the writing materials to him, wrote one or two business-looking +letters, and made out one or two more checks. + +"Here's yours Ascott; take it, and let me have done with it," said +he, throwing it across the table folded up. "Can't waste time on such +small transactions. Ma'am, excuse me, but five thousand pounds +depends on my getting these letters written and sent off within a +quarter of an hour." + +Hilary bent her head, and sat watching the pen scratch, and the clock +tick on the mantle-piece; thinking if this really was to be the last +of his godfather's allowance, what on earth would become of Ascott? +For Ascott himself, he said not a word. Not even when, the letters +dispatched, Mr. Ascott rose, and administering a short, sharp homily, +tacitly dismissed his visitors: Whether this silence was sullenness, +cowardice, or shame, Hilary could not guess. + +She quitted the house with a sense of grinding humiliation almost +intolerable. But still the worst was over; the money had been begged +and given--there was no fear of a prison. And spite of every thing, +Hilary felt a certain relief that this was the last time Ascott would +be indebted to his godfather. Perhaps this total cessation of +extraneous help might force the young man upon his own resources, +compel his easy temperament into active energy, and bring out in him +those dormant qualities that his aunts still fondly hoped existed in +him. + +"Don't be down-hearted, Ascott," she said: "we will manage to get on +somehow till you bear of a practice, and then you must work--work +like a 'brick,' as you call it. You will, I know." + +He answered nothing. + +"I won't let you give in, my boy," she went on, kindly. "Who would +ever dream of giving in at your age, with health and strength, a good +education, and no encumbrances whatever--not even aunts! for we will +not stand in your way, be sure of that. If you can not settle here, +you shall try to get out abroad, as you have sometimes wished, as an +army surgeon or a ship's doctor; you say these appointments are easy +enough to be had. Why not try? Any thing; we will consent to any +thing, if only we can see your life busy and useful and happy." + +Thus she talked, feeling far more tenderly to him in his forlorn +despondency than when they had quitted the house two hours before. +But Ascott took not the slightest notice. A strange fit of sullenness +or depression seemed to have come over him, which, when they reached +home and met Aunt Johanna's silently-questioning face, changed into +devil-may-care indifference. + +"Oh yes, aunt, we've done it; we've got the money, and now I may go +to the dogs as soon as I like." + +"No," said Aunt Hilary, "it is nothing of the sort: it is only that +Ascott must now depend upon himself, and not upon his godfather. Take +courage," she added, and went up to him and kissed him on the +forehead; "we'll never let our boy go to the dogs! and as for this +disappointment, or any disappointment, why it's just like a cold +bath, it takes away your breath for the time, and then you rise up +out of it brisker and fresher than ever." + +But Ascott shook his head with a fierce denial. "Why should that old +fellow be as rich as Croesus and I as poor as a rat? Why should I be +put into the world to enjoy myself, and can't? Why was I made like +what I am, and then punished for it? Whose fault is it?" + +Ay, whose? The eternal, unsolvable problem rose up before Hilary's +imagination. The ghastly spectre of that everlasting doubt, which +haunts even the firmest faith sometimes--and which all the nonsense +written about that mystery which, + + "Binding nature fate to fate, + Leaves free the human will," + +only makes darker than before--oppressed her for the time being with +an inexpressible dread. + +Ay, why was it that the boy was what he was? From his inherited +nature, his temperament, or his circumstances? What, or more awful +question still, who was to blame? + +But as Hilary's thoughts went deeper down the question answered +itself--at least as far as it ever can be answered in this narrow, +finite stage of being. Whose will--we dare not say whose blame--is it +that evil must inevitably generate evil? that the smallest +wrong-doing in any human being rouses a chain of results which may +fatally involve other human beings in an almost incalculable circle +of misery? The wages of sin is death. Were it not so sin would cease +to be sin, and holiness, holiness. If He, the All-holy, who for some +inscrutable purpose saw fit to allow the existence of evil, allowed +any other law than this, in either the spiritual or material world, +would He not be denying Himself, counteracting the necessities of His +own righteous essence, to which evil is so antagonistic, that we can +not doubt it must be in the end cast into total annihilation--into +the allegorical lake of fire and brimstone, which is the "second +death?" Nay, do they not in reality deny Him and His holiness almost +as much as Atheists do, who preach that the one great salvation which +He has sent into the world is a salvation from punishment--a keeping +out of hell and getting into heaven--instead of a salvation from sin, +from the power and love of sin, through the love of God in Christ? + +I tell these thoughts, because like lighting they passed through +Hilary's mind, as sometimes a whole chain of thoughts do, link after +link, and because they helped her to answer her nephew quietly and +briefly, for she saw he was in no state of mind to be argued with. + +"I can not explain, Ascott, why it is that any of us are what we are, +and why things happen to us as they do; it is a question we none of +us understand, and in this world never shall. But if we know what we +ought to be, and how we may make the best of every thing, good or +bad, that happens to us, surely that is enough without perplexing +ourselves about any thing more." + +Ascott smiled, half contemptuously, half carelessly: he was not a +young fellow likely to perplex himself long or deeply about these +sort of things. + +"Any how, I've got £20 in my pocket, so I can't starve for a day or +two. Let's see; where is it to be cashed? Hillo! who would have +thought the old fellow would have been so stupid? Look there, Aunt +Hilary!" + +She was so unfamiliar with checks for £20, poor little woman! that +she did not at first recognize the omission of the figures "£20" at +the left-hand corner. Otherwise the check was correct. + +"Ho, ho!" laughed Ascott, exceedingly amused, so easily was the +current of his mind changed. "It must have been the £5000 pending +that muddled the 'cute old fellow's brains. I wonder whether he will +remember it afterward, and come posting up to see that I've taken no +ill-advantage of his blunder; changed this 'Twenty' into 'Seventy.' I +easily could, and put the figures £70 here. What a good joke!" + +"Had ye not better go to him at once, and have the matter put right?" + +"Rubbish! I can put it right myself. It makes no difference who fills +up a check, so that it is signed all correct. A deal you women know +of business!" + +But still Hilary, with a certain womanish uneasiness about money +matters, and an anxiety to have the thing settled beyond doubt, urged +him to go. + +"Very well; just as you like. I do believe you are afraid of my +turning forger." + +He buttoned his coat with a half sulky, half defiant air, left his +supper untasted, and disappeared. + +It was midnight before he returned. His aunts were still sitting up, +imagining all sorts of horrors, in an anxiety too great for words; +but when Hilary ran to the door, with the natural "Oh, Ascott, where +have you been?" he pushed her aside with a gesture that was almost +fierce in its repulsion. + +"Where have I been? taking a walk round the Park; that's all. Can't I +come and go as I like, without being pestered by women? I'm horribly +tired. Let me alone--do!" + +They did let him alone. Deeply wounded, Aunt Johanna took no further +notice of him than to set his chair a little closer to the fire, and +Aunt Hilary slipped down stairs for more coals. There she found +Elizabeth, who they thought had long since gone to bed, sitting on +the stairs, very sleepy, but watching still. + +"Is he come in?" she asked; "because there are more bailiffs after +him. I'm sure of it; I saw them." + +This, then, might account for his keeping out of the way till after +twelve o'clock, and also for his wild, haggard look. Hilary put aside +her vague dread of some new misfortune; assured Elizabeth that all +was right; he had got wherewithal to pay every body on Monday +morning, and would be safe till then. All debtors were safe on +Sunday. + +"Go to bed now--there's a good girl; it is hard that you should be +troubled with our troubles." + +Elizabeth looked up with those fond gray eyes of hers. She was but a +servant, and yet looks like these engraved themselves ineffaceably on +her mistress's heart, imparting the comfort that all pure love gives +from any one human being to another. + +And love has its wonderful rights and rewards. Perhaps Elizabeth, who +thought herself nothing at all to her mistress, would have marveled +to know how much closer her mistress felt to this poor, honest, +loving girl, whose truth she believed in, and on whose faithfulness +she implicitly depended, than toward her own flesh and blood, who sat +there moodily over the hearth; deeply pitied, sedulously cared for, +but as for being confided in relied on, in great matters or small, +his own concerns or theirs--the thing was impossible. + +They could not even ask him--they dared not, in such a strange mood +was he--the simple question, Had he seen Mr. Ascott, and had Mr. +Ascott been annoyed about the check? It would not have been referred +to at all had not Hilary, in holding his coat to dry, taken his +pocket book out of the breast pocket, when he snatched at it angrily. + +"What are you meddling with my things for? Do you want to get at the +check, and be peering at it to see if it's all right? But you can't; +I've paid it away. Perhaps you'd like to know who to? Then you +shan't. I'll not be accountable to you for all my proceedings. I'll +not be treated like a baby. You'd better mind what you are about, +Aunt Hilary." + +Never, in all his childish naughtiness, or boyish impertinence, had +Ascott spoken to her in such a tone. She regarded him at first with +simple astonishment, then hot indignation, which spurred her on to +stand up for her dignity, and not submit to be insulted by her own +nephew. But then came back upon her her own doctrine, taught by her +own experience, that character and conduct alone constitutes real +dignity or authority. She had, in point of fact, no authority over +him; no one can have, not even parents, over a young man of his age, +except that personal influence which is the strongest sway of all. + +She said only, with a quietness that surprised herself--"You mistake, +Ascott; I have no wish to interfere with you whatever; you are your +own master, and must take your own course. I only expect from you the +ordinary respect that a gentleman shows to a lady. You must be very +tired and ill, or you would not have forgotten that." + +"I didn't; or, if I did, I beg your pardon," said he, half subdued. +"When are you going to bed?" + +"Directly. Shall I light your candle also?" + +"Oh no; not for the world; I couldn't sleep a wink. I'd go mad if I +went to bed. I think I'll turn out and have a cigar." + +His whole manner was so strange that his Aunt Johanna, who had sat +aloof, terribly grieved, but afraid to interfere, was moved to rise +up and go over to him. + +"Ascott, my dear, you are looking quite ill. Be advised by your old +auntie. Go to bed at once, and forget every thing till morning." + +"I wish I could; I wish I could. Oh, Auntie, Auntie!" + +He caught hold of her hand, which she had laid upon his head, looked +up a minute into her kind, fond face, and burst into a flood of +boyish tears. + +Evidently his troubles had been too much for him; he was in a state +of great excitement. For some minutes his sobs were almost +hysterical: then by a struggle he recovered him-self, seemed +exceedingly annoyed and ashamed, took up his candle, bade them a +hurried goodnight, and went to bed. + +That is, he went to his room; but they heard him moving about +overhead for a long while after: nor were they surprised that he +refused to rise next morning, but lay most of the time with his door +locked, until late in the afternoon, when he went out for a long +walk, and did not return till supper, which he ate almost in silence. +Then, after going up to his room, and coming down again, complaining +bitterly how very cold it was, he crept in to the fireside with a +book in his hand, of which Hilary noticed he scarcely read a line. + +His aunts said nothing to him; they had determined not: they felt +that further interference would be not only useless but dangerous. + +"He will come to himself by-and by; his moods, good or bad, never +last long, you know," said Hilary, somewhat bitterly. "But, in the +mean time, I think we had better just do as he says--let him alone." + +And in that sad, hopeless state they passed the last hours of that +dreary Sunday--afraid either to comfort him or reason with him; +afraid, above all, to blame him lest it might drive him altogether +astray. That he was in a state of great misery, halt sullen, half +defiant, they saw, and were scarcely surprised at it; it was very +hard not to be able to open their loving hearts to him, as those of +one family should always do, making every trouble a common care, and +every joy a universal blessing. But in his present state of mind--the +sudden obstinacy of a weak nature conscious of its weakness, and +dreading control--it seemed impossible either to break upon his +silence or to force his confidence. + +They might have been right in this, or wrong; afterward Hilary +thought the latter. Many a time she wished and wished, with a bitter +regret, that instead of the quiet "Good night, Ascott!" and the one +rather cold kiss on his forehead, she had flung her arms round his +neck, and insisted on his telling out his whole mind to her, his +nearest kinswoman, who had been half aunt and half sister to him all +his life. But it was not done: she parted from him, as she did Sunday +after Sunday, with a sore sick feeling of how much he might be to +her, to them all, and how little he really was. + +If this silence of hers was a mistake--one of those mistakes which +sensitive people sometimes make--it was, like all similar errors, +only too sorrowfully remembered and atoned for. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +The week passed by, and Hilary received no ill tidings from home. +Incessant occupation kept her from dwelling too much on anxious +subjects: besides, she would not have thought it exactly right, while +her time and her mental powers were for so many hours per diem +legally Miss Balquidder's, to waste the one and weaken the other by +what is commonly called "fretting." Nor, carrying this conscientious +duty to a higher degree, and toward a higher Master, would she have +dared to sit grieving overmuch over their dark future. And yet it was +very dark. She pondered over what was to be done with Ascott, or +whether he was still to be left to the hopeless hope of doing +something for himself: how long the little establishment at No. 15 +could be kept together, or if, after Selina's marriage, it would not +be advisable to make some change that should contract expenses, and +prevent this hard separation, from Monday to Saturday, between +Johanna and herself. + +These, with equally anxious thoughts, attacked her in crowds every +day and every hour; but she had generally sufficient will to put them +aside: at least till after work was done, and they could neither +stupefy nor paralyze her. Trouble had to her been long enough +familiar to have taught her its own best lesson--that the mind can, +in degree, rule itself, even as it rules the body. + +Thus, in her business duties, which were principally keeping +accounts; in her management of the two young people under her, and of +the small domestic establishment connected with the shop, Hilary went +steadily on, day after day; made no blunders in her arithmetic, no +mistakes in her housekeeping. Being new to all her responsibilities, +she had to give her whole mind to them; and she did it: and it was a +blessing to her--the sanctified blessing which rests upon labor, +almost seeming to neutralize its primeval curse. + +But night after night, when work was over, she sat alone at her +sewing--the only time she had for it--and her thoughts went faster +than her needle. She turned over plan after plan, and went back upon +hope after hope, that had risen and broken like waves of the +sea--nothing happening that she had expected; the only thing which +had happened, or which seemed to have any permanence or reality, +being two things which she had never expected at all--Selina's +marriage, and her own engagement with Miss Balquidder. It often +happens so, in most people's lives, until at last they learn to live +on from day to day, doing each day's duty within the day, and +believing that it is a righteous as well as a tender hand which keeps +the next day's page safely folded down. + +So Hilary sat, glad to have a quiet hour, not to grieve in, but to +lay out the details of a plan which had been maturing in her mind all +week, and which she meant definitely to propose to Johanna when she +went home next day. It would cost her something to do so, and she had +had some hesitations as to the scheme itself, until at last she threw +them all to the winds, as an honest-hearted, faithful and +faithfully-trusting woman would. Her plan was, that they should write +to the only real friend the family had--the only good man she +believed in--stating plainly their troubles and difficulties about +their nephew; asking his advice, & possibly his help. He might know +of something--some opening for a young surgeon in India, or some +temporary appointment for the voyage out and home, which might catch +Ascott's erratic and easily attracted fancy: give him occupation for +the time being, and at least detach him from his present life, with +all its temptations and dangers. + +Also, it might result in bringing the boy again under that influence +which had been so beneficial to him while it lasted, and which Hilary +devoutly believed was the best influence in the world. Was it +unnatural, if, mingled with an earnest desire for Ascott's good, was +an under-lying delight that that good should be done to him by Robert +Lyon? + +So when her plan was made, even to the very words in which she meant +to unfold it to Johanna, and the very form in which Johanna should +write the letter, she allowed herself a few brief minutes to think of +him--Robert Lyon--to call up his eyes, his voice, his smile; to +count, for the hundreth time, how many months--one less than +twenty-four, so she could not say years now--it would be before he +returned to England. Also, to speculate when and where they would +first meet, and how he would speak the one word--all that was needful +to change "liking" into "love," and "friend" into "wife." + +They had so grown together during so many years not the less so +during these years of absence, that it seemed as if such a change +would hardly make any difference. And yet--and yet--as she sat and +sewed, wearied with her day's labors, sad and perplexed, she +thought--if only, by some strange magic, Robert Lyon were standing +opposite, holding open his arms, ready and glad to take her and all +her cares to his heart, how she would cling there! how closely she +would creep to him, weeping with joy and content, neither afraid nor +ashamed to let him see how dearly she loved him! + +Only a dream! ah, only a dream! and she started from it at the sharp +sound of the doorbell--started, blushing and trembling, as if it had +been Robert Lyon himself, when she knew it was only her two young +assistants whom she had allowed to go out to tea in the neighborhood. +So she settled herself to her work again; put all her own thoughts by +in their little private corners, and waited for the entrance and the +harmless gossip of these two orphan girls, who were already beginning +to love her, and make a friend of her, and toward whom she felt +herself quite an elderly and responsible person. Poor little Hilary! +It seemed to be her lot always to take care of somebody or other. +Would it ever be that any body should take care of her? + +So she cleared away some of her needlework, stirred the fire, which +was dropping hollow and dull, and looked up pleasantly to the opening +door. But it was not the girls: it was a man's foot and a man's +voice. + +"Any person of the name of Leaf living here? I wish to see her, on +business." + +At another time she would have laughed at the manner and words, as if +it were impossible so great a gentleman as Mr. Ascott could want to +see so small a person as the "person of the name of Leaf," except on +business. But now she was startled by his appearance at all. She +sprang up only able to articulate "My sister--" + +"Don't be frightened; your sisters are quite well. I called at No. 15 +an hour ago." + +"You saw them?" + +"No; I thought it unadvisable, under the circumstances." + +"What circumstances?" + +"I will explain, if you will allow me to sit down; bah! I've brought +in sticking to me a straw out of that confounded shaky old cab. One +ought never to be so stupid as to go any where except in one's own +carriage. This is rather a small room, Miss Hilary." + +He eyed it curiously round; and, lastly, with his most acute look he +eyed herself, as if he wished to find out something from her manner, +before going into further explanations. + +But she stood before him a little uneasy, and yet not very much so. +The utmost she expected was some quarrel with her sister Selina; +perhaps the breaking off of the match, which would not have broken +Hilary's heart at all events. + +"So you have really no idea what I'm come about!" + +"Not the slightest." + +"Well!" said Peter Ascott. "I hardly thought it; but when one has +been taken in as I have been, and this isn't the first time by your +family--" + +"Mr. Ascott! will you explain yourself?" + +"I will, ma'am. It's a very unpleasant business I come about; any +other gentleman but me would have come with a police officer at his +back. Look here, Miss Hilary Leaf--did you ever set eyes on this +before?" + +He took out his check book, turned deliberately over the small +memorandum halves of the page, till he came to one in particular, +then hunted in his pocket book for something. + +"My banker sent in to-day my canceled checks, which I don't usually +go over oftener than three months; he knew that, the scamp." + +Hilary looked up. + +"Your nephew, to be sure. See!" + +He spread before her a check, the very one she had watched him write +seven days before, made payable to "Ascott Leaf, or bearer," and +signed with the bold, peculiar signature. "Peter Ascott." Only +instead of being a check for twenty pounds it was for seventy. + +Instantly the whole truth flashed upon Hilary: Ascott's remark about +how easily the T could be made into an S, and what a "good joke" it +would be; his long absence that night; his strange manner: his +refusal to let her see the check again; all was clear as daylight. + +Unfortunate boy! the temptation had been too strong for him. Under +what sudden, insane impulse he had acted--under what delusion of +being able to repay in time; or of Mr. Ascott's not detecting the +fraud; or if discovered, of its being discovered after the marriage, +when to prosecute his wife's nephew would be a disgrace to himself, +could never be known. But there unmistakable was the altered check, +which had been presented and paid, the banker of course not having +the slightest suspicion of any thing amiss. + +"Well, isn't this a nice return for all my kindness? So cleverly +done, too. But for the merest chance I might not have found it out +for three months. Oh, he's a precious young rascal, this nephew of +yours. His father was only a fool, but he-- Do you know that this is +a matter of forgery--forgery, ma'am," added Mr. Ascott, waxing hot in +his indignation. + +Hilary uttered a bitter groan. + +Yes, it was quite true. Their Ascott, their own boy, was no longer +merely idle, extravagant, thoughtless--faults bad enough, but capable +of being mended as he grew older: he had done that which to the end +of his days he could never blot out. He was a swindler and a forger. + +She clasped her hands tightly together, as one struggling with sharp +physical pain, trying to read the expression of Mr. Ascott's face. At +last she put her question into words. + +"What do you mean to do? Shall you prosecute him?" + +Mr. Ascott crossed his legs, and settled his neckcloth with a +self-satisfied air. He evidently rather enjoyed the importance of his +position. To be dictator, almost of life and death, to this +unfortunate family was worth certainly fifty pounds. + +"Well, I haven't exactly determined. The money, you see, is of no +moment to me, and I couldn't get it back any how. He'll never be +worth a half-penny, that rascal. I might prosecute, and nobody would +blame me; indeed, if I were to decline marrying your sister, and cut +the whole set of you, I don't see," and he drew himself up, "that any +thing could be said against me. But--" + +Perhaps, hard man as he was, he was touched by the agony of suspense +in Hilary's face, for he added. + +"Come, come, I won't disgrace your family; I won't do any thing to +harm the fellow." + +"Thank you!" said Hilary, in a mechanical, unnatural voice. + +"As for my money, he's welcome to it, and much good may it do him. +'Set a beggar on horseback, and he'll ride to the devil,' and in +double quick time too. I won't hinder him. I wash my hands of the +young scape-grace. But he'd better not come near me again." + +"No," acquiesced Hilary, absently. + +"In fact," said Mr. Ascott, with a twinkle of his sharp eye, "I have +already taken measures to frighten him away, so that he may make +himself scarce, and give neither you nor me any farther trouble. I +drove up to your door with a policeman, asked to see Mr. Leaf, and +when I heard that he was out--a lie, of course I left word I'd be +back in half an hour. Depend upon it," and he winked confidentially, +"he will smell a rat, and make a moonlight flitting of it, and we +shall never hear of him any more." + +"Never hear of Ascott any more?" repeated Hilary; and for an instant +she ceased to think of him as what he was--swindler, forger, +ungrateful to his benefactors, a disgrace to his home and family. She +saw only the boy Ascott, with his bright looks and pleasant ways, +whom his aunts had brought up from his cradle, and loved with all his +faults--perhaps loved still. "Oh, I must go home. This will break +Johanna's heart!" + +Mr. Peter Ascott possibly never had a heart, or it had been so +stunted in its growth that it had never reached its fair development. +Yet he felt sorry in his way for the "young person," who looked so +deadly white, yet tried so hard not to make a scene, nay, when her +two assistants came into the one little parlor, deported herself with +steady composure; told them that she was obliged suddenly to go home, +but would be back, if possible, the next morning. Then, in that +orderly, accurate way which Peter Ascott could both understand and +appreciate, she proceeded to arrange with them about the shop and the +house in case she might be detained till Monday. + +"You're not a bad woman of business," said he, with a patronizing +air. "This seems a tidy little shop; I dare say you'll get on in it." + +She looked at him with a bewildered air, and went on speaking to the +young woman at the door. + +"How much might your weekly receipts be in a place like this? And +what salary does Miss--Miss What's-her-name give to each of you? +You're the head shop-woman, I suppose?" + +Hilary made no answer: she scarcely heard. All her mind was full of +but one thing: "Never see Ascott any more!" + +There came back upon her all the dreadful stories she had ever heard +of lads who had committed forgery or some similar offense, and, in +dread of punishment, had run away in despair, and never been heard of +for years--come to every kind of misery, perhaps even destroyed +themselves. The impression was so horribly vivid, that when, pausing +an instant in putting her books in their places, she heard the door +bell ring Hilary with difficulty repressed a scream. + +But it was no messenger of dreadful tidings, it was only Elizabeth +Hand; and the quiet fashion in which she entered showed Hilary at +once that nothing dreadful had happened at home. + +"Oh no, nothing has happened," confirmed the girl. "Only Miss Leaf +sent me to see if you could come home to night instead of tomorrow. +She is quite well, that is, pretty well; but Mr. Leaf--" + +Here, catching sight of Miss Hilary's visitor, Elizabeth stopped +short. Peter Ascott was one of her prejudices. She determined in his +presence to let out no more of the family affairs. + +On his part, Mr. Ascott had always treated Elizabeth as people like +him usually do treat servants, afraid to lose an inch of their +dignity, lest it should be an acknowledgment of equal birth and +breeding with the class from which they are so terribly ashamed to +have sprung. He regarded her now with a lordly air. + +"Young woman--I believe you are the young woman who this afternoon +told me that Mr. Leaf was out. It was a fib, of course." + +Elizabeth turned round indignantly. "No, Sir; I don't tell fibs. He +was out." + +"Did you give him my message when he came in?" + +"Yes, Sir." + +"And what did he say, oh?" + +"Nothing." + +This was the literal fact; but there was something behind which +Elizabeth had not the slightest intention of communicating. In fact, +she set herself, physically and mentally, in an attitude of dogged +resistance to any pumping of Mr. Ascott: for though, as she had truly +said, nothing special had happened, she felt sure that he was at the +bottom of something which had gone wrong in the household that +afternoon. + +It was this. When Ascott returned, and she told him of his +godfather's visit, the young man had suddenly turned so ghastly pale +that she had to fetch him a glass of water; and his Aunt +Johanna--Miss Selina was out--had to tend him and soothe him for +several minutes before he was right again. When at last he seemed +returning to his natural self, he looked wildly up at his aunt, and +clung to her in such an outburst of feeling, that Elizabeth had +thought it best to slip out of the room. It was tea time, but still +she waited outside for a half hour or longer, when she gently +knocked, and after a minute or two Miss Leaf came out. There seemed +nothing wrong, at least not much--not more than Elizabeth had noticed +many and many a time after talks between Ascott and his aunts. + +"I'll take the tea in myself," she said; "for I want you to start at +once for Kensington to fetch Miss Hilary. Don't frighten her--mind +that Elizabeth. Say I am much as usual myself; but that Mr. Leaf is +not quite well, and I think she might do him good. Remember the exact +words." + +Elizabeth did, and would have delivered them accurately, it Mr. +Ascott had not been present, and addressed her in that authoritative +manner. Now, she resolutely held her tongue. + +Mr. Ascott might in his time have been accustomed to cringing, +frightened, or impertinent servants, but this was a phase of the +species with which he was totally unfamiliar. The girl was neither +sullen nor rude, yet evidently quite independent; afraid neither of +her mistress, nor of himself. He was sharp enough to see that +whatever he wanted to get out of Elizabeth must be got in another +way. + +"Come, my wench, you'd better tell; it'll be none the worse for you, +and it shan't harm the young fellow, though I dare say he has paid +you well for holding your tongue." + +"About what, sir?" + +"Oh! you know what happened when you told him I had called, eh? +Servants get to know all about their master's affairs." + +"Mr. Leaf isn't my master, and his affairs are nothing to me; I don't +pry into 'em," replied Elizabeth. "If you want to know any thing, +Sir, hadn't you better ask himself! He's at home to-night. I left +him and my missus going to their tea." + +"Left them at home, and at tea?" + +"Yes, Miss Hilary." + +It was an inexpressible relief. For the discovery must have come. +Ascott must have known or guessed that Mr. Ascott had found him out; +he must have confessed all to his Aunt, or Johanna would never have +done two things which her sister knew she strongly disliked--sending +Elizabeth wandering through London at night, and fetching Hilary home +before the time. Yet they had been left sitting quietly at their tea! + +Perhaps, after all, the blow had not been so dreadful. Johanna saw +comfort through it all. Vague hopes arose in Hilary also; visions of +the poor sinner sitting "clothed and in his right mind," contrite and +humbled; comforted by them all, with the inexpressible tenderness +with which we yearn over one who "was dead and is alive again, was +lost, and is found;" helped by them all in the way that women--some +women especially, and these were of them--seem formed to help the +erring and unfortunate; for, erring as he was, he had also been +unfortunate. + +Many an excuse for him suggested itself. How foolish of them, +ignorant women that they were, to suppose that seventeen years of the +most careful bringing up could, with his temperament, stand against +the countless dangers of London life; of any life where a young man +is left to himself in a great town, with his temptations so many, and +his power of resistance so small. + +And this might not, could not be a deliberate act. It must have been +committed under a sudden impulse, to be repented of for the rest of +his days. Nay, in the strange way in which our sins and mistakes are +made not only the whips to scourge us, but the sicknesses out of +which we often come--suffering and weak indeed, but yet relieved, and +fresh, and sound--who could tell but that this grave fault, this +actual guilt, the climax of so many lesser errors, might not work out +in the end Ascott's complete reformation? + +So in the strange way in which, after a great shock, we begin to +revive a little, to hope against hope, to see a slender ray breaking +through the darkness, Hilary composed herself, at least so far as to +enable her to bid Elizabeth go down stairs, and she would be ready +directly. + +"I think it is the best thing I can do--to go home at once," said +she. + +"Certainly, my dear." replied Mr. Ascott, rather flattered by her +involuntary appeal, and by an inward consciousness of his own +exceeding generosity. "And pray don't disturb yourselves. Tell your +sister from me--your sister Selina, I mean--that I overlook every +thing, on condition that you keep him out of my sight, that young +blackguard!" + +"Don't, don't!" cried Hilary, piteously. + +"Well, I won't, though it's his right name--a fellow who could-- Look +you, Miss Hilary, when his father sent to me to beg ten pounds to +bury his mother with. I did bury her, and him also, a month after, +very respectably too, though he had no claim upon me, except that he +came from Stowbury. And I stood godfather to the child, and I've done +my duty by him. But mark my words, what's bred in the bone will come +in the flesh. He was born in a prison, and he'll die in a prison." + +"God forbid!" said Hilary, solemnly. And again she felt the strong +conviction, that whatever his father had been, or his mother, of whom +they had heard nothing till she was dead, Ascott could not have lived +all these years of his childhood and early boyhood with his three +aunts at Stowbury without gaining at least some good, which might +counteract the hereditary evil; as such evil can be counteracted, +even as hereditary disease can be gradually removed by wholesome and +careful rearing in a new generation. + +"Well, I'll not say any more," continued Peter Ascott: "only the +sooner the young fellow takes himself off the better. He'll only +plague you all. Now, can you send out for a cab for me?" + +Hilary mechanically rang the bell, and gave the order. + +"I'll take you to town with me if you like. It'll save you the +expense of the omnibus. I suppose you always travel by omnibus?" + +Hilary answered something, she hardly knew what, except that it was a +declining of all these benevolent attentions. At last she got Mr. +Ascott outside the street door, and returning, put her hand to her +head with a moan. + +"Oh, Miss Hilary, don't look like that." + +"Elizabeth, do you know what has happened?" + +"No." + +"Then I don't want you to know. And you must never try to find it +out; for it is a secret that ought to be kept strictly within the +family. Are you to be trusted?" + +"Yes, Miss Hilary." + +"Now, get me my bonnet, and let us make haste and go home." + +They walked down the gas-lit Kensington High Street, Hilary taking +her servant's arm; for she felt strangely weak. As she sat in the +dark corner of the omnibus she tried to look things in the face, and +form some definite plan; but the noisy rumble at once dulled and +confused her faculties. She felt capable of no consecutive thought, +but found herself stupidly watching the two lines of faces, +wondering, absently, what sort of people they were; what were their +lives and histories; and whether they all had, like herself, their +own personal burden of woe. Which was, alas! the one fact that never +need be doubted in this world. + +It was nigh upon eleven o'clock when Hilary knocked at the door of +No. 15. + +Miss Leaf opened it; but for the first time in her life she had no +welcome for her child. + +"Is it Ascott? I thought it was Ascott," she cried, peering eagerly +up and down the street. + +"He is gone out, then? When did he go?" asked Hilary, feeling her +heart turn stone-cold. + +"Just after Selina came in. She--she vexed him. But he can not be +long? Is not that man he?" + +And just as she was, without shawl or bonnet, Johanna stepped out +into the cold, damp night, and strained her eyes into the darkness; +but in vain. + +"I'll walk round the Crescent once, and may be I shall find him. Only +go in, Johanna." + +And Hilary was away again into the dark, walking rapidly, less with +the hope of finding Ascott than to get time to calm herself, so as to +meet, and help her sisters to meet, this worst depth of their +calamity. For something warned her that this last desperation of a +weak nature is more to be dreaded than any overt obstinacy of a +strong one. She had a conviction that Ascott never would come home. + +After a while they gave up waiting and watching at the front door, +and shut themselves up in the parlor. The first explanation past, +even Selina ceased talking; and they sat together, the three women, +doing nothing, attempting to do nothing, only listening; thinking +every sound was a step on the pavement or a knock at the door. Alas! +what would they not have given for the fiercest knock, the most +impatient, angry footstep, if only it had been their boy's? + +About one o'clock, Selina had to be put to bed in strong hysterics. +She had lashed her nephew with her bitter tongue till he had rushed +out of the house, declaring that none of them should ever see his +face again. Now she reproached herself as being the cause of all, and +fell into an agony of remorse, which engrossed her sisters' whole +care; until her violent emotion having worn itself out, she went to +sleep, the only one who did sleep in that miserable family. + +For Elizabeth also, having been sent to bed hours before, was found +by Miss Hilary sitting on the kitchen stairs, about four in the +morning. Her mistress made no attempt at reproach, but brought her +into the parlor to share the silent watch, never broken except to +make up the fire or light a fresh candle; till candles burned up, and +shutters were opened, and upon their great calamity stared the broad +unwelcome day. + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +"Missing"--"Lost"--"To--"--all the initials of the alphabet--we read +these sort of advertisements in the newspapers; and unless there +happens to be in them something intensely pathetic, comical, or +horrible, we think very little about them. Only those who have +undergone all that such an advertisement implies can understand its +depth of misery: the sudden missing of the person out of the home +circle, whether going away in anger or driven away by terror or +disgrace; the hour after hour and day after day of agonized suspense; +the self-reproach, real or imaginary, lest any thing might have been +said or done that was not said or done--any thing prevented that was +not prevented; the gnawing remorse for some cruel, or careless, or +bitter word, that could so easily have been avoided. + +Alas! if people could only be made to feel that every word, every +action carries with it the weight of an eternity; that the merest +chance may make something said or done quite unpremeditatedly, in +vexation, sullenness, or spite, the last action, the last word; which +may grow into an awful remembrance, rising up between them and the +irredeemable past, and blackening the future for years! + +Selina was quite sure her unhappy nephew had committed suicide, and +that she had been the cause of it. This conviction she impressed +incessantly on her two sisters as they waited upon her, or sat +talking by her bedside during that long Saturday, when there was +nothing else to be done. + +That was the misery of it. There was nothing to be done. They had not +the slightest clew to Ascott's haunts or associates. With the last +fingering of honest shame, or honest respect for his aunts, he had +kept all these things to himself. To search for him in wide London +was altogether impossible. + +Two courses suggested themselves to Hilary--one, to go and consult +Miss Balquidder; the other--which came into her mind from some +similar case she had heard of--to set on foot inquiries at all police +stations. But the first idea was soon rejected: only at the last +extremity could she make patent the family misery--the family +disgrace. To the second, similar and even stronger reasons applied. +There was something about the cool, matter-of-fact, business-like act +of setting a detective officer to hunt out their nephew, from which +these poor women recoiled. Besides, impressed as he was--he had told +his Aunt Johanna so--with the relentlessness of Mr. Ascott, might not +the chance of his discovering that he was hunted drive him to +desperation? + +Hardly to suicide. Hilary steadfastly disbelieved in that. When +Selina painted horrible pictures of his throwing himself off Waterloo +Bridge: or being found hanging to a tree in one of the parks; or +locking himself in a hotel bed chamber and blowing out his brains, +her younger sister only laughed--laughed as much as she could--if +only to keep Johanna quiet. + +Yet she herself had few fears. For she knew that Ascott was, in a +sense, too cowardly to kill himself. He so disliked physical pain, +physical unpleasantness of all kinds. She felt sure he would stop +short, even with the razor or the pistol in his hand, rather than do +a thing so very disagreeable. + +Nevertheless, in spite of herself, while she and her sisters sat +together, hour after hour, in a stillness almost like that when there +is a death in the house, these morbid terrors took a double size. +Hilary ceased to treat them as ridiculous impossibilities, but began +to argue them out rationally. The mere act of doing so made her +recoil; for it seemed an acknowledgment that she was fighting not +with chimeras but realities. + +"It is twenty-four hours since he went," she reasoned. "If he had +done anything desperate he would have done it at once, and we should +have heard of it long before now; ill news always travels fast. +Besides, his name was marked on all his clothes in full. I did it +myself. And his coat pockets were always stuffed with letters; he +used to cram them in as soon as he got them, you know." + +And at this small remembrance of one of his "ways," even though it +was an unkind way, and had caused them many a pain, from the want of +confidence it showed, his poor, fond aunts turned aside to hide their +starting tears. The very phrase "he used to," seemed such an +unconscious admission that his life with them was over and done; that +he never would either please them or vex them any more. + +Yet they took care that during the whole day every thing should be +done as if he were expected minute by minute; that Elizabeth should +lay the fourth knife and fork at dinner, the fourth cup and saucer at +tea. Elizabeth, who throughout had faithfully kept her pledge; who +went about silently and unobservantly, and by every means in her +power put aside the curiosity of Mrs. Jones as to what could be the +reason that her lodgers had sat up all night, and what on earth had +become of young Mr. Leaf. + +After tea, Johanna, quite worn out, consented to go to bed; and then +Hilary, left to her own responsibility, set herself to consider how +long this dreadful quietness was to last, whether nothing could be +done. She could endure whatever was inevitable, but it was against +her nature as well as her conscience to sit down tamely to endure any +thing whatsoever till it did become inevitable. + +In the first place, she determined on that which a certain sense of +honor, as well as the fear of vexing him should he come home, had +hitherto prevented the examining of Ascott's room, drawers, clothes, +and papers. It was a very dreary business--almost like doing the like +to a person who was dead, only without the sad sanctity that belongs +to the dead, whose very errors are forgotten and forgiven, who can +neither suffer nor make others suffer any more. + +Many things she found, and more she guessed at--things which stabbed +her to the heart, things that she never told, not even to Johanna; +but she found no clew whatever to Ascott's whereabouts, intentions, +or connections. One thing, however, struck her--that most of his +clothes, and all his somewhat extensive stock of jewelry were gone; +every thing, in short, that could be convertible into money. It was +evident that his flight, sudden as it was, had been premeditated as +at least a possibility. + +This so far was satisfactory. It took away the one haunting fear of +his committing suicide; and made it likely that he was still +lingering about, hiding from justice and Mr. Ascott, or perhaps +waiting for an opportunity to escape from England--from the fear that +his godfather, even if not prosecuting him, had the power and +doubtless the will completely to crush his future, wherever he was +known. + +Where could he go? His Aunt tried to think over every word he had +ever let fall about America, Australia, or any other place to which +the hopeless outlaws of this country fly; but she could recollect +nothing to enable her to form any conclusion. One thing only she was +sure of--that if once he went away, his own words would come true; +they would never see his face again. The last tie, the last +constraint that bound him to home and a steady, righteous life would +be broken; he would go all adrift, be tossed hither and thither on +every wave of circumstance--what he called circumstance--till Heaven +only knew what a total wreck he might speedily become, or in what +forlorn and far off seas his ruined life might go down. He, Ascott +Leaf, the last of the name and family. + +"It can not be; it shall not be!" cried Hilary. A sharp, bitter cry +of resistance to the death; and her heart seemed to go out to the +wretched boy and her hands to clutch at him, as if he were drowning, +and she were the only one to save him. How could she do it? + +If she could only get at him, by word or letter! But that seemed +impossible, until, turning over scheme after scheme, she suddenly +thought of the one which so many people had tried in similar +circumstances, and which she remembered they had talked over and +laughed over, they and Ascott, one Sunday evening not so very long +ago. This was--a Times advertisement. + +The difficulty how to word it, so as to catch his attention and yet +escape publicity, was very great, especially as his initials were so +common. Hundreds of "A. L.'s" might be wandering away from home, to +whom all that she dared say to call Ascott back would equally apply. +At last a bright thought struck her. + +"A. leaf" (will a small l) "will be quite safe wherever found. Come. +Saturday. 15." + +As she wrote it--this wretched double-entendre--she was seized with +that sudden sense of the ludicrous which sometimes intrudes in such a +ghastly fashion in the very midst of great misery. She burst into +uncontrollable laughter, fit after fit; so violent that Elizabeth, +who came in by chance, was terrified out of her wits, and kneeling +beside her mistress, implored her to be quiet. At last the paroxysm +ended in complete exhaustion. The tension of the last twenty-four +hours had given way, and Hilary knew her strength was gone. Yet the +advertisement ought to be taken to the Times office that very night, +in order to be inserted without fail on Monday morning. + +There was but one person whom she could trust--Elizabeth. + +She looked at the girl, who was kneeling beside the sofa, rubbing her +feet, and sometimes casting a glance round, in the quiet way of one +well used to nursing, who can find out how the sufferer is without +"fussing" with questions. She noticed, probably because she had seen +little of her of late, a curious change in Elizabeth. It must have +been gradual, but yet its result had never been so apparent before. +Her brusqueness had softened down, and there had come into her and +shone out of her, spite of all her natural uncomeliness of person, +that beautiful, intangible something, common alike to peasant and +queen, as clear to see and as sad to miss in both--womanliness. Added +thereto was the gentle composure of mein which almost invariably +accompanied it, which instinctively makes you fell that in great +things or small, whatever the woman has to do, she will do it in the +womanliest, wisest, and best way. + +So thought Miss Hilary as she lay watching her servant, and then +explained to her the errand upon which she wished to send her. + +Not much explanation, for she merely gave her the advertisement to +read, and told her what she wished done with it. And Elizabeth, on +her part, asked no questions, but simply listened and obeyed. + +After she was gone Hilary lay on the sofa, passive and motionless. +Her strength and activity seemed to have collapsed at once into that +heavy quietness which comes when one has endured to the utmost limit +of endurance when one feels as if to speak a word or to lift a finger +would be as much as life was worth. + +"Oh, if I could only go to sleep!" was all she thought. + +By-and-by sleep did come, and she was taken far away out of these +miseries. By the strange peculiarity of dreams that we so seldom +dream about any grief that oppresses us at the time but generally of +something quite different, she thought she was in some known unknown +land, lovely and beautiful, with blue hills rising in the distance, +and blue seas creeping and curling on to the shore. On this shore she +was walking with Robert Lyon, just as he used to be, with his true +face and honest voice. He did not talk to her much; but she felt him +there, and knew they had but "one heart between them." A heart which +had never once swerved, either from the other; a heart whole and +sound, into which the least unfaith had never come--that had never +known, or recognized even as a possibility, the one first doubt, the +ominous -- + + + "Little rift within the lute, + That by-and-by will make the music mute, + And ever widening slowly silence all." + + +Is it ever so in this world? Does God ever bring the faithful man to +the faithful woman, and make them love one another with a righteous, +holy, persistent tenderness, which dare look in His face, nor be +ashamed; which sees in this life only the beginning of the life to +come; and in the closest, most passionate human love something to be +held with a loose hand, something frail as glass and brittle as +straw, unless it is perfected and sanctified by the love divine? + +Hilary at least believed so. And when at Elizabeth's knock she woke +with a start, and saw--not the sweet sea-shore and Robert Lyon, but +the dull parlor, and the last flicker of the fire, she thanked God +that her dream was not all a dream--that, sharp as her misery was, it +did not touch this--the love of her heart: she believed in Robert +Lyon still. + +And so she rose and spoke quite cheerfully, asking Elizabeth how she +had managed, and whether the advertisement would be sure to be in on +Monday morning. + +"Yes, Miss Hilary; it is sure to be all right." + +And then the girl hung about the room in an uneasy way, as if she had +something to tell, which was the fact. + +Elizabeth had had an adventure. It was a new thing in her monotonous +life; it brightened her eyes, and flushed her cheeks, and made her +old nervousness of manner return. More especially as she was somewhat +perplexed, being divided in her mind between the wish she had to tell +her mistress every thing, and the fear to trouble her, at this +troublous time, with any small matter that merely concerned herself. + +The matter was this. When she had given in her advertisement at the +Times office, and was standing behind the counter waiting for her +change and receipt, there stood beside her a young man, also waiting. +She had hardly noticed him, till on his talking to the clerk about +some misprint in his advertisement, apparently one of the great +column of "Want Places," her ear was caught by the unmistakable +Stowbury accent. + +It was the first time she had heard it since she left home, and to +Elizabeth's tenacious nature home in absence had gained an additional +charm, had grown to be the one place in the world about which her +affections clung. In these dreary wilds of London, to hear a Stowbury +tongue, to catch sight of a Stowbury person, or even one who might +know Stowbury, made her heart leap up with a bound of joy. She turned +suddenly, and looked intently at the young man, or rather the lad, +for he seemed a mere lad, small, slight, and whiskerless. + +"Well, Miss. I hope you'll know me again next time." said the young +fellow. At which remark Elizabeth saw that he was neither so young +nor so simple as she had at first thought. She drew back, very much +ashamed, and coloring deeply. + +Now, if Elizabeth ever looked any thing like comely, it was when she +blushed; for she had the delicate skin peculiar to the young women of +her district; and when the blood rushed through it, no cheek of lady +fair ever assumed a brighter rose. That, or the natural vanity of man +in being noticed by woman, caught the youth's attention. + +"Come now, Miss, don't be shy or offended. Perhaps I'm going your +way? Would you like company home?" + +"No, thank you," said Elizabeth, with great dignity. + +"Well, won't you even tell a fellow your name? Mine's Tom Cliffe, and +I live--" + +"Cliffe! Are you little Tommy Cliffe, and do you come from Stowbury?" + +And all Elizabeth's heart was in her eyes. + +As has been said, she was of a specially tenacious nature. She liked +few people, but those she did like she held very fast. Almost the +only strong interest of her life, except Miss Hilary, had been the +little boy whom she had snatched from under the horse's heels; and +though he was rather a scape-grace, and cared little for her, and his +mother was a decidedly objectionable woman, she had clung to them +both firmly till she lost sight of them. + +Now it was not to be expected that she should recognize in this +London stranger the little lad whose life she had saved--a lad, too, +from her beloved Stowbury--without a certain amount of emotion, at +which the individual in question broadly stared. + +"Bless your heart, I am Tommy Cliffe from Stowbury, sure enough. Who +are you?" + +"Elizabeth Hand." + +Whereupon ensued a most friendly greeting. Tom declared he should +have known her any where, and had never forgotten her--never! How far +that was true or not, he certainly looked as if it were; and two +great tears of pleasure dimmed Elizabeth's kind eyes. + +"You've grown a man now, Tommy," said she, looking at him with a sort +of half-maternal pride, and noticing his remarkably hand some and +intelligent face, so intelligent that it would have attracted notice, +though it was set upon broad, stooping shoulders, and a small, slight +body. "Let me see; how old are you?" + +"I'm nineteen, I think." + +"And I'm two-and-twenty. How aged we are growing!" said Elizabeth, +with a smile. + +Then she asked after Mrs. Cliffe, but got only the brief answer, +"Mother's dead," given in a tone as if no more inquiries would be +welcome. His two sisters, also, had died of typhus in one week, and +Tom had been "on his own hook," as he expressed it, for the last +three years. + +He was extremely frank and confidential; told how he had begun life +as a printer's "devil," afterward become a compositor, and his health +failing, had left the trade, and gone as servant to a literary +gentleman. + +"An uncommon clever fellow is master; keeps his carriage, and has +dukes to dinner, all out of his books. Maybe you've heard of them, +Elizabeth?" and he named a few, in a patronizing way; at which +Elizabeth smiled, for she knew them well. But she nevertheless +regarded with a certain awe the servant of so great a man, and +"little Tommy Cliffe" took a new importance in her eyes. + +Also, as he walked with her along the street to find an omnibus, she +could not help perceiving what a sharp little fellow he had grown +into; how, like many another printer's boy, he had caught the +influence of the atmosphere of letters, and was educated, +self-educated, of course, to a degree far beyond his position. When +she looked at him, and listened to him, Elizabeth involuntarily +thought of Benjamin Franklin, and of many more who had raised +themselves from the ink-pot and the compositor's desk to fame and +eminence, and she fancied that such might be the lot of "little Tommy +Cliffe." Why not? If so, how excessively proud she should be! + +For the moment she had forgotten her errand; forgotten even Miss +Hilary. It was not till Tom Cliffe asked her where she lived, that +she suddenly recollected her mistress might not like, under present +circumstances, that their abode or any thing concerning them should +be known to a Stowbury person. + +It was a struggle. She would have liked to see the lad again; have +liked to talk over with him Stowbury things and Stowbury people; but +she felt she ought not, and she would not. + +"Tell me where you live, Tom, and that will do just as well; at least +till I speak to my mistress. I never had a visitor before, and my +mistress might not like it." + +"No followers allowed, eh?" + +Elizabeth laughed. The idea of little Tommy Clifie as her "follower," +seemed so very funny. + +So she bade him good-by; having, thanks to his gay frankness, been +made acquainted with all about him, but leaving him in perfect +ignorance concerning herself and her mistress. She only smiled when +he declared contemptuously, and with rather a romantic emphasis, that +he would hunt her out, though it were half over London. + +This was all her adventure. When she came to tell it, it seemed very +little to tell, and Miss Hilary listened to it rather indifferently, +trying hard to remember who Tommy Cliffe was, and to take an interest +in him because he came from Stowbury. But Stowbury days were so far +off now--with such a gulf or pain between. + +Suddenly the same fear occurred to her that had occurred to +Elizabeth. + +"The lad did not see the advertisement, I hope? You did not tell him +about us?" + +"I told him nothing." said Elizabeth. speaking softly, and looking +down. "I did not even mention any body's name." + +"That was right; thank you." + +But oh, the bitterness of knowing, and feeling sure Elizabeth knew +too, the thing for which she thanked her; and that not to mention +Ascott's name was the greatest kindness the faithful servant could +show toward the family. + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +Ascott Leaf never came home. + +Day after day appeared the advertisement, sometimes slightly altered, +as hope or fear suggested; but no word, no letter, no answer of any +kind reached the anxious women. + +By-and-by, moved by their distress, or perhaps feeling that the +scape-grace would be safer got rid of if found and dispatched abroad +in some decent manner, Mr. Ascott himself took measures for privately +continuing the search. Every outward-bound ship was examined; every +hospital visited; every case of suicide investigated: but in vain. +The unhappy young man had disappeared, suddenly and completely, as +many another has disappeared, out of the home circle, and been never +heard of more. + +It is difficult to understand how a family can possibly hear such a +sorrow, did we not know that many have had to bear it, and have borne +it, with all its load of agonizing suspense, slowly dying hope, + +"The hope that keeps alive despair," settling down into a permanent +grief, compared to which the grief for loss by death is light and +endurable. + +The Leaf family went through all this. Was it better or worse for +them that their anguish had to be secret? that there were no friends +to pity, inquire, or console? that Johanna had to sit hour by hour +and day by day in the solitary parlor, Selina having soon gone back +to her old ways of "gadding about," and her marriage preparations; +and that, hardest of all, Hilary had on the Monday morning to return +to Kensington and work, work, work, as nothing were amiss? + +But it was natural that all this should tell upon her; and one day +Miss Balquidder said, after a long covert observation of her face, +"My dear, you look ill. Is there any thing troubling you? My young +people always tell me their troubles, bodily or mental. I doctor +both." + +"I am sure of it," said Hilary, with a sad smile, but entered into no +explanation, and Miss Balquidder had the wise kindliness to inquire +no further. Nevertheless, on some errand or other she came to +Kensington nearly every evening and took Hilary back with her to +sleep at No. 15. + +"Your sister Selina must wish to have you with her as much as +possible till she is married." she said, as a reason for doing this. + +And Hilary acquiesced, but silently, as we often do acquiesce in what +ought to be a truth, but which we know to be the saddest, most +painful falsehood. + +For Selina, it became plain to see, was one of the family no more. +After her first burst of self-reproachful grief she took Mr. Ascott's +view of her nephew's loss--that it was a good riddance; went on +calmly with her bridal preparations, and seemed only afraid lest any +thing should interfere to prevent her marriage. + +But the danger was apparently tided over. No news of Ascott came. +Even the daily inquiries for him by his creditors had ceased. His +Aunt Selina was beginning to breathe freely, when, the morning before +the wedding day, as they were all sitting in the midst of white +finery, but as sadly and silently as if it were a funeral, a person +was suddenly shown in "on business." + +It was a detective officer sent to find out from Ascott Leaf's aunts +whether a certain description of him, in a printed hand-bill, was +correct. For his principal creditor, exasperated, had determined on +thus advertising him in the public papers as having "absconded." + +Had a thunder-bolt fallen in the little parlor the three aunts could +not have been more utterly overwhelmed. They made no "scene"--a +certain sense of pride kept these poor gentlewomen from betraying +their misery to a strange man; though he was a very civil man, and +having delivered himself of his errand, like an automaton, sat +looking into his hat, and taking no notice of aught around him. He +was accustomed to this sort of thing. + +Hilary was the first to recover herself. She glanced round at her +sisters, but they had not a word to say. In any crisis of family +difficulty they always left her to take the helm. + +Rapidly she ran over in her mind all the consequences that would +arise from this new trouble--the public disgrace; Mr. Ascott's anger +and annoyance, not that she cared much for this, except so far as it +would affect Selina; lastly, the death-blow it was to any possible +hope of reclaiming the poor prodigal. Who she did not believe was +dead, but still, fondly trusted he would return one day from his +wanderings and his swine's husks, to have the fatted calf killed for +him and glad tears shed over him. But after being advertised as +"absconded," Ascott never would, never could, come home any home. + +Taking as cool and business-like a tone as she could, she returned +the paper to the detective. + +"This is a summary proceeding. Is there no way of avoiding it?" + +"One, Miss," replied the man, very respectfully. "If the family would +pay the debt." + +"Do you know how much it is?" + +"Eighty pounds." + +"Ah!" + +That hopeless sigh of Johanna's was sufficient answer, though no one +spoke. + +But in desperate cases some women acquire a desperate courage, or +rather it is less courage than faith--the faith which is said to +"remove mountains"--the belief that to the very last there must be +something to be done, and, if it can be done, they will have strength +to do it. True, the mountain may not be removed, but the mere act of +faith, or courage sometimes teaches how to climb over it. + +"Very well. Take this paper back to your employer. He must be aware +that his only chance of payment is by suppressing it. If he will do +that, in two days he shall hear from us, and we will make +arrangements about paying the debt." + +Hilary said this, to her sisters' utter astonishment; so utter that +they let her say it, and let the detective go away with a civil "Good +morning," before they could interfere or contradict by a word. + +"Paying the debt! Hilary, what have you promised? It is an +impossibility." + +"Like the Frenchman's answer to his mistress--'Madame, if it had been +possible it would have been done already; if it is impossible, it +shall be done.' It shall, I say." + +"I wonder you can jest about our misfortunes," said Selina, in her +most querulous voice. + +"I'm not jesting. But where is the use of sitting down to moan! I +mean what I say. The thing must be done." + +Her eyes glittered--her small, red lips were set tightly together. + +"If it is not done, sisters--if his public disgrace is not prevented, +don't you see the result? Not as regards your marriage, Selina--the +man must be a coward who would refuse to marry a woman he cared for, +even though her nearest kinsman had been hanged at the Old +Bailey--but Ascott himself. The boy is not a bad boy, though he has +done wickedly; but there is a difference between a wicked act and a +wicked nature. I mean to save him if I can." + +"How?" + +"By saving his good name; by paying the debt." + +"And where on earth shall you get the money?" + +"I will go to Miss Balquidder and--" + +"Borrow it?" + +"No, never! I would as soon think of stealing it." + +Then controlling herself, Hilary explained that she meant to ask Miss +Balquidder to arrange for her with the creditor to pay the eighty +pounds by certain weekly or monthly installments, to be deducted from +her salary at Kensington. + +"It is not a very great favor to ask of her: merely that she should +say, 'This young woman is employed by me: I believe her to be honest, +respectable, and so forth; also, that when she makes a promise to +pay, she will to the best of her power perform it.' A character which +is at present rather a novelty in the Leaf family." + +"Hilary!" + +"I am growing bitter, Johanna; I know I am. Why should we suffer so +much! Why should we be always dragged down--down--in this way? Why +should we never have had any one to cherish and take care of us, like +other women! Why--" + +Miss Leaf laid her finger on her child's lips-- + +"Because it is the will of God." + +Hilary flung herself on her dear old sister's neck and burst into tears. + +Selina too cried a little, and said that she should like to help in +paying the debt, if Mr. Ascott had no objection. And then she turned +back to her white splendors, and became absorbed in the annoyance of +there being far too much clematis and far too little orange blossom +in the bridal bonnet--which it was now too late to change. A little, +also, she vexed herself about the risk of confiding in Miss +Balquidder, lest by any chance the story might get round to Russell +Square; and was urgent that at least nothing should be said or done +until after to-morrow. She was determined to be married, and dreaded +any slip between the cup and lip. + +But Hilary was resolute. "I said that in two days the matter should +be arranged, and so it must be, or the man will think we too break +our promises." + +"You can assure him to the contrary," said Selina, with dignity. "In +fact, why can't you arrange with him without going at all to Miss +Balquidder?" + +Again the fierce, bitter expression returned to Hilary's face. + +"You forget, Miss Balquidder's honest name is his only guarantee +against the dishonesty of ours." + +"Hilary, you disgrace us--disgrace me--speaking in such a way. Are we +not gentle women?" + +"I don't know, Selina. I don't seem to know or to feel any thing, +except that I would live on bread and water in order to live +peaceably and honestly. Oh, will it ever, ever be?" + +She walked up and down the parlor, disarranging the white draperies +which lay about, feeling unutterable contempt for them and for her +sister. Angry and miserable, with every nerve quivering, she was at +war with the whole world. + +This feeling lasted even when, after some discussion, she gained her +point and was on her way to call on Miss Balquidder. She went round +and round the Square many times, trying to fix in her mind word for +word what she meant to say; revealing no more of the family history +than was absolutely necessary, and stating her business in the +briefest, hardest, most matter-of-fact way--putting it as a +transaction between employer and employed, in which there was no more +favor asked or bestowed than could possibly be avoided. And as the +sharp east wind blew across her at every corner, minute by minute she +felt herself growing more fierce, and hard, and cold. + +"This will never do. I shall be wicked by-and-by. I must go in and +get it over." + +Perhaps it was as well. Well for her, morally as physically, that +there should have been that sudden change from the blighting weather +outside to the warm, well-lighted room where the good rich woman sat +at her early and solitary tea. + +Very solitary it looked--the little table in the centre of that large +handsome parlor, with the one cup and saucer, the one easy-chair. And +as Hilary entered she noticed, amidst all this comfort and luxury, +the still, grave, almost sad expression which solitary people always +get to wear. + +But the next minute Miss Balquidder had turned round, and risen, +smiling. + +"Miss Leaf, how very kind of you to come and see me! Just the day +before the wedding, too, when you must be so busy! Sit down and tell +me all about it. But first, my dear, how wet your boots are! Let me +take them off at once." + +Which she did, sending for her own big slippers, and putting them on +the tiny feet with her own hands. + +Hilary submitted--in truth she was too much surprised to resist. + +Miss Balquidder had, like most folk, her opinions or "crotchets"--as +they might be--and one of them was, to keep her business and friendly +relations entirely distinct and apart. Whenever she went to +Kensington or her other establishments she was always emphatically +"the mistress"--a kindly and even motherly mistress, certainly, but +still authoritative, decided. Moreover, it was her invariable rule to +treat all her employees alike--"making no step-bairns" among them. +Thus for some time it had happened that Hilary had been, and felt +herself to be, just Miss Leaf, the book keeper, doing her duty to +Miss Balquidder, her employer, and neither expecting nor attaining +any closer relation. + +But in her own house, or it might be from the sudden apparition of +that young face at her lonely fireside, Miss Balquidder appeared +quite different. + +A small thing touches a heart that is sore with trouble. When the +good woman rose up--after patting the little feet, and approving +loudly of the woolen stockings--she saw that Hilary's whole face was +quivering with the effort to keep back her tears. + +There are some woman of whom one feels by instinct that they were, as +Miss Balquidder had once jokingly said of herself, specially meant to +be mothers. And though, in its strange providence, Heaven often +denies the maternity, it can not and does not mean to shut up the +well-spring of that maternal passion--truly a passion to such women +as these, almost as strong as the passion of love--but lets the +stream, which might otherwise have blessed one child or one family, +flow out wide and far, blessing wherever it goes. + +In a tone that somehow touched every fibre of Hilary's heart, Miss +Balquidder said, placing her on a low chair beside her own. + +"My dear, you are in trouble. I saw it a week or two ago, but did not +like to speak. Couldn't you say it out, and let me help you? You need +not be afraid. I never tell any thing, and every body tells every +thing to me." + +That was true. Added to this said mother-liness of hers, Miss +Balquidder, possessed that faculty, which some people have in a +remarkable degree, and some--very good people too--are totally +deficient in, of attracting confidence. The secrets she had been +trusted with, the romances she had been mixed up in, the Quixotic +acts she had been called upon to perform during her long life, would +have made a novel--or several novels--such as no novelist could dare +to write, for the public would condemn them as impossible and +unnatural. But all this experience--though happily it could never be +put into a book--had given to the woman herself a view of human +nature at once so large, lenient, and just, that she was the best +person possible to hear the strange and pitiful story of young Ascott +Leaf. + +How it came out Hilary hardly knew; she seemed to have told very +little, and yet Miss Balquidder guessed it all. It did not appear to +surprise or shock her. She neither began to question nor preach; she +only laid her hand, her large, motherly, protecting hand, on the +bowed head, saying. + +"How much you must have suffered, my poor bairn!" + +The soft Scotch tone and word--the grave, quiet Scotch manner, +implying more than it even expressed--was it wonderful if underlying +as well as outside influences made Hilary completely give way? + +Robert Lyon had had a mother, who died when he was seventeen, but of +whom he kept the tenderest remembrance, often saying that of all the +ladies he had met with in the world there was none equal to her--the +strong, tender, womanly peasant woman--refined in mind and word and +ways--though to the last day of her life she spoke broad Scotch, and +did the work of her cottage with her own hands. It seems as if that +mother--toward whom Hilary's fancy had clung, lovingly as a woman +ought to cling, above all others, to the mother of the man she +loves--were speaking to her now, comforting her and helping +her--comfort and help that it would have been sweeter to receive from +her than from any woman living. + +A mere fancy; but in her state of long uncontrolled excitement it +took such possession of her that Hilary fell on her knees and hid her +face in Miss Balquidder's lap, sobbing aloud. + +The other was a little surprised; it was not her Scotch way to yield +to emotion before folk; but she was a wise woman she asked no +questions, merely held the quivering hands and smoothed the throbbing +head, till composure returned. Some people have a magical, mesmeric +power of soothing and controlling; it was hers. When she took the +poor face between her hands, and looked straight into the eyes, with, +"There, you are better now," Hilary returned the gaze as steadily, +nay, smilingly, and rose. + +"Now, may I tell you my business?" + +"Certainly, my dear. When one's friends are in trouble, the last +thing one ought to do is to sit down beside them and moan. Did you +come to ask my advice, or had you any definite plan of your own?" + +"I had." And Hilary told it. + +"A very good plan, and very generous in you to think of it. But I see +two strong objections: first, whether it can be carried out; +secondly, whether it ought." + +Hilary shrank, sensitively. + +"Not on my account, my dear, but your own. I often see people making +martyrs of themselves for some worthless character on whom the +sacrifice is utterly wasted. I object to this, as I would object to +throwing myself or my friend into a blazing house, unless I were +morally certain there was a life to be saved. Is there in this case?" + +"I think there is! I trust in Heaven there is!" said Hilary, +earnestly. + +There was both pleasure and pity expressed in Miss Balquidder's +countenance as she replied, "Be it so: that is a matter on which no +one can judge except yourself. But on the other matter you ask my +advice, and I must give it. To maintain two ladies and pay a debt of +eighty pounds out of one hundred a year is simply impossible." + +"With Johanna's income and mine it will be a hundred and twenty +pounds and some odd shillings a year." + +"You accurate girl! But even with this it can not be done, unless you +were to live in a manner so restricted in the commonest comforts that +at your sister's age she would be sure to suffer. You must look on +the question from all sides, my dear. You must be just to others as +well as to that young man, who seems never to-- But I will leave him +unjudged." + +They were both silent for a minute, and then Miss Balquidder said: "I +feel certain there is but one rational way of accomplishing the thing +if you are bent upon doing it, if your own judgment and conscience +tell you it ought to be done. Is it so?" + +"Yes," said Hilary, firmly. + +The old Scotswoman took her hand with a warm pressure. "Very well. I +don't blame you. I might have done the same myself. Now to my plan. +Miss Leaf, have you known me long enough to confer on me the +benediction--one of the few that we rich folk possess 'It is more +blessed to give than to receive?' " + +"I don't quite understand." + +"Then allow me to explain. I happen to know this creditor of your +nephew's. He being a tailor and outfitter, we have had dealings +together in former times, and I know him to be a hard man, an +unprincipled man, such a one as no young woman should have to do +with, even in business relations. To be in his power, as you would be +for some years if your scheme of gradual payment were carried out, is +the last thing I should desire for you. Let me suggest another way. +Take me for your creditor instead of him. Pay him at once, and I will +write you a check for the amount." + +The thing was put so delicately, in such an ordinary manner, as if it +were a mere business arrangement, that at first Hilary hardly +perceived all it implied. When she did--when she found that it was in +plain terms a gift or loan of eighty pounds offered by a person +almost a stranger, she was at first quite bewildered. Then (ah! let +us not blame her if she carried to a morbid excess that noble +independence which is the foundation of all true dignity in man or +woman) she shrunk back into herself, overcome with annoyance and +shame. At last she forced herself to say, though the words came out +rather coldly. + +"You are very good, and I am exceedingly obliged to you; but I never +borrowed money in my life. It is quite impossible." + +"Very well; I can understand your feelings. I beg your pardon," +replied Miss Balquidder, also somewhat coldly. + +They sat silent and awkward, and then the elderly lady took out a +pencil and began to make calculations in her memorandum book. + +"I am reckoning what is the largest sum per month that you could +reasonably be expected to spare, and how you may make the most of +what remains. Are you aware that London lodgings are very expensive? +I am thinking that if you were to exchange out of the Kensington shop +into another I have at Richmond, I could offer you the first floor +above it for much less rent than you pay Mrs. Jones; and you could +have your sister living with you." + +"Ah! that would make us both so much happier! How good you are!" + +"You will see I only wish to help you to help yourself; not to put +you under any obligation. Though I can not see any thing so very +terrible in your being slightly indebted to an old woman, who has +neither chick nor child, and is at perfect liberty to do what she +likes with her own." + +There was a pathos in the tone which smote Hilary into quick +contrition. + +"Forgive me! But I have such a horror of borrowing money--you must +know why after what I have told you of our family. You must surely +understand--" + +"I do fully; but there are limits even to independence. A person who, +for his own pleasure, is ready to take money from any body and every +body, without the slightest prospect or intention of returning it, is +quite different from a friend who in a case of emergency accepts help +from another friend, being ready and willing to take every means of +repayment, as I knew you were, and meant you to be. I meant, as you +suggested, to stop out of your salary so much per month, till I had +my eighty pounds sate back again." + +"But suppose you never had it back? I am young and strong; still I +might fall ill--I might die, and you never be repaid." + +"Yes, I should," said Miss Balquidder, with a serious smile. "You +forget, my dear bairn, 'Inasmuch as ye have done it to one of these +little ones, ye have done it unto ME.' 'He that giveth to the poor +lendeth to the LORD.' I have lent Him a good deal at different times, +and He has always paid me back with usury." + +There was something at once solemn and a little sad in the way the +old lady spoke. Hilary forgot her own side of the subject; her pride, +her humiliation. + +"But do you not think, Miss Balquidder, that one ought to work on, +struggle on, to the last extremity, before one accepts an obligation, +most of all a money obligation?" + +"I do, as a general principle. Yet money is not the greatest thing in +this world, that a pecuniary debt should be the worst to bear. And +sometimes one of the kindest acts you can do to a +fellow-creature--one that touches and softens his heart, nay, perhaps +wins it to you for life, is to accept a favor from him." + +Hilary made no reply. + +"I speak a little from experience. I have not had a very happy life +myself; at least most people would say so if they knew it; but the +Lord has made it up to me by giving me the means of bringing +happiness, in money as well as other ways, to other people. Most of +us have our favorite luxuries; this is mine. I like to do people +good; I like, also--though maybe that is a mean weakness--to feel +that I do it. If all whom I have been made instrumental in helping +had said to me, as you have done, 'I will not be helped, I will not +be made happy,' it would have been rather hard for me." + +And a smile, half humorous, half sad, came over the hard-featured +face, spiritualizing its whole expression. + +Hilary wavered. She compared her own life, happy still, and hopeful, +for all its cares, with that of this lonely woman, whose only +blessing was her riches, except the generous heart which sanctified +them, and made them such. Humbled, nay, ashamed, she took and kissed +the kindly hand which has succored so many, yet which, in the +inscrutable mystery of Providence, had been left to go down to the +grave alone; missing all that is personal, dear, and precious to a +woman's heart, and getting instead only what Hilary now gave her--the +half-sweet, half-bitter payment of gratitude. + +"Well, my bairn, what is to be done?" + +"I will do whatever you think right," murmured Hilary. + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +It was not a cheerful morning on which to be married. A dense, +yellow, London fog, the like of which the Misses Leaf had never yet +seen, penetrated into every corner of the parlor at No. 15, where +they were breakfasting drearily by candle-light, all in their wedding +attire. They had been up since six in morning, and Elizabeth had +dressed her three mistresses one after the other, taking exceeding +pleasure in the performance. For she was still little more than a +girl, to whom a wedding was a wedding, and this was the first she had +ever had to do with in her life. + +True, it disappointed her in some things. She was a little surprised +that last evening had passed off just like all other evenings. The +interest and bustle of packing soon subsided--the packing consisting +only of the traveling trunk, for the rest of the trousseau went +straight to Russell Square, every means having been taken to ignore +the very existence of No. 15; and then the three ladies had supper as +usual, and went to bed at their customary hour without any special +demonstrations of emotion of affection. To Elizabeth this was +strange. She had not yet learned the unspeakable bitterness of a +parting where no body has any grief to restrain. + +On a wedding morning, of course, there is no time to be spared for +sentiment. The principal business appeared to be--dressing. Mr. +Ascott had insisted on doing his part in making his new connections +appear "respectable" at his marriage, and for Selina's sake they had +consented. Indeed, it was inevitable: they had no money whatever to +clothe themselves withal. They must either have accepted Mr. Ascott's +gifts--in which, to do him justice, he was both thoughtful and +liberal--or they must have staid away from the wedding altogether, +which they did not like to do "for the sake of the family." + +So, with a sense of doing their last duty by the sister, who would +be, they felt, henceforward a sister no more, Miss Leaf attired +herself in her violet silk and white China shawl, and Miss Hilary put +on her silver-grey poplin, with a cardinal cape, as was then in +fashion, trimmed with white swan's-down. It was rather an elderly +costume for a bridemaid; but she was determined to dress warmly, and +not risk, in muslins and laces, the health which to her now was +money, life--nay, honor. + +For Ascott's creditor had been already paid: Miss Balquidder never +let grass grow under her feet. When Hilary returned to her sisters +that day there was no longer any fear of public exposure; she had the +receipted bill in her hand, and she was Miss Balquidder's debtor to +the extent of eighty pounds. + +But it was no debt of disgrace or humiliation, nor did she feel it as +such. She had learned the lesson which the large hearted rich can +always teach the poor, that, while there is sometimes, to some +people, no more galling chain, there is to others--and these are the +highest natures, too--no more firm and sacred bond than gratitude. +But still the debt was there; and Hilary would never feel quite easy +till it was paid--in money, at least. The generosity she never wished +to repay. She would rather feel it wrapping her round, like an arm +that was heavy only through its exceeding tenderness, to the end of +her days. + +Nevertheless she had arranged that there was to be a regular monthly +deduction from her salary; and how, by retrenchment, to make this +monthly payment as large as she could, was a question which had +occupied herself and Johanna for a good while after they had retired +to rest. For there was no time to be lost. Mrs. Jones must be given +notice to; and there was another notice to be given, if the Richmond +plan were carried out; another sad retrenchment, foreboding which, +when Elizabeth brought up supper, Miss Hilary could hardly look the +girl in the face, and, when she bade her good night, had felt almost +like a secret conspirator. + +For she knew that, if the money to clear this debt was to be saved, +they must part with Elizabeth. + +No doubt the personal sacrifice would be considerable, for Hilary +would have to do the work of their two rooms with her own hands, and +give up a hundred little comforts in which Elizabeth, now become a +most clever and efficient servant, had made herself necessary to them +both. But the two ladies did not think of that at the moment; they +only thought of the pain of parting with her. They thought of it +sorely, even though she was but a servant, and there was a family +parting close at hand. Alas! people must take what they earn. It was +a melancholy fact that, of the two impending losses, the person they +should miss most would be, not their sister, but Elizabeth. + +Both regrets combined made them sit at the breakfast table--the last +meal they should ever take together as a family--sad and sorry, +speaking about little else than the subject which presented itself as +easiest and uppermost, namely, clothes. + +Finally, they stood all completely arrayed, even to bonnets; Hilary +looking wonderfully bewitching in hers, which was the very pattern of +one that may still be seen in a youthful portrait of our gracious +Queen--a large round brim, with a wreath of roses inside; while Miss +Leaf's was somewhat like it, only with little bunches of white +ribbon: "for," she said, "my time of roses has gone by." But her +sweet faded face had a peace that was not in the other two--not even +in Hilary's. + +But the time arrived; the carriage drew up at the door. Then nature +and sisterly feeling asserted themselves for a minute. Miss Selina +"gave way," not to any loud or indecorous extent, to nothing that +could in the least harm her white satin, or crumple her laces and +ribbons; but she did shed a tear or two--real honest tears--kissed +her sisters affectionately, hoped they would be very happy at +Richmond, and that they would often come to see her at Russell +Square. + +"You know," said she, half apologetically, "it is a great deal better +for one of us at least to be married and settled. Indeed I assure +you. I have done it all for the good of my family." + +And for the time being she devoutly believed she had. + +So it was all over. Elizabeth herself, from the aisle of St. Pancras +Church, watched the beginning and ending of the show; a very fine +show, with a number of handsomely dressed people, wedding guests, who +seemed to stare about them a good deal and take little interest in +either bride or bridegroom. The only persons Elizabeth recognized +were her mistresses--Miss Leaf, who kept her veil down and never +stirred; and Miss Hilary, who stood close behind the bride, listening +with downcast eyes to the beautiful marriage service. It must have +touched her more than on her sister's account, for a tear, gathered +under each eyelash, silently rolled down the soft cheek and fell." + +"Miss Hilary's an angel, and he'll be a lucky man that gets her," +meditated her faithful "bower-maiden" of old; as, a little excited by +the event of the morning, she stood by the mantle-piece and +contemplated a letter which had come after the ladies departed; one +of these regular monthly Indian letters, after which, Elizabeth was +sharp enough to notice, Miss Hilary's step always grew lighter and +her eye brighter for many days. + +"It must be a nice thing to have somebody fond of one, and somebody +to be fond of," meditated she. And "old fashioned piece of goods" as +she was--according to Mrs. Jones (who now, from the use she was in +the Jones's menage, patronized and confided in her extremely) some +little bit of womanly craving after the woman's one hope and crown of +bliss crept into the poor maid-servant's heart. But it was not for +the maid-servant's usual necessity--a "sweet heart"--somebody to +"keep company with;" it was rather for somebody to love, and perhaps +take care of a little. People love according to their natures; and +Elizabeth's was a strong nature; its principal element being a +capacity for passionate devotedness, almost unlimited in extent. Such +women, who love most, are not always, indeed very rarely, loved best. +And so it was perhaps as well that poor Elizabeth should make up her +mind, as she did very composedly, that she herself should never be +married; but after that glorious wedding of Miss Hilary's to Mr. +Lyon, should settle down to take care of Miss Leaf all her days. + +"And if I turn out only half as good and contented as my mistress, it +can't be such a dreadful thing to be an old maid after all," +stoically said Elizabeth Hand. + +The words were scarcely out of her mouth when her attention was +caught by some one in the passage inquiring for her; yes, actually +for her. She could hardly believe her eyes when she perceived it was +her new-found old acquaintance, Tom Cliffe. + +He was dressed very well, out of livery; indeed, he looked so +extremely like a gentleman that Mrs. Jones's little girl took him for +one, called him "Sir," and showed him into the parlor. + +"All right. I thought this was the house. Uncommon sharp of me to +hunt you out; wasn't it Elizabeth?" + +But Elizabeth was a little stiff, flurried, and perplexed. Her +mistresses were out; she did not know whether she ought to ask Tom +in, especially as it must be into the parlor; there was no other +place to take him to. + +However, Tom settled the matter with a conclusive, "Oh, gammon!"--sat +himself down, and made himself quite comfortable. And Elizabeth was +so glad to see him--glad to have another chance of talking about dear +old Stowbury. It could not be wrong; she would not say a word about, +the family, not even tell him she lived with the Misses Leaf if she +could help it. And Tom did not seem in the least curious. + +"Now, I call this quite a coincidence. I was stopping at St. Pancras +Church to look at a wedding--some old city fogy who lives in Russell +Square, and is making a great splash; and there I see you, Elizabeth, +standing in the crowd, and looking so nice and spicy--as fresh as an +apple and as brisk as a bee. I hummed and hawed and whistled, but I +couldn't catch your eye; then I missed you, and was vexed above a +bit, till I saw one like you going in at this door, so I just knocked +and asked; and here you are! 'Pon my life, I am very glad to see +you." + +"Thank you, Tom," said Elizabeth, pleased, even grateful for the +trouble he had taken about her: she had so few friends; in truth, +actually none. + +They began to talk, and Tom Cliffe talked exceedingly well. He had +added to his natural cleverness a degree of London sharpness, the +result of much "knocking about" ever since childhood. Besides, his +master, the literary gentleman, who had picked him out of the +printing office, had taken a deal of pains with him. Tom was, for his +station, a very intelligent and superior young man. Not a boy, though +he was still under twenty, but a young man: that precocity of +development which often accompanies a delicate constitution, making +him appear, as he was indeed, in mind and character, fully six or +seven years older than his real age. + +He was a handsome fellow, too, though small; dark haired, dark eyed, +with regular and yet sensitive and mobile features. Altogether Tom +Cliffe was decidedly interesting, and Elizabeth took great pleasure +in looking at him, and in thinking, with a certain half motherly, +half romantic satisfaction, that but for her, and her carrying him +home from under the horse's heels, he might, humanly speaking, have +been long ago buried in Stowbury church yard. + +"I have a 'church yard cough' at times still," said he, when speaking +of this little episode of early life. "I don't think I shall ever +live to be a middle-aged man." And he shook his head, and looked +melancholy and poetical; nay, even showed Elizabeth some poetry that +he himself had written on the subject, which was clever enough in its +way. + +Elizabeth's interest grew. An ordinary baker or butcher boy would not +have attracted her in the least; but here was something in the shape +of a hero, somebody who at once touched her sympathies and roused her +admiration. For Tom was quite as well informed as she was herself; +more so, indeed. He was one of the many shrewd and clever working men +who were then beginning to rise up and think for themselves, and +educate themselves. He attended classes at mechanics' institutions, +and young men's debating societies; where every topic of the day, +religion, politics, political economy, was handled freely, as the +young do handle these serious things. He threw himself, heart and +soul, into the new movement, which, like all revolutions, had at +first its great and fatal dangers, but yet resulted in much good; +clearing the political sky, and bringing all sorts of hidden abuses +under the sharp eyes of that great scourge of evil-doers--public +opinion. + +Yet Elizabeth, reared under the wing of the conservative Misses Leaf, +was a little startled when Tom Cliffe, who apparently liked talking +and being listened to, gave her a long dissertation on the true +principles of the Charter, and how Frost, Williams, and Jones--names +all but forgotten now--were very ill-used men, actual martyrs. She +was more than startled--shocked indeed--until there came a reaction +of the deepest pity--when he confessed that he never went to church. +He saw no use in going, he said; the parsons were all shams, paid +largely to chatter about what they did not understand; the only real +religion was that which a man thought out for himself, and acted out +for himself. Which was true enough, though only a half truth; and +innocent Elizabeth did not see the other half. + +But she was touched and carried away by the earnestness and +enthusiasm of the lad, wild, fierce iconoclast as he was, ready to +cast down the whole fabric of Church and State; though without any +personal hankering after lawless rights and low pleasures. His sole +idol was, as he said, intellect, and that was his preservation. + +Also, the fragile health which was betrayed in every flash of his +eye, every flush of his sallow cheek, made Tom Cliffe, even in the +two hours he staid with her, come very close to Elizabeth's heart. It +was such a warm heart, such a liberal heart, thinking so little of +itself or of its own value. + +So here began to be told the old story, familiar in kitchens as +parlors; but, from the higher bringing up of the two parties +concerned, conducted in this case more after the fashion of the +latter than the former. + +Elizabeth Hand was an exceptional person, and Tom had the sense to +see that at once. He paid her no coarse attentions, did not attempt +to make love to her; but he liked her, and he let her see that he +did. True, she was not pretty, and she was older than he; but that to +a boy of nineteen is rather flattering than otherwise. Also, for +there is a law even under the blind mystery of likings and fallings +in love--a certain weakness in him, that weakness which generally +accompanies the poetical nature, clung to the quiet, solid, practical +strength of hers. He liked to talk and be listened to by those +silent, admiring, gentle gray eyes; and he thought it very pleasant +when, with a motherly prudence, she warned him to be careful over his +cough, and gave him a flannel breast-plate to protect his chest +against the cold. + +When he went away Tom was so far in love that, following the free and +easy ways of his class, he attempted to give Elizabeth a kiss; but +she drew back so hotly that he begged her pardon, and slipped away +rather confounded. + +"That's an odd sort of young woman; there's something in her," said +he to himself. "I'll get a kiss, though, by-and-by." + +Meanwhile Elizabeth, having forgotten all about her dinner, sat +thinking, actually doing nothing but thinking, until within half an +hour of the time when her mistresses might be expected back. They +were to go direct to the hotel, breakfast, wait till the +newly-married couple had departed, and then come home. They would be +sure to be weary, and want their tea. + +So Elizabeth made every thing ready for them, steadily putting Tom +Cliffe out of her mind. One thing she was glad of, that talking so +much about his own affairs, he had forgotten to inquire concerning +hers, and was still quite ignorant even of her mistresses' name. He +therefore could tell no tales of the Leaf family at Stowbury. Still +she determined at once to inform Miss Hilary that he had been here, +but that, if she wished it, he should never come again. And it spoke +well for her resolve, that while resolving she was startled to find +how very sorry she should feel if Tom Cliffe never came again. + +I know I am painting this young woman with a strangely tender +conscience, a refinement of feeling, and a general moral +sensitiveness which people say is seldom or never to be found in her +rank of life. And why not? Because mistresses treat servants as +servants, and not as women; because in the sharp, hard line they +draw, at the outset, between themselves and their domestics, they +give no chance for any womanliness to be developed. And therefore +since human nature is weak, and without help from without, a long +degraded class can never rise, sweet-hearts will still come crawling +through back entries and down at area doors; mistresses will still +have to dismiss helpless and fallen, or brazen in iniquity, many a +wretched girl who once was innocent; or, if nothing actually vicious +results, may have many a good, respectable servant, who left to get +married, return, complaining that her "young man," whom she knew so +little about, has turned out a drunken scoundrel of a husband, who +drives her back to her old comfortable "place" to beg for herself and +her starving babies a morsel of bread. + +When, with a vivid blush that she could not repress, Elizabeth told +her mistress that Tom Cliffe had been to see her, the latter replied +at first carelessly, for her mind was preoccupied. Then, her +attention caught by the aforesaid blush, Miss Hilary asked. + +"How old is the lad?" + +"Nineteen." + +"That's a bad age, Elizabeth. Too old to be a pet, and rather too +young for a husband." + +"I never thought of such a thing," said Elizabeth, warmly--and +honestly, at the time. + +"Did he want to come and see you again?" + +"He said so." + +"Oh, well, if he is a steady, respectable lad there can be no +objection. I should like to see him myself next time." + +And then a sudden sharp recollection that there would likely be no +next time, in their service at least, made Miss Hilary feel quite a +hypocrite. + +"Elizabeth," said she, "we will speak about Tom Cliffe--is not that +his name?--by-and-by. Now, as soon as tea is over, my sister wants to +talk to you. When you are ready, will you come up stairs?" + +She spoke in an especially gentle tone, so that by no possibility +could Elizabeth fancy they were displeased with her. + +Now, knowing the circumstances of the family, Elizabeth's conscience +had often smitten her that she must eat a great deal, that her wages, +paid regularly month by month, must make a great hole in her +mistress's income. She was, alack! a sad expense, and she tried to +lighten her cost in every possible way. But it never struck her that +they could do without her, or that any need would arise for their +doing so. So she went into the parlor quite unsuspiciously, and found +Miss Leaf lying on the sofa, and Miss Hilary reading aloud the letter +from India. But it was laid quietly aside as she said, "Johanna, +Elizabeth is here." + +Then Johanna, rousing herself to say what must be said, but putting +it as gently and kindly as she could, told Elizabeth, what mistresses +often think it below their dignity to tell to servants, the plain +truth--namely, that circumstances obliged herself and Miss Hilary to +retrench their expenses as much as they possibly could. That they +were going to live in two little rooms at Richmond, where they would +board with the inmates of the house. + +"And so, and so--" Miss Leaf faltered. It was very hard to say it +with those eager eyes fixed upon her. + +Hilary took up the word-- "And so, Elizabeth, much as it grieves us, +we shall be obliged to part with you. We cannot any longer afford to +keep a servant." + +No answer. + +"It is not even as it was once before, when we thought you might do +better for yourself. We know, if it were possible, you would rather +stay with us, and we would rather keep you. It is like parting with +one of our own family." And Miss Hilary's voice too failed. "However, +there is no help for it; we must part." + +Elizabeth, recovered from her first bewildered grief, was on the +point of bursting out into entreaties that she might do like many +another faithful servant, live without wages, put up with any +hardships, rather than be sent away. But something in Miss Hilary's +manner told her it would be useless--worse than useless, painful: and +she would do any thing rather than give her mistress pain. When, +utterly unable to control it, she gave vent to one loud sob, the +expression of acute suffering on Miss Hilary's countenance was such +that she determined to sob no more. She felt that, for some reason or +other, the thing was inevitable; that she must take up her burden, as +her mistress had done, even though it were the last grief of +all--leaving that beloved mistress. + +"That's right, Elizabeth," said Miss Hilary, softly. "All these +changes are very bitter to us also, but we bear them. There is +nothing lasting in this world, except doing right, and being good and +faithful and helpful to one another." + +She sighed. Possibly there had been sad tidings in the letter which +she still held in her hand, clinging to it as we do to something +which, however sorely it hurts us, we would not part with for the +whole world. But there was no hopelessness or despair in her tone, +and Elizabeth caught the influence of that true courageous heart. + +"Perhaps you may be able to take me back again soon, Ma'am," said +she, looking toward Miss Leaf. "And meantime I might get a place; +Mrs. Jones has told me of several;" and she stopped, afraid lest it +might be found out how often Mrs. Jones had urged her to "better +herself," and she had indignantly refused. "Or," (a bright idea +occurred) "I wonder if Miss Selina, that is, Mrs. Ascott, would take +me in at Russell Square?" + +Hilary looked hard at her. + +"Would you really like that?" + +"Yes, I should; for I should see and hear of you. Miss Hilary, if you +please, I wish you would ask Mrs. Ascott to take me." + +And Hilary, much surprised--for she was well acquainted with +Elizabeth's sentiments toward both Mr. Ascott and the late Miss +Selina---promised. + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +And now I leave Miss Hilary for a time; leave her in, if not +happiness, great peace. Peace which, after these stormy months, was +an actual paradise of calm to both herself and Johanna. + +Their grief for Ascott had softened down. Its very hopelessness gave +it resignation. There was nothing more to be done; they had done all +they could, both to find him out and to save him from the public +disgrace which might blight any hope of reformation. Now the result +must be left in higher hands. + +Only at times fits of restless trouble would come; times when a +sudden knock at the door would make Johanna shake nervously for +minutes afterward; when Hilary walked about every where with her mind +preoccupied, and her eyes open to notice every chance passerby; nay, +she had sometimes secretly followed down a whole street some figure +which, in its light jaunty step and long fashionably-cut hair, +reminded her of Ascott. + +Otherwise they were not unhappy, she and her dearest sister. Poor as +they were, they were together, and their poverty had no sting. They +knew exactly how much they would receive monthly, and how much they +ought to spend. Though obliged to calculate every penny, still their +income and expenses were alike certain; there was no anxiety about +money matters, which of itself was an indescribable relief. Also +there was that best blessing--peace at home. Never in all her days +had Johanna known such an easy life; sitting quietly in her parlor +while Hilary was engaged in the shop below; descending to dinner, +where she took the head of the table, and the young people soon +learned to treat her with great respect and even affection; then +waiting for the happy tea in their own room, and the walk afterward, +in Richmond Park or along the Thames banks toward Twickenham. Perhaps +it was partly from the contrast to that weary year in London, but +never, in any spring, had the air seemed so balmy, or the trees so +green. They brought back to Hilary's face the youthful bloom which +she had begun to lose; and, in degree, her youthful brightness, which +had also become slightly overclouded. Again she laughed and made her +little domestic jokes, and regained her pretty ways of putting +things, so that every thing always appeared to have a cheerful, and +comical, side. + +Also--for while we are made as we are, with capacity for happiness, +and especially the happiness of love, it is sure to be thus--she had +a little private sunbeam in her own heart, which brightened outside +things. After that sad letter from India which came on Selina's +wedding day, every succeeding one grew more cheerful, more +demonstrative, nay, even affectionate; though still with that queer +Scotch pride of his, that would ask for nothing till it could ask and +have every thing, and give every thing in return--the letters were +all addressed to Johanna. + +"What an advantage it is to be an old woman!" Miss Leaf would +sometimes say, mischievously, when she received them. But more often +she said nothing, waiting in peace for events to develop themselves. +She did not think much about herself, and had no mean jealousy over +her child; she knew that a righteous and holy love only makes all +natural affections more sacred and more dear. + +And Hilary? She held her head higher and prouder; and the spring +trees looked greener, and the river ran brighter in the sunshine. Ah, +Heaven pity us all! it is a good thing to have love in one's life; it +is a good thing, if only for a time, to be actually happy. Not merely +contented, but happy! + +And so I will leave her, this little woman; and nobody need mourn +over her because she is working too hard, or pity her because she is +obliged to work; has to wear common clothes, and live in narrow +rooms, and pass on her poor weary feet the grand carriages of the +Richmond gentry, who are not a bit more well-born or well-educated +than she; who never take the least notice of her, except sometimes to +peer curious at the desk where she sits in the shop-corner, and +wonder who "that young person with the rather pretty curls" can be. +No matter, she is happy. + +How much happiness was there in the large house at Russell Square? + +The Misses Leaf could not tell; their sister never gave them an +opportunity of judging. + + "My son's my son till he gets him a wife, + But my daughter's my daughter all her life." + +And so, most frequently, is "my sister." But not in this case. It +could not be; they never expected it would. + +When on here rare visits to town Hilary called at Russell Square she +always found Mrs. Ascott handsomely dressed, dignified, and gracious. +Not in the slightest degree uncivil or unsisterly, but +gracious--perhaps a thought too gracious. Most condescendingly +anxious that she should stay to luncheon, and eat and drink the best +the house afforded, but never by any chance inviting her to stay to +dinner. Consequently, as Mr. Ascott was always absent in the city +until dinner, Hilary did not see him for months together, and her +brother-in-law was, she declared, no more to her than any other man +upon 'Change, or the man in the moon, or the Great Mogul. + +His wife spoke little about him. After a few faint, formal questions +concerning Richmond affairs, somehow her conversation always recurred +to her own: the dinners she had been at, those she was going to give; +her carriages, clothes, jewelry, and so on. She was altogether a very +great lady, and Hilary, as she avouched laughingly--it was, in this +case, better to laugh than to grieve--felt an exceedingly small +person beside her. + +Nevertheless Mrs. Ascott showed no unkindness--nay, among the various +changes that matrimony had produced in her, her temper appeared +rather to have improved than otherwise; there was now seldom any +trace of that touchy sharpness which used to be called "poor Selina's +way." And yet Hilary never quitted the house without saying to +herself, with a sigh, the old phrase, "Poor Selina!" + +Thus, in the inevitable consequences of things, her visits to Russell +Square became fewer and fewer; she kept them up as a duty, not +exacting any return, for she felt that was impossible, though still +keeping up the ghostly shadow of sisterly intimacy. Nevertheless she +knew well it was but a shadow; that the only face that looked honest, +glad welcome, or that she was honestly glad to see in her +brother-in-law's house was the under house-maid, Elizabeth Hand. + +Contrary to all expectations, Mrs. Ascott had consented to take +Elizabeth into her service. With many stipulations and warnings never +to presume on past relations, never even to mention Stowbury, on pain +of instant dismissal--still, she did take her, and Elizabeth staid. +At every one of Miss Hilary's visits, lying in wait in the bed +chamber, or on the staircase, or creeping up at the last minute to +open the hall door, was sure to appear the familiar face, beaming all +over. Little conversation passed between them--Mrs. Ascott evidently +disliked it; still Elizabeth looked well and happy, and when Miss +Hilary told her so she always silently smiled. + +But this story must tell the whole truth which lay beneath that fond +acquiescing smile. + +Elizabeth was certainly in good health, being well fed, well housed, +and leading on the whole an easy life; happy, too, when she looked at +Miss Hilary. But her migration from Mrs. Jones's lodgings to this +grand mansion had not been altogether the translation from Purgatory +to Paradise that some would have supposed. + +The author of this simple story having--unfortunately for it--never +been in domestic service, especially in the great houses of London, +does not pretend to describe the ins and outs of their "high life +below stairs;" to repeat kitchen conversations, to paint the humors +of the servants' hall--the butler and housekeeper getting tipsy +together, the cook courting the policeman, and the footman making +love successively to every house-maid and ladys'-maid. Some writers +have depicted all this, whether faithfully or not they know best; but +the present writer declines to attempt any thing of the kind. Her +business is solely with one domestic, the country girl who came +unexpectedly into this new world of London servant-life--a world +essentially its own, and a life of which the upper classes are as +ignorant as they are of what goes on in Madagascar and Otabeite. + +This fact was the first which struck the unsophisticated Elizabeth. +She, who had been brought up in a sort of feudal relationship to her +dear mistresses, was astonished to find the domestics of Russell +Square banded together into a community which, in spite of their +personal bickerings and jealousies, ended in alliance offensive and +defensive against the superior powers, whom they looked upon as their +natural enemies. Invisible enemies, certainly; for "master" they +hardly ever saw; and, excepting the ladys' maid, were mostly as +ignorant of "missis." The housekeeper was the middle link between the +two estates--the person with whom all business was transacted, and to +whom all complaints had to be made. Beyond being sometimes talked +over, generally in a quizzical, depreciatory, or condemnatory way, +the heads of the establishment were no more to their domestics than +the people who paid wages, and exacted in return certain duties, +which most of them made as small as possible, and escaped whenever +they could. + +If this be an exaggerated picture of a state of things perhaps in +degree inevitable--and yet it should not be, for it is the source of +incalculable evil, this dividing of a house against itself--if I have +in any way said what is not true, I would that some intelligent +"voice from the kitchen" would rise up and tell us what is true, and +whether it be possible on either side to find means of amending what +so sorely needs reformation. + +Elizabeth sometimes wanted Tom Cliffe to do this--to "write a book," +which he, eager young malcontent, was always threatening to do, upon +the evils of society, and especially the tyranny of the upper +classes. Tom Cliffe was the only person to whom she imparted her +troubles and perplexities: how different her life was from that she +had been used to; how among her fellow-servants there was not one who +did not seem to think and act in a manner totally opposed to every +thing she had learned from Miss Hilary. How consequently she herself +was teased, bullied, threatened, or at best "sent to Coventry," from +morning till night. + +"I am quite alone, Tom--I am, indeed," said she, almost crying, the +first Sunday night when she met him accidentally in going to church, +and, in her dreary state of mind, was exceedingly glad to see him. He +consoled her, and even went to church with her, half promising to do +the same next Sunday, and calling her "a good little Christian, who +almost inclined him to be a Christian too." + +And so, with the vague feeling that she was doing him good and +keeping him out of harm--that lad who had so much that was kindly and +nice about him--Elizabeth consented, not exactly to an appointment, +but she told him what were her "Sundays out," and the church she +usually attended, if he liked to take the chance of her being there. + +Alack! she had so few pleasures; she so seldom got even a breath of +outside air--it was not thought necessary for servants. The only hour +she was allowed out was the church-going on alternate Sunday +evenings. How pleasant it was to creep out then, and see Tom waiting +for her under the opposite trees, dressed so smart and gentlemanlike, +looking so handsome and so glad to see her--her, the poor countrified +Elizabeth, who was quizzed incessantly by her fellow-servants on her +oddness, plainness, and stupidity. + +Tom did not seem to think her stupid, for he talked to her of all his +doings and plannings, vague and wild as those of the young tailor in +"Alton Locke," yet with a romantic energy about them that strongly +interested his companion; and he read her his poetry, and addressed a +few lines to herself, beginning, + + "Dearest and best, my long familiar friend;" + +which was rather a poetical exaggeration, since he had altogether +forgotten her in the interval of their separation. But she never +guessed this; and so they both clung to the early tie, making it out +to be ten times stronger than it really was, as people do who are +glad of any excuse for being fond of one another. + +Tom really was getting fond of Elizabeth. She touched the higher half +of his nature--the spiritual and imaginative half. That he had it, +though only a working-man, and she too, though only a domestic +servant, was most true: probably many more of their class have it +than we are at all aware of. Therefore, these two being special +individuals, were attracted by each other; she by him, because he was +clever, and he by her, because she was so good. For he had an ideal, +poor Tom Cliffe! and though it had been smothered and laid to sleep +by a not too regular life, it woke up again under the kind, sincere +eyes of this plain, simple-minded, honest Elizabeth Hand. + +He knew she was plain, and so old-fashioned in her dress, that Tom, +who was particular about such things, did not always like walking +with her: but she was so interesting and true; she sympathized with +him so warmly; he found her so unfailingly and unvaryingly good to +him through all the little humors and pettishnesses that almost +always accompany a large brain, a nervous temperament, and delicate +health. Her quietness soothed him, her strength of character +supported him; he at once leaned on her, and ruled over her. + +As to Elizabeth's feelings toward Tom, they will hardly bear +analyzing; probably hardly any strong emotion will, especially one +that is not sudden but progressive. She admired him extremely, and +yet she was half sorry for him. Some things in him she did not at all +like, and tried heartily to amend. His nervous fancies, irritations, +and vagaries she was exceedingly tender over; she looked up to him, +and yet took care of him; this thought of him, and anxiety over him, +became by degrees the habit of her life. People love in so many +different ways; and perhaps that was the natural way in which a woman +like Elizabeth would love, or creep into love without knowing it, +which is either the safest or the saddest form which the passion can +assume. + +Thus things went on, till one dark, rainy Sunday night, walking round +and round the inner circle of the square, Tom expressed his feelings. +At first, in somewhat high flown and poetical phrases, then melting +into the one, eternally old and eternally new, "Do you love me?" +followed by a long, long kiss, given under shelter of the umbrella, +and in mortal fear of the approaching policeman; who, however, never +saw them, or saw them only as "pair of sweet-hearts"--too common an +occurrence on his beat to excite any attention. + +But to Elizabeth the whole thing was new, wonderful; a bliss so far +beyond any thing that had ever befallen her simple life, and so +utterly unexpected therein, that when she went to her bed that night +she cried like a child over the happiness of Tom's loving her, and +her exceeding unworthiness of the same. + +Then difficulties arose in her mind. "No followers allowed," was one +of the strict laws of the Russell Square dynasty. Like many another +law of that and of much higher dynasties it was only made to be +broken; for stray sweet-hearts were continually climbing down area +railings, or over garden walls, or hiding themselves behind kitchen +doors. Nay, to such an extent was the system carried out, each +servant being, from self-interest, a safe co-conspirator, that very +often when Mr. and Mrs. Ascott went out to dinner, and the old +housekeeper retired to bed, there were regular symposia held below +stairs--nice little supper-parties, where all the viands in the +pantry and the wines in the cellar were freely used; where every +domestic had his or her "young man" or "young woman," and the +goings-on, though not actually discreditable, were of the most lively +kind. + +To be cognizant of these, and yet to feel that, as there was no +actual wickedness going on, she was not justified in "blabbing," was +a severe and perpetual trial to Elizabeth. To join them, or bring Tom +among them as her "young man," was impossible. + +"No, Tom," she said, when he begged hard to come in one evening--for +it was raining fast, and he had a bad cough-- + +"No, Tom, I can't let you. If other folks break the laws of the +house, I won't--you must go. I can only meet you out of +doors." + +And yet to do this surreptitiously, just as if she were ashamed of +him, or as if there were something wrong in their being fond of one +another, jarred upon Elizabeth's honest nature. She did not want to +make a show of him, especially to her fellow-servants: she had the +true woman's instinct of liking to keep her treasures all to herself; +but she had also her sex's natural yearning for sympathy in the great +event of a woman's life. She would have liked to have somebody unto +whom she could say, "Tom has asked me to marry him," and who would +have answered cordially, "It's all right: he is a good fellow: you +are sure to be happy." + +Not that she doubted this: but it would have been an additional +comfort to have a mother's blessing, or a sister's, or even a +friend's, upon this strange and sweet emotion which had come into her +life. So long as it was thus kept secret there seemed a certain +incompleteness and unsanctity about even their happy love. + +Tom did not comprehend this at all. He only laughed at her for +feeling so "nesh" (that means tender, sensitive--but the word is +almost unexplainable to other than Stowbury ears) on the subject. He +liked the romance and excitement of secret courtship--men often do; +rarely women, unless there is something in them not quite right, not +entirely womanly. + +But Tom was very considerate, and though he called it "silly," and +took a little fit of crossness on the occasion, he allowed Elizabeth +to write to mother about him, and consented that on her next holiday +she should go to Richmond, in order to speak to Miss Hilary on the +same subject, and ask her also to write to Mrs. Hand, stating how +good and clever Tom was, and how exceedingly happy was Tom's +Elizabeth. + +"And won't you come and fetch me, Tom?" asked she, shyly. "I am sure +Miss Hilary would not object, nor Miss Leaf neither." + +Tom, protested he did not care two straws whether they objected or +not; he was a man of twenty, in a good trade--he had lately gone back +to the printing, and being a clever workman, earned capital wages. He +had a right to choose whom he liked, and marry when he pleased. If +Elizabeth didn't care for him, she might leave him alone. + +"Oh, Tom!" was all she answered, with a strange gentleness that no +one could have believed would ever have come into the manner of South +Sea Islander. And quitting the subject then, she afterward persuaded +him, and not for the first time, into consenting to what she thought +right. There is something rather touching in a servant's holiday. It +comes so seldom. She must count on it for so long beforehand, and +remember it for so long afterward. This present writer owns to a +strong sympathy with the holiday-makers on the grand gala-days of the +English calendar. It is a pleasure to watch the innumerable groups of +family folk, little, children, and prentice lands. + + --"Dressed in all their best, + To walk abroad with Sally." + +And the various "Sallys" and their corresponding swains can hardly +feel more regret than she when it happens to be wet weather on Easter +week or at Whitsuntide. + +Whit-Monday, the day when Tom escaped from the printing-office, and +Elizabeth got leave of absence for six hours, was as glorious a June +day as well could be. As the two young people perched themselves on +the top of the Richmond omnibus and drove through Kensington, +Hammersmith, Turnham Green, and over Kew Bridge--Tom pointing out all +the places, and giving much curious information about them--Elizabeth +thought there never was a more beautiful country, or a more lovely +summer day: she was, she truly said, "as happy as a Queen." + +Neverthless, when the omnibus stopped, she, with great self-denial, +insisted on getting rid of Tom for anytime. She thought Miss Hilary +might not quite like Tom's knowing where she lived, or what her +occupation was, lest he might gossip about it to Stowbury people; so +she determined to pay her visit by herself, and appointed to meet him +at a certain hour on Richmond Bridge, over which bridge she watched +him march sulkily, not without a natural pleasure that he should be +so much vexed at losing her company for an hour or two. But she knew +he would soon come to himself--as he did, before he had been half a +mile on the road to Hampton Court, meeting a young fellow he knew, +and going with him over that grand old palace, which furnished them +with a subject at their next debating society, where they both came +out very strong on the question of hypocritical priests and obnoxious +kings, with especial reference to Henry VIII, and Cardinal Wolsey. + +Meanwhile Elizabeth went in search of the little shop--which nobody +need expect to find at Richmond now--bearing the well-known name +"Janet Balquidder." Entering it, for there was no private door, she +saw, in the far corner above the curtained desk, the pretty curls of +her dear Miss Hilary. Elizabeth had long known that her mistress +"kept a shop," and with the notions of gentility which are just as +rife in her class as in any other, had mourned bitterly over this +fact. But when she saw how fresh and well the young lady looked, how +busily and cheerfully she seemed to work with her great books before +her, and with what a composed grace and dignity she came forward when +asked for, Elizabeth secretly confessed that not even keeping a shop +had made or could make the smallest difference in Miss Hilary. + +She herself was much more changed. + +"Why, Elizabeth, I should hardly have known you!" was the involuntary +exclamation of her late mistress. + +She certainly did look very nice; not smart--for her sober taste +preferred quiet colors--but excessively neat and well-dressed. In her +new gown of gray "coburg," her one handsome shawl, which had been +honored several times by Miss Hilary's wearing, her white straw +bonnet and white ribbons, underneath which the smooth black hair and +soft eyes showed to great advantage, she appeared, not "like a +lady"--a servant can seldom do that let her dress be ever so +fine--but like a thoroughly respectable, intelligent, and +pleasant-faced young woman. + +And her blushes came and went so fast, she was so nervous and yet so +beamingly happy, that Miss Hilary soon suspected there was more in +this visit than at first appeared. Knowing that with Elizabeth's +great shyness the mystery would never come out in public, she took an +opportunity of asking her to help her in the bedroom, and there, with +the folding-doors safely shut, discovered the whole secret. Miss +Hilary was a good deal surprised at first. She had never thought of +Elizabeth as likely to get married at all--and to Tom Cliffe. + +"Why, isn't he a mere boy; ever so much younger than you are?" + +"Three years." + +"That is a pity--a great pity: women grow old so much faster than +men." + +"I know that," said Elizabeth, somewhat sorrowfully. + +"Besides, did you not tell me he was very handsome and clever?" + +"Yes: and I'm neither the one nor the other. I have thought all that +over too, many a time; indeed I have, Miss Hilary. But Tom likes +me--or fancies he does. Do you think"--and the intense humility which +true love always has, struck into Miss Hilary's own conscious heart a +conviction of how very true this poor girl's love must be. "Do you +think he is mistaken? that his liking me--I mean in that sort of +way--is quite impossible?" + +"No, indeed, and I never said it; never thought it," was the earnest +reply. "But consider; three years younger than yourself; handsomer +and cleverer than you are--". + +Miss Hilary stopped; it seemed so cruel to say such things, and yet +she felt bound to say them. She knew her former "bower-maiden" well +enough to be convinced that if Elizabeth were not happy in marriage +she would be worse than unhappy--might grow actually bad. + +"He loves you now; you are sure of that; but are you sure that he is +a thoroughly stable and reliable character? Do you believe he will +love you always?" + +"I can't tell. Perhaps--if I deserved it," said poor Elizabeth. + +And, looking at the downcast eyes, at the thorough womanly sweetness +and tenderness which suffused the whole face, Hilary's doubts began +to melt away. She thought how sometimes men, captivated by inward +rather than outward graces, have fallen in love with plain women, or +women older than themselves, and actually kept to their attachment +through life, with a fidelity rare as beautiful. Perhaps this young +fellow, who seemed by all accounts superior to his class--having had +the sense to choose that pearl in an oyster-shell, Elizabeth +Hand--might also have the sense so appreciate her, and go on loving +her to the end of his days, Anyhow, he loved her now, and she loved +him; and it was useless reasoning any more about it. + +"Come, Elizabeth," cried her mistress, cheerfully, "I have said all +my say, and now I have only to give my good wishes. If Tom Cliffe +deserves you, I am sure you deserve him, and I should like to tell +him so." + +"Should you, Miss Hilary?" and with a visible brightening up +Elizabeth betrayed Tom's whereabouts, and her little conspiracy to +bring him here, and her hesitation lest it might be "intruding." + +"Not at all. Tell him to come at once. I am not like my sister; we +always allow 'followers.' I think a mistress stands in the relation +of a parent, for the time being; and that can not be a right or good +love which is concealed from her, as if it were a thing to be ashamed +of." + +"I think so too. And I'm not a bit ashamed of Tom, nor he of me," +said Elizabeth, so energetically that Miss Hilary smiled. + +"Very well; take him to have his tea in the kitchen, and then bring +him up stairs to speak to my sister and me." + +At that interview, which of course was rather trying, Tom acquitted +himself to every body's satisfaction. He was manly, modest, +self-possessed; did not say much--his usual talkativeness being +restrained by the circumstances of the case, and the great impression +made upon him by Miss Hilary, who, he afterward admitted to +Elizabeth, "was a real angel, and he should write a poem upon her." +But the little he did say gave the ladies a very good impression of +the intelligence and even refinement of Elizabeth's sweet-heart. And +though they were sorry to see him look so delicate, still there was a +something better than handsomeness in his handsome face, which made +them not altogether surprised at Elizabeth's being so fond of him. As +she watched the young couple down Richmond Street, in the soft summer +twilight--Elizabeth taking Tom's arm, and Tom drawing up his stooping +figure to its utmost extent, both a little ill-matched in height as +they were in some other things, but walking with that air of perfect +confidence and perfect contentedness in each other which always +betrays, to a quick eye, those who have agreed to walk through the +world together--Miss Hilary turned from the window and sighed. + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +Following Miss Hilary's earnest advice that every thing should be +fair and open, Elizabeth, on the very next day after that happy +Whit-Monday, mustered up her courage, asked permission to speak to +her mistress, and told her she was going to be married to Tom Cliffe: +not immediately, but in a year's time or so, if all went well. + +Mrs. Ascott replied sharply that it was no affair of hers, and she +could not be troubled about it. For her part she thought, if servants +knew their own advantages, they would keep a good place when they had +it, and never get married at all. And then, saying she had heard a +good character of her from the housekeeper, she offered Elizabeth the +place of upper house-maid, a young girl, a protegee of the +housekeeper's, being substituted in hers. + +"And when you have sixteen pounds a year, and somebody to do all your +hard work for you, I dare say you'll think better of it, and not be +so foolish as to go and get married." + +But Elizabeth had her own private opinion on that matter. She was but +a woman, poor thing! and two tiny rooms of her own, with Tom to care +for and look after, seemed a far happier home than that great house, +where she had not only her own work to do, but the responsibility of +teaching and taking charge of that careless, stupid, pretty Esther, +who had all the forwardness, untidiness, and unconscientiousness of a +regular London maid-servant, and was a sore trial to the staid, +steady Elizabeth. + +Tom consoled her, in his careless but affectionate way; and another +silent consolation was the "little bits of things," bought out of her +additional wages, which she began to put by in her box--sticks and +straws for the new sweet nest that was a-building: a metal teapot, +two neat glass salt-cellars, and, awful extravagance!--two real +second-hand silver spoons--Tom did so like having things nice about +him! These purchases, picked up at stray times, were solid, +substantial and useful; domestic rather than personal; and all with a +view to Tom rather than herself. She hid them with a magpie-like +closeness, for Esther and she shared the same room; but sometimes +when Esther was asleep she would peep at them with an anxious, +lingering tenderness, as if they made more of an assured reality what +even now seemed so very like a dream. + +--Except, indeed, on those Sunday nights when Tom and she went to +church together and afterward took a walk, but always parted at the +corner of the square. She never brought him in to the house, nor +spoke of him to her fellow servants. How much they guessed of her +engagement she neither knew nor cared. + +Mrs. Ascott, too, had apparently quite forgotten it. She seemed to +take as little interest in her servants' affairs as they in hers. + +Nevertheless, ignorant as the lower regions were in general of what +was passing in the upper, occasionally rumors began to reach the +kitchen that "Master had been a-blowing up Missis, rather!" And once, +after the solemn dinner, with three footmen to wait on two people, +was over, Elizabeth, passing through the hall, caught the said +domestics laughing together, and saying it was "as good as a play; +cat and dog was nothing to it." After which "the rows up stairs" +became a favorite joke in the servants' hall. + +But still Mr. Ascott went out daily after breakfast, and came home to +dinner; and Mrs. Ascott spent the morning in her private sitting +room, or "boudoir," as she called it; lunched, and drove out in her +handsome carriage, with her footman behind; dressed elegantly for +dinner, and presided at her own table with an air of magnificent +satisfaction in all things. She had perfectly accommodated herself to +her new position; and if under her satins and laces beat a solitary, +dissatisfied, or aching heart, it was nobody's business but her own. +At least, she kept up the splendid sham with a most creditable +persistency. + +But all shams are dangerous things. Be the surface ever so smooth and +green, it will crack sometimes, and a faint wreath of smoke betray +the inward volcano. The like had happened once or twice, as on the +day when the men-servants were so intensely amused. Also Elizabeth, +when putting in order her mistress's bedroom, which was about the +hour Mr. Ascott left for the city, had several times seen Mrs. Ascott +come in there suddenly, white and trembling. Once, so agitated was +she, that Elizabeth had brought her a glass of water; and instead of +being angry or treating her with the distant dignity which she had +always kept up her mistress had said, almost in the old Stowbury +tone, "Thank you, Elizabeth." + +However, Elizabeth had the wisdom to take no notice, but to slip from +the room, and keep her own counsel. + +At last one day the smouldering domestic earthquake broke out. There +was "a precious good row," the footman suspected, at the +breakfast-table; and after breakfast, Master, without waiting for the +usual attendance of that functionary, with his hat and gloves and a +Hansom cab had flung himself out at the hall door, slamming it after +him with a noise that startled the whole house. Shortly afterward +"Missis's" bell had rung violently, and she had been found lying on +the floor of her bedroom in a dead faint, her maid, a foolish little +Frenchwoman, screaming over her. + +The frightened servants gathered round in a cluster, but nobody +attempted to touch the poor lady, who lay rigid and helpless, hearing +none of the comments that were freely made upon her, or the +conjectures as to what Master had done or said that produced this +state of things. Mistress she was, and these four or five woman, her +servants, had lived in her house for months, but nobody loved her; +nobody knew any thing about her; nobody thought of doing aught for +her, till a kitchen-maid, probably out of former experience in some +domestic emergency, suggested, "Fetch Elizabeth." + +The advice was eagerly caught at, every body being so thankful to +have the responsibility shifted to some other body's shoulders; so in +five minutes Elizabeth had the room cleared, and her mistress laid +upon the bed, with nobody near except herself and the French maid. + +By-and-by Mrs. Ascott opened her eyes. + +"Who's that? What are you doing to me?" + +"Nothing, ma'am. It's only me--Elizabeth." + +At the familiar soothing voice the poor woman--a poor, wretched, +forlorn woman she looked, lying there, in spite of all her +grandeur--turned feebly round. + +"Oh, Elizabeth, I'm so ill! take care of me." And she fainted away +once more. + +It was some time before she came quite to herself, and then the first +thing she said was to bid Elizabeth bolt the door and keep every body +out. + +"The doctor, ma'am if he comes?" + +"I'll not see him. I don't want him. I know what it is. I--" + +She pulled Elizabeth closer to her, whispered something in her ear, +and then burst into a violent fit of hysterical weeping. + +Amazed, shocked, Elizabeth at first did not know what to do; then she +took her mistress's head on her shoulder, and quieted her by degrees +almost as she would a child. The sobbing ceased, and Mrs. Ascott lay +still a minute, till suddenly she clutched Elizabeth's arm. + +"Mind you don't tell. He doesn't know, and he shall not; it would +please him so. It does not please me. Sometimes I almost think I +shall hate it because it is his child." + +She spoke with a fierceness that was hardly credible either in the +dignified Mrs. Peter Ascott or the languid Miss Selina. To think of +Miss Selina expecting a baby! The idea perfectly confounded poor +Elizabeth. + +"I don't know very much about such matters," said she, deprecatingly; +"but I'm sure, ma'am, you ought to keep yourself quiet, and I +wouldn't hate the poor little baby if I were you. It may be a very +nice little thing, and turn out a great comfort to you." + +Mrs. Ascott lifted her heavy eyes to the kindly, sympathetic, womanly +face--thorough woman, for, as Elizabeth went on, her heart warmed +with the strong instinct which comes almost of itself. + +"Think, to have a tiny little creature lying here beside you; +something your very own, with its pretty face looking so innocent and +sweet at you, and its pretty fingers touching you." Here Elizabeth's +voice quite faltered over the picture she had drawn. "Oh, ma'am, I'm +sure you would be so fond of it." + +Human nature is strong. This cold, selfish woman, living her forty +years without any strong emotion, marrying without love, and reaping, +not in contrition, but angry bitterness, the certain punishment of +such a marriage, even this woman was not proof against the glorious +mystery of maternity, which should make every daughter of Eve feel +the first sure hope of her first born child to be a sort of Divine +annunciation. + +Mrs. Ascott lay listening to Elizabeth. Gradually through her shut +eyelids a few quiet tears began to flow. + +"Do you mind me talking to you this way, ma'am?" + +"No, no! Say what you like. I'm glad to have any body to speak to. +Oh, I am a very miserable woman!" + +Strange that Selina Ascott should come to betray, and to Elizabeth +Hand, of all people, that she was a "miserable woman." But +circumstances bring about unforeseen confidences; and the confidence +once given is not easily recalled. Apparently the lady did not wish +to recall it. In the solitude of her splendid house, in her total +want of all female companionship--for she refused to have her sisters +sent for--"he would only insult them, and I'll not have my family +insulted"--poor Selina clung to her old servant as the only comfort +she had. + +During the dreary months that followed, when, during the long, close +summer days, the sick lady scarcely stirred from her bedroom, and, +fretful, peevish, made the very most of what to women in general are +such patiently borne and sacred sufferings, Elizabeth was her +constant attendant. She humored all her whims, endured all her +ill-tempers, cheered her in her low spirits, and was, in fact, her +mistress's sole companion and friend. + +This position no one disputed with her. It is not every woman who +has, as Miss Leaf used to say of Elizabeth, "a genius for nursing;" +and very few patients make nursing a labor of love. The whole +household were considerably relieved by her taking a responsibility +for which she was so well fitted and so little envied. Even Mr. +Ascott, who, when his approaching honors could no longer be concealed +from him, became for the nonce a most attentive husband, and +succumbed dutifully to every fancy his wife entertained, openly +expressed his satisfaction in Elizabeth, and gave her one or two +bright golden guineas in earnest of his gratitude. + +How far she herself appreciated her new and important position; +whether her duties were done from duty, or pity, or that determined +self-devotedness which some women are always ready to carry out +toward any helpless thing that needs them, I can not say, for she +never told. Not even to Miss Hilary, who at last was permitted to +come and pay a formal visit; nor to Tom Cliffe, whom she now saw very +rarely, for her mistress, with characteristic selfishness, would +hardly let her out of her sight for half an hour. + +Tom at first was exceedingly savage at this: by degrees he got more +reconciled, and met his sweet-heart now and then for a few minutes at +the area gate or wrote her long poetical letters, which he confided +to some of her fellow-servants, who thereby got acquainted with their +secret. But it mattered little, as Elizabeth had faithfully promised +that, when her mistress's trial was over, and every thing smooth and +happy, she would marry Tom at once. So she took the jokes below +stairs with great composure; feeling, indeed, too proud and content +to perplex herself much about any thing. + +Nevertheless, her life was not easy, for Mrs. Ascott was very +difficult to manage. She resisted angrily all the personal sacrifices +entailed by impending motherhood, and its terrors and forebodings +used to come over her--poor weak woman that she was!--in a way that +required all Elizabeth's reasonings to counteract, and all her +self-control to hide the presentiment of evil, not unnatural under +the circumstances. + +Yet sometimes poor Mrs. Ascott would take fits of pathetic happiness; +when she busied herself eagerly over the preparations for the +new-comer; would make Elizabeth take out, over and over again, the +little clothes, and examine them with childish delight. Sometimes she +would gossip for hours over the blessing that was sent to her so late +in life--half-regretting that it had come so late; that she should be +almost an old woman before her little son or daughter was grown up. + +"Still, I may live to see it, you know: to have a pretty girl to take +on my arm into a ball-room, or a big fellow to send to College: the +Leafs always went to College in old times. He shall be Henry Leaf +Ascott, that I am determined on; and if it's a girl, perhaps I may +call her Johanna. My sister would like it; wouldn't she?" + +For more and more, in the strange softening of her nature, did Selina +go back to the old ties. + +"I am not older than my mother was when Hilary was born. She died, +but that was because of trouble. Women do not necessarily die in +childbirth even at forty; and in twenty years more I shall only be +sixty--not such a very old woman. Besides, mothers never are old; at +least not to their children. Don't you think so, Elizabeth?" + +And Elizabeth answered as she best could. She too, out of sympathy or +instinct, was becoming wondrous wise. + +But I am aware all this will be thought very uninteresting, except by +women and mothers. Let me hasten on. + +By degrees, as Mrs. Ascott's hour approached, a curious tranquility +and even gentleness came over her. Her fretful dislike of seeing any +face about her but Elizabeth's became less. She even endured her +husband's company for an hour of an evening; and at last humbled her +pride enough to beg him to invite her sisters to Russell Square from +Saturday to Monday, the only time when Hilary could be spared. + +"For we don't know what may happen," said she to him, rather +seriously. + +And though he answered, "Oh, nonsense!" and desired her to get such +ridiculous fancies out, of her head, still he consented, and himself +wrote to Miss Leaf, giving the formal invitation. + +The three sisters spent a happy time together, and Hilary made some +highly appreciated family jokes about the handsome Christmas box that +Selina was going to be so kind as to give them, and the small +probability that she would have much enjoyment of the Christmas +dinner to which Mr. Ascott, in the superabundance of his good +feeling, had invited his sisters-in-law. The baby, blessed innocent! +seemed to have softened down all things--as babies often do. + +Altogether, it was with great cheerfulness, affectionateness, and +hope that they took leave of Selina: she, with unwonted +consideration, insisting that the carriage should convey them all the +way to Richmond. + +"And," she said, "perhaps some of these days my son, if he is a son, +may have the pleasure of escorting his aunts home. I shall certainly +call him 'Henry Leaf,' and bring him up to be in every way a credit +to our family." + +When the ladies were away, and Mrs. Ascott had retired to bed, it was +still only nine o'clock, and a bright moonlight night. Elizabeth +thought she could steal down stairs and try to get a breath of fresh +air round the square. Her long confinement made her almost sick +sometimes for a sight of the outer world, a sight of--let me tell the +entire truth--her own faithful Tom. + +She had not seen him now for fourteen days, and though his letters +were very nice and exceedingly clever, still she craved for a look at +his face, a grasp of his hand, perhaps even a kiss, long and close +and tender, such as he would sometimes insist upon giving her, in +spite of all policemen. His love for her, demonstrative as was his +nature, had become to this still, quiet girl inexpressibly sweet, far +sweeter than she knew. + +It was a clear winter night, and the moon went climbing over the +fleecy white clouds in a way that made beauty even in Russell Square. +Elizabeth looked up at the sky, and thought how Tom would have +enjoyed it, and wished he were beside her, and was so glad to think +he would soon be beside her always, with all his humors and +weaknesses, all his little cross-selfishness, and complainings; she +could put up with all, and be happy through all, if only she had him +with her and loving her. + +His love for her, though fitful and fanciful, was yet so warm and +real that it had become a necessity of her life. As he always told +her--especially after he had had one of his little quarrels with +her--hers was to him. + +"Poor Tom, I wonder how he gets on without me! Well, it won't be for +long." + +And she wished she could have let him know she was out here, that +they might have had a chat for just ten minutes. + +Unconsciously she walked toward their usual trysting place, a large +overhanging plane-tree on the Keppel Street corner of the square. + +Surely, surely, that could not be Tom! Quite impossible, for he was +not alone. Two people, a young man and a young woman, stood at the +tryst, absorbed in conversation: evidently sweethearts, for he had +one arm round her, and he kissed her unresisted several times. + +Elizabeth gazed, fascinated, almost doubting the evidence of her own +senses. For the young men's figure was so excessively like Tom's. At +length, with the sort of feeling that makes one go steadily up to a +shadow by the roadside, some ugly spectre that we feel sure, if we +stare it out, will prove to be a mere imagination, she walked +deliberately up to and past these "sweethearts." + +They did not see her; they were far too much occupied with one +another; but she saw them, and saw at once that it was Tom, Tom's own +self, and with him her fellow-servant, Esther. + +People may write volumes on jealousy, and volumes will still remain +to be written. It is next to remorse for guilt, the sharpest, sorest, +most maddening torment that human nature can endure. + +We may sit and gaze from the boxes at our Othellos and Biancas; we +may laugh at the silly heart-burnings between Cousin Kate and Cousin +Lucy in the ball-room, or the squabbles of Mary and Sally in the +kitchen over the gardener's lad; but there the thing remains. A man +can not make love to two women, a woman can not coquet with two men, +without causing in degree that horrible agony, cruel as death, which +is at the root of half the tragedies, and the cause of half the +crimes of this world. + +The complaint comes in different forms: sometimes it is a case of +slow poisoning or of ordeal by red-hot irons, which though not fatal, +undermines the whole character, and burns ineffaceable scars into the +soul. And people take it in various ways--some fiercely, stung by a +sense of wounded self-love; others haughtily: + +"Pride's a safe robe, I'll wear it; but no rags." + +Others, again, humble, self-distrustful natures, whose only pride +came through love, have nothing left them except rags. In a moment +all their thin robes of happiness are torn off; they stand shivering, +naked and helpless before the blasts of the bitter world. + +This was Elizabeth's case. After the first instant of stunned +bewilderment and despair she took it all quite naturally, as if it +were a thing which she ought all along to have known was sure to +happen, and which was no more than she expected and deserved. + +She passed the couple, still unobserved by them, and then walked +round the other side of the square, deliberately home. + +I am not going to make a tragic heroine of this poor servant girl. +Perhaps, people may say, there is nothing tragic about the incident. +Merely a plain, quiet, old-fashioned woman, who is so foolish as to +like a handsome young swain, and to believe in him, and to be +surprised when he deserts her for a pretty girl of eighteen. All +quite after the way things go on in the world, especially in the +servant-world; and the best she can do is to get over it, or take +another sweetheart as quickly as possible. A very common story after +all, and more of a farce than a tragedy. + +But there are some farces which, if you look underneath the surface, +have a good many of the elements of tragedy. + +I shall neither paint Elizabeth tearing her own hair nor Esther's, +nor going raging about the square in moonlight in an insane fit of +jealousy. She was not given to "fits" under any circumstances, or +about any thing. All she felt went deep down into her heart, rooted +itself, and either blossomed or cankered there. + +On this night she, as I said, walked round the square to her home: +then quietly went up stairs to her garret, locked the door, and sat +down upon her bed. + +She might have sat there for an hour or more, her bonnet and shawl +still on, without stirring, without crying, altogether cold and hard +like a stone, when she fancied she heard her mistress's bell ring, +and mechanically rose up and went down stairs to listen. Nothing was +wanted, so she returned to her garret and crept to bed in the dark. + +When soon afterward Esther likewise came up to bed, Elizabeth +pretended to be asleep. Only once, taking a stealthy glance at the +pretty girl who stood combing her hair at the looking-glass, she was +conscious of a sick sense of repulsion, a pain like a knife running +thro' her, at sight of the red young lips which Tom had just been +kissing, of the light figure which he had clasped as he used to clasp +her. But she never spoke, not one word. + +Half an hour after she was roused by the nurse coming to her bedside. +Mrs. Ascott was very ill, and was calling for Elizabeth. Soon the +whole establishment was in confusion, and in the sharp struggle +between birth and death Elizabeth had no time to think of any thing +but her mistress. + +Contrary to every expectation, all ended speedily and happily; and +before he went off to the City next day the master of the house, who, +in the midst of his anxiety and felicity, had managed to secure a +good night's sleep and a good breakfast, had the pleasure of sending +off a special messenger to the Times office with the notification, +"The Lady of Peter Ascott, Esq., of a son and heir." + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +A fortnight's time rather increased than diminished the excitement +incident on the event at Russell Square. + +Never was there such a wonderful baby, and never was there such a +fuss made over it. Unprejudiced persons might have called it an ugly, +weakly little thing; indeed, at first there were such apprehensions +of its dying that it had been baptized in a great hurry, "Henry Leaf +Ascott," according to the mother's desire, which in her critical +position nobody dared to thwart. Even at the end of fourteen days the +"son and heir" was still a puling, sickly, yellow-faced baby. But to +the mother it was every thing. + +From the moment she heard its first cry Mrs. Ascott's whole nature +seemed to undergo a change. Her very eyes--those cold blue eyes of +Miss Selina's--took a depth and tenderness whenever she turned to +look at the little bundle that lay beside her. She never wearied of +touching the tiny hands and feet, and wondering at them, and +showing--to every one of the household who was favored with a sight +of it--"my baby," as if it had been a miracle of the universe. She +was so unutterably happy and proud. + +Elizabeth, too, seemed not a little proud of the baby. To her arms it +had first been committed; she had stood by at its first washing and +dressing, and had scarcely left it or her mistress since. Nurse, a +very grand personage, had been a little jealous of her at first, but +soon grew condescending, and made great use of her in the sick room, +alleging that such an exceedingly sensible young person, so quiet and +steady, was almost as good as a middle-aged married woman. Indeed, +she once asked Elizabeth if she was a widow, since she looked as if +she had "seen trouble:" and was very much surprised to learn she was +single and only twenty-three years old. + +Nobody else took any notice of her. Even Miss Hilary was so engrossed +by her excitement and delight over the baby that she only observed, +"Elizabeth, you look rather worn-out; this has been a trying time for +you." And Elizabeth had just answered, "Yes"-no more. + +During the fortnight she had seen nothing of Tom. He had written her +a short note or two, and the cook told her he had been to the kitchen +door several times asking for her, but being answered that she was +with her mistress up stairs, had gone away. + +"In the sulks, most like, though he didn't look it. He's a pleasant +spoken young man and I'm sure I wish you luck with him," said Cookie, +who, like all the other servants, was now exceedingly civil to +Elizabeth. + +Her star had risen; she was considered in the household a most +fortunate woman. It was shortly understood that nurse--majestic +nurse, had spoken so highly of her, that at the month's end the baby +was to be given entirely into her charge, with, of course, an almost +fabulous amount of wages. + +"Unless," said Mrs. Ascott, when this proposition was made, suddenly +recurring to the fact which seemed hitherto to have quite slipped +from her mind--"unless you are still willing to get married, and +think you would be happier married. In that case I won't hinder you. +But it would be such a comfort to me to keep you a little longer." + +"Thank you, ma'am," answered Elizabeth, softly, and busied herself +with walking baby up and down the room, hushing it on her shoulder. +If in the dim light tears fell on its puny face, God help her, poor +Elizabeth! + +Mrs. Ascott made such an excellent recovery that in three weeks' time +nobody was the least anxious about her, and Mr. Ascott arranged to +start on a business journey to Edinburgh; promising, however, to be +back in three days for the Christmas dinner, which was to be a grand +celebration. Miss Leaf and Miss Hilary were to appear thereat in +their wedding dresses; and Mrs. Ascott herself took the most vital +interest in Johanna's having a new cap for the occasion. Nay, she +insisted upon ordering it from her own milliner, and having it made +of the most beautiful lace--the "sweetest" old lady's cap that could +possibly be invented. + +Evidently this wonderful baby had opened all hearts, and drawn every +natural tie closer. Selina, lying on the sofa, in her graceful white +wrapper, and her neat close cap, looked so young, so pretty, and, +above all, so exceedingly gentle and motherly, that her sisters' +hearts were full to overflowing. They acknowledged that happiness, +like misery, was often brought about in a fashion totally unforeseen +and incredible. Who would have thought, for instance, on that +wretched night when Mr. Ascott came to Hilary at Kensington, or on +that dreary heartless wedding-day, that they should ever have been +sitting in Selina's room so merry and comfortable, admiring the baby, +and on the friendliest terms with baby's papa? + +"Papa" is a magical word, and let married people have fallen ever so +wide asunder, the thought, "my child's mother," "my baby's father," +must in some degree bridge the gulf between them. When Peter Ascott +was seen stooping, awkwardly enough, over his son's cradle, poking +his dumpy fingers into each tiny cheek in a half-alarmed, +half-investigating manner, as if he wondered how it had all come +about, but, on the whole, was rather pleased than otherwise--the good +angel of the household might have stood by and smiled, trusting that +the ghastly skeleton therein might in time crumble away into harmless +dust, under the sacred touch of infant fingers. + +The husband and wife took a kindly, even affectionate leave of one +another. Mrs. Ascott called him "Peter," and begged him to take care +of himself, and wrap up well that cold night. And when he was gone, +and her sisters also, she lay on her sofa with her eyes open, +thinking. What sort of thoughts they were, whether repentant or +hopeful, solemn or tender, whether they might have passed away and +been forgotten, or how far they might have influenced her life to +come, none knew, and none ever did know. + +When there came a knock at the door, and a message for Elizabeth, +Mrs. Ascott suddenly overheard it and turned round. + +"Who is wanting you? Tom Cliffe? Isn't that the young man you are to +be married to? Go down to him at once. And stay, Elizabeth, as it's +such a bitter night, take him for half an hour into the housekeeper's +room. Send her up stairs, and tell her I wished it, though I don't +allow 'followers.' " + +"Thank you, ma'am," said Elizabeth once more, and obeyed. She must +speak to Tom some time, it might as well be done to-night as not. +Without pausing to think, she went down with dull heavy steps to the +housekeeper's room. + +Tom stood there alone. He looked so exactly his own old self, he came +forward to meet her so completely in his old familiar way, that for +the instant she thought she must be under some dreadful delusion; +that the moonlight night in the square must have been all a dream; +Esther, still the silly little Esther, whom Tom had often heard of +and laughed at; and Tom, her own Tom, who loved nobody but her. + +"Elizabeth, what an age it is since I've had a sight of you!" + +But though the manner was warm as ever, + + "In his tone + A something smote her, as if Duty tried + To mock the voice of Love, how long since flown," + +and quiet as she stood, Elizabeth shivered in his arms. + +"Why, what's the matter? Aren't you glad to see me? Give me another +kiss, my girl, do!" + +He took it; and she crept away from him and sat down. + +"Tom, I've got something to say to you, and I'd better say it at +once." + +"To be sure. 'Tisn't any bad news from home, is it? Or"--looking +uneasily at her--"I haven't vexed you, have I?" + +"Vexed me," she repeated, thinking what a small foolish word it was +to express what had happened, and what she had been suffering. "No, +Tom, not vexed me exactly. But I want to ask you a question. Who was +it that you stood talking with, under our tree in the square, between +nine and ten o'clock, this night three weeks ago?" + +Though there was no anger in the voice it was so serious and +deliberate that it made Tom start. + +"Three weeks ago; how can I possibly tell?" + +"Yes, you can; for it was a fine moonlight night, and you stood there +a long time." + +"Under the tree, talking to somebody? What nonsense! Perhaps it +wasn't me at all." + +"It was, for I saw you." + +"The devil you did!" muttered Tom. + +"Don't be angry, only tell me the plain truth. The young woman that +was with you was our Esther here, wasn't she?" + +For a moment Tom looked altogether confounded. Then he tried to +recover himself, and said crossly, "Well, and if it was, where's the +harm? Can't a man be civil to a pretty girl without being called over +the coals in this way?" + +Elizabeth made no answer, at least not immediately. At last she said, +in a very gentle, subdued voice, + +"Tom, are you fond of Esther? You would not kiss her if you were not +fond of her. Do you like her as--as you used to like me?" + +And she looked right up into his eyes. Hers had no reproach in them, +only a piteous entreaty, the last clinging to a hope which she knew +to be false. + +"Like Esther? Of course I do? She's a nice sort of girl, and we're +very good friends." + +"Tom, a man can't be 'friends,' in that sort of way, with a pretty +girl of eighteen, when he is going to be married to somebody else. At +least, in my mind, he ought not." + +Tom laughed in a confused manner. "I say, you're jealous, and you'd +better get over it." + +Was she jealous? was it all fancy, folly? Did Tom stand there, true +as steel, without a feeling in his heart that she did not share, +without a hope in which she was not united, holding her, and +preferring her, with that individuality and unity of love which true +love ever gives and exacts, as it has a right to exact? + +Not that poor Elizabeth reasoned in this way, but she felt the thing +by instinct without reasoning. + +"Tom," she said, "tell me outright, just as if I was somebody else, +and had never belonged to you at all, do you love Esther Martin." + +Truthful people enforce truth. Tom might be fickle, but he was not +deceitful; he could not look into Elizabeth's eyes and tell her a +deliberate lie; somehow he dared not. + +"Well, then--since you will have it out of me--I think I do." + +So Elizabeth's "ship went down." It might have been a very frail +vessel, that nobody in their right senses would have trusted any +treasure with, still she did; and it was all she had, and it went +down to the bottom like a stone. + +It is astonishing how soon the sea closes over this sort of wreck; +and how quietly people take--when they must take, and there is no +more disbelieving it--the truth which they would have given their +lives to prove was an impossible lie. + +For some minutes Tom stood facing the fire, and Elizabeth sat on her +chair opposite without speaking. Then she took off her brooch, the +only love-token he had given her, and put it into his hand. + +"What's this for?" asked he, suddenly. + +"You know. You'd better give it to Esther. It's Esther, not me, you +must marry now." + +And the thought of Esther, giddy, flirting, useless Esther, as Tom's +wife, was almost more than she could bear. The sting of it put even +into her crushed humility a certain honest self-assertion. + +"I'm not going to blame you, Tom; but I think I'm as good as she. I'm +not pretty, I know, nor lively, nor young, at least I'm old for my +age; but I was worth something. You should not have served me so." + +Tom said, the usual excuse, that he "couldn't help it." And suddenly +turning round, he begged her to forgive him, and not forsake him. + +She forsake Tom! Elizabeth almost smiled. + +"I do forgive you: I'm not a bit angry with you. If I ever was I have +got over it." + +"That's right. You're a dear soul. Do you think that I don't like +you, Elizabeth?" + +"Oh yes," she said, sadly, "I dare say you do, a little, in spite of +Esther Martin. But that's not my way of liking, and I couldn't stand +it." + +"What couldn't you stand?" + +"Your kissing me to-day, and another girl to-morrow: your telling me +I was every thing to you one week, and saying exactly the same thing +to another girl the next. It would be hard enough to bear if we were +only friends, but as sweet-hearts, as husband and wife, it would be +impossible. No Tom, I tell you the truth, I could not stand it." + +She spoke strongly, unhesitatingly, and for an instant there flowed +out of her soft eyes that wild fierce spark, latent even in these +quiet humble natures, which is dangerous to meddle with. + +Tom did not attempt it. He felt all was over. Whether he had lost or +gained: whether he was glad or sorry, he hardly knew. + +"I'm not going to take this back, any how," he said, "fiddling" with +the brooch; and then going up to her, he attempted, with trembling +hands, to refasten it in her collar. + +The familiar action, his contrite look, were too much. People who +have once loved one another, though the love is dead (for love can +die), are not able to bury it all at once, or if they do, its pale +ghost will still come knocking at the door of their hearts, "Let me +in, let me in!" + +Elizabeth ought, I know, in proper feminine dignity, to have bade Tom +farewell without a glance or a touch. But she did not. When he had +fastened her brooch she looked up in his familiar face a sorrowful, +wistful, hungering look, and then clung about his neck: + +"O Tom, Tom, I was so fond of you!" + +And Tom mingled his tears with hers, and kissed her many times, and +even felt his old affection returning, making him half oblivious of +Esther; but mercifully--for love rebuilt upon lost faith is like a +house founded upon sands--the door opened, and Esther herself came +in. + +Laughing, smirking, pretty Esther, who, thoughtless as she was, had +yet the sense to draw back when she saw them. + +"Come here, Esther!" Elizabeth called, imperatively; and she came. + +"Esther, I've given up Tom; you may take him if he wants you. Make +him a good wife, and I'll forgive you. If not--" + +She could not say another word. She shut the door upon them, and +crept up stairs, conscious only of one thought--if she only could get +away from them, and never see either of their faces any more! + +And in this fate was kind to her, though in that awful way in which +fate--say rather Providence--often works; cutting, with one sharp +blow, some knot that our poor, feeble, mortal fingers have been long +laboring at in vain, or making that which seemed impossible to do the +most natural, easy, and only thing to be done. + +How strangely often in human life "one woe doth tread upon the +other's heel!" How continually, while one of those small private +tragedies that I have spoken of is being enacted within, the actors +are called upon to meet some other tragedy from without, so that +external energy counteracts inward emotion, and holy sympathy with +another's sufferings stifles all personal pain. That truth about +sorrows coming "in battalions" may have a divine meaning in it--may +be one of those mysterious laws which guide the universe--laws that +we can only trace in fragments, and guess at the rest, believing, in +deep humility, that one day we shall "know even as we are known." + +Therefore I ask no pity for Elizabeth, because ere she had time to +collect herself, and realize in her poor confused mind that she had +indeed said good by to Tom, given him up and parted from him forever, +she was summoned to her mistress's room, there to hold a colloquy +outside the door with the seriously-perplexed nurse. + +One of those sudden changes had come which sometimes, after all seems +safe, strike terror into a rejoicing household, and end by carrying +away, remorseless, the young wife from her scarcely tasted bliss, the +mother of many children from her close circle of happy duties and +yearning loves. + +Mrs. Ascott was ill. Either she had taken cold or been too much +excited, or, in the overconfidence of her recovery, some slight +neglect had occurred--some trifle which nobody thinks of till +afterward, and which yet proves the fatal cause, "the little pin" +that + + "Bores through the castle wall" + +of mortal hope, and King Death enters in all his awful state. + +Nobody knew it or dreaded it; for though Mrs. Ascott was certainly +ill, she was not at first very ill; and there being no telegraphs in +those days no one thought of sending for either her husband or her +sisters. But that very hour, when Elizabeth went up to her mistress, +and saw the flush on her cheek and the rest-less expression of her +eye, King Death had secretly crept in at the door of the mansion in +Russell Square. + +The patient was carefully removed back into her bed. She said little, +except once, looking up uneasily-- + +"I don't feel quite myself, Elizabeth." + +And when her servant soothed her in the long-familiar way, telling +her she would be better in the morning, she smiled contentedly, and +turned to go to sleep. + +Nevertheless, Elizabeth did not go to her bed, but sat behind the +curtain, motionless, for an hour or more. + +Toward the middle of the night, when her baby was brought to her, and +the child instinctively refused its natural food, and began screaming +violently, Mrs. Ascott's troubled look returned. + +"What is the matter? What are you doing, nurse? I won't be parted +from my baby--I won't, I say!" + +And when, to sooth her, the little thing was again put into her arms, +and again turned from her, a frightened expression came into the +mother's face. + +"Am I going to be ill?--is baby--" + +She stopped; and as nurse determinately carried it away, she +attempted no resistance, only followed it across the room with eager +eyes. It was the last glimmer of reason there. From that time her, +mind began to wander, and before morning she was slightly delirious. +Still nobody apprehended danger. Nobody really knew any thing about +the matter except nurse, and she, with a selfish fear of being blamed +for carelessness, resisted sending for the doctor till his usual hour +of calling. In that large house, as in many other large houses, every +body's business was nobody's business, and a member of the family, +even the mistress, might easily be sick or dying in some room +therein, while all things else went on just as usual, and no one was +any the wiser. + +About noon even Elizabeth's ignorance was roused up to the conviction +that something was very wrong with Mrs. Ascott, and that nurse's +skill could not counteract it. On her own responsibility she sent, or +rather she went to fetch the doctor. He came; and his fiat threw the +whole household into consternation. + +Now they knew that the poor lady whose happiness had touched the very +stoniest hearts in the establishment hovered upon the brink of the +grave. Now all the women-servants, down to the little kitchen-maid +with her dirty apron at her eyes, crept up stairs, one after the +other, to the door of what had been such a silent, mysterious room, +and listened, unhindered, to the ravings that issued thence. "Poor +Missis," and the "poor little baby," were spoken of softly at the +kitchen dinner table, and confidentially sympathized over with +inquiring tradespeople at the area gate. A sense of awe and suspense +stole over the whole house, gathering thicker hour by hour of that +dark December day. + +When her mistress was first pronounced "in danger," Elizabeth, aware +that there was no one to act but herself, had taken a brief +opportunity to slip from the room and write two letters, one to her +master in Edinburgh, and the other to Miss Hilary. The first she gave +to the footman to post; the second she charged him to send by special +messenger to Richmond. But he, being lazily inclined, or else +thinking that, as the order was only given by Elizabeth, it was of +comparatively little moment, posted them both. So vainly did the poor +girl watch and wait; neither Miss Leaf nor Miss Hilary came. + +By night Mrs. Ascott's delirium began to subside, but her strength +was ebbing fast. Two physicians--three--stood by the unconscious +woman, and pronounced that all hope was gone, if, indeed, the case +had not been hopeless from the beginning. + +"Where is her husband? Has she no relations--no mother or sisters?" +asked the fashionable physician, Sir ---- ----, touched by the slight +or this poor lady dying alone, with only a nurse and a servant about +her. "If she has, they ought to be sent for immediately." + +Elizabeth ran down stairs, and rousing the old butler from his bed, +prevailed on him to start immediately in the carriage to bring back +Miss Leaf and Miss Hilary. It would be midnight before he reached +Richmond; still it must be done. + +"I'll do it, my girl," said he, kindly; "and I'll tell them as gently +as I can. Never fear." + +When Elizabeth returned to her mistress's room the doctors were all +gone, and nurse, standing at the foot of Mrs. Ascott's bed, was +watching her with the serious look which even a hireling or a +stranger wears in the presence of that sight which, however familiar, +never grows less awful--a fellow creature slowly passing from this +life into the life unknown. Elizabeth crept up to the other side. The +change, indescribable yet unmistakable, which comes over a human face +when the warrant for its dissolution has gone forth, struck her at +once. Never yet had Elizabeth seen death. Her father's she did not +remember, and among her few friends and connections none other had +occurred. At twenty-three years of age she was still ignorant of that +solemn experience which every woman must go through some time, often +many times during her life. For it is to women that all look in their +extreme hour. Very few men, even the tenderest hearted, are able to +watch by the last struggle and close the eyes of the dying. + +For the moment, as she glanced round the darkened room, and then at +the still figure on the bed, Elizabeth's courage failed. Strong love +might have overcome this fear--the natural recoil of youth and life +from coming into contact with death and mortality; but love was not +exactly the bond between her and Mrs. Ascott. It was rather duty, +pity, the tenderness that would have sprung up in her heart toward +any body she had watched and tended so long. + +"If she should die, die in the night, before Miss Hilary comes!" +thought the poor girl, and glanced once more around the shadowy room, +where she was now left quite alone. For nurse, thinking with true +worldly wisdom of the preservation of the "son and heir," which was +decidedly the most important question now, had stolen away, and was +busy in the next room, seeing various young women whom the doctors +had sent, one of whom was to supply to the infant the place of the +poor mother whom it would never know. There was nobody left but +herself to watch this dying mother, so Elizabeth took her lot upon +her, smothered down her fears, and sat by the bedside waiting for the +least expression of returning reason in the sunken face, which was +very quiet now. Consciousness did return at last, as the doctors had +said it would. Mrs. Ascott opened her eyes; they wandered from side +to side, and then she said, feebly, "Elizabeth, where's my baby?" + +What Elizabeth answered she never could remember; perhaps nothing, or +her agitation betrayed her, for Mrs. Ascott said again, "Elizabeth, +am I going to--to leave my baby?" + +Some people might have considered it best to reply with a lie--the +frightened, cowardly lie that is so often told at death-beds to the +soul passing direct to its God. But this girl could not and dared +not. + +Leaning over her mistress, she whispered as softly as she could, +choking down the tears that might have disturbed the peace which, +mercifully, seemed to have come with dying, + +"Yes, you are going very soon--to God. He will watch over baby, and +give him back to you again some day quite safe." + +"Will He?" + +The tone was submissive, half-inquiring; like that of a child +learning something it had never learned before--as Selina was now +learning. Perhaps even those three short weeks of motherhood had +power so to raise her whole nature that she now gained the composure +with which even the weakest soul can sometimes meet death, and had +grown not unworthy of the dignity of a Christian's dying. + +Suddenly she shivered. "I am afraid; I never thought of--this. Will +nobody come and speak to me?" + +Oh, how Elizabeth longed for Miss Hilary, for any body, who would +have known what to say to the dying woman; who perhaps, as her look +and words implied, till this hour had never thought of dying. Once it +crossed the servant's mind to send for some clergyman; but she knew +none, and was aware that Mrs. Ascott did not either. She had no +superstitious feeling that any clergyman would do; just to give a +sort of spiritual extreme unction to the departing soul. Her own +religious faith was of such an intensely personal silent kind, that +she did not believe in any good to be derived from a strange +gentleman coming and praying by the bedside of a stranger, repeating +set sayings with a set countenance, and going away again. And yet +with that instinct which comes to almost every human soul, fast +departing, Mrs. Ascott's white lips whispered, "Pray." + +Elizabeth had no words, except those which Miss Leaf used to say +night after night in the little parlor at Stowbury. She knelt down, +and in a trembling voice repeated in her mistress's ear--"Our Father +which art in heaven"--to the end. + +After it Mrs. Ascott lay very quiet. At length she said, +"Please--bring--my--baby." It had been from the first, and was to the +last, "my" baby. The small face was laid close to hers that she might +kiss it. + +"He looks well; he does not miss me much yet, poor little fellow!" +And the strong natural agony came upon her, conquering even the +weakness of her last hour. "Oh, it's hard, hard! Will nobody teach my +baby to remember me?" + +And then lifting herself up on her elbow she caught hold of nurse. + +"Tell Mr. Ascott that Elizabeth is to take care of baby. Promise, +Elizabeth. Johanna is old--Hilary may be married; you will take care +of my baby?" + +"I will--as long as I live," said Elizabeth Hand. + +She took the child in her arms, and for almost another hour stood +beside the bed thus, until nurse whispered, "Carry it away; its +mother doesn't know it now." + +But she did; for she feebly moved her fingers as if in search of +something. Baby was still asleep, but Elizabeth contrived, by +kneeling down close to the bed, to put the tiny hand under those cold +fingers; they closed immediately upon it, and so remained till the +last. When Miss Leaf and Miss Hilary came in, Elizabeth was still +kneeling there, trying softly to take the little hand away; for the +baby had wakened and began its piteous wail. But it did not disturb +the mother now. + +"Poor Selina" was no more. Nothing of her was left to her child +except the name of a mother. It may have been better so. + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + + "IN MEMORY OF + SELINA, + THE BELOVED WIFE OF PETER ASCOTT, ESQ., + OF RUSSELL SQUARE, LONDON, + AND DAUGHTER OF + THE LATE HENRY LEAF, ESQ., + OF THIS TOWN. + DIED DECEMBER 24, 1839. + AGED 41 YEARS." + +Such was the inscription which now, for six months, had met the eyes +of the inhabitants of Stowbury, on a large, dazzlingly white marble +monument, the first that was placed in the Church-yard of the New +Church. What motive induced Mr. Ascott to inter his wife +here--whether it was a natural wish to lay her, and some day lay +beside her, in their native earth; or the less creditable desire of +showing how rich he had become, and of joining his once humble name, +even on a tombstone, with one of the oldest names in the annals of +Stowbury--nobody could find out. Probably nobody cared. + +The Misses Leaf were content that he should do as he pleased in the +matter: he had shown strong but not exaggerated grief at his loss; if +any remorse mingled therewith, Selina's sisters happily did not know +it. Nobody ever did know the full history of things except Elizabeth, +and she kept it to herself. So the family skeleton was buried quietly +in Mrs. Ascott's grave. + +Peter Ascott showed, in his coarse fashion, much sympathy and +consideration for his wife's sisters. He had them staying in the +house till a week after the funeral was over, and provided them with +the deepest and handsomest mourning. He even, in a formal way took +counsel with them as to the carrying out of Mrs. Ascott's wishes, and +the retaining of Elizabeth in charge of the son and heir, which was +accordingly settled. And then they went back to their old life at +Richmond, and the widower returned to his solitary bachelor ways. He +looked as usual; went to and from the City as usual; and his brief +married life seemed to have passed away from him like a dream. + +Not altogether a dream. Gradually he began to awake to the +consciousness of an occasional child's cry in the house--that large, +silent, dreary house, where he was once more the sole, solitary +master. Sometimes, when he came in from church of Sundays, he would +mount another flight of stairs, walk into the nursery at the top of +the house, and stare with distant curiosity at the little creature in +Elizabeth's arms, pronounce it a "fine child, and did her great +credit!" and then walk down again. He never seemed to consider it as +his child, this poor old bachelor of so many years' standing; he had +outgrown apparently all sense of the affections or the duties of a +father. Whether they ever would come into him; whether, after +babyhood was passed, he would begin to take an interest in the little +creature who throve and blossomed into beauty--which, as if watched +by guardian angles, dead mothers' children often seem to do--was a +source of earnest speculation to Elizabeth. + +In the mean time he treated both her and the baby with extreme +consideration, allowed her to do just as she liked, and gave her +indefinite sums of money to expend upon the nursery. + +When summer came, and the doctor ordered change of air, Mr. Ascott +consented to her suggestion of taking a lodging for herself and baby +near baby's aunts at Richmond; only desiring that the lodging should +be as handsome as could be secured, and that every other Sunday she +should bring up his son to spend the day at Russell Square. + +And so, during the long summer months, the motherless child, in its +deep mourning--which looks so pathetic on a very young baby--might be +seen carried about in Elizabeth's arms every where. When, after the +first six weeks, the wet nurse left--in fact, two or three nurses +successively were abolished--she took little Henry solely under her +own charge. She had comparatively small experience, but she had +common sense, and the strong motherly instinct which comes by nature +to some women. Besides, her whole soul was wrapped up in this little +child. + +From the hour when, even with her mistress dying before her eyes, +Elizabeth had felt a strange thrill of comfort in the new duty which +had come into her blank life, she took to this duty as women only can +whose life has become a blank. She received the child as a blessing +sent direct from God; by unconscious hands--for Mrs. Ascott knew +nothing of what happened; something that would heal her wounded +heart, and make her forget Tom. + +And so it did. Women and mothers well know how engrossing is the care +of an infant; how each minute of the day is filled up with something +to be done or thought of; so that "fretting" about extraneous things +becomes quite impossible. How gradually the fresh life growing up and +expanding puts the worn out or blighted life into the back ground, +and all the hopes and fancies cling around the small, beautiful +present, the ever developing, the ever marvelous mystery of a young +child's existence! Why it should be so, we can only guess; but that +it is so, many a wretched wife, many a widowed mother, many a broken +hearted, forlorn aunt, has thankfully proved. + +Elizabeth proved it likewise. She did not exactly lose all memory of +her trouble, but it seemed lighter; it was swallowed up in this +second passion of adopted motherhood. And so she sank, quietly and at +once, into the condition of a middle aged woman, whose life's +story--and her sort of women have but one--was a mere episode, told +and ended. + +For Esther had left and been married to Tom Cliffe within a few +week's of Mrs. Ascott's funeral. Of course, the household knew every +thing; but nobody condoled with Elizabeth. There was a certain +stand-off-ishness about her which made them hold their tongues. They +treated her with much respect, as her new position demanded. She took +this, as she took every thing, with the grave quietness which was her +fashion from her youth up; assumed her place as a confidential upper +servant; dressed well but soberly, like a woman of forty, and was +called "Mrs. Hand." + +The only trace her "disappointment" left upon her was a slightly +bitter way of speaking about men in general, and a dislike to any +chatter about love affairs and matrimony. Her own story she was never +known to refer to in the most distant way, except once. + +Miss Hilary--who, of course, had heard all, but delicately kept +silence--one night, when little Henry was not well, remained in the +lodgings on Richmond Hill, and slept in the nursery, Elizabeth making +up for herself a bed on the floor close beside baby and cradle. In +the dead of night, the two women, mistress and maid, by some chance, +said a few things to one another which never might have been said in +the daylight, and which, by tacit consent, were never afterward +referred to by either, any more than if they had been spoken in a +dream. + +Elizabeth told briefly, though not without emotion, all that had +happened between herself and Tom, and how he was married to Esther +Martin. And then both women went back, in a moralizing way, to the +days when they had both been "young" at Stowbury, and how different +life was from what they then thought and looked forward to--Miss +Hilary and her "bower maiden." + +"Yes," answered the former with a sigh, "things are indeed not as +people fancy when they are girls. We dream, and dream, and think we +see very far into the future, which nobody sees but God. I often +wonder how my life will end." + +Elizabeth said, after a pause, "I always felt sure you would be +married, Miss Hilary. There was one person--Is he alive still? Is he +ever coming home?" + +"I don't know." + +"I am sure he was very fond of you. And he looked like a good man." + +"He was the best man I ever knew." + +This was all Miss Hilary said, and she said it softly and mournfully. +She might never have said it at all; but it dropped from her unawares +in the deep feeling of the moment, when her heart was tender over +Elizabeth's own sad, simply told story. Also because of a sudden and +great darkness which had come over her own. + +Literally, she did not now know whether Robert Lyon were alive or +dead. Two months ago his letters had suddenly ceased, without any +explanation, his last being exactly the same as the others--as frank, +as warmly affectionate, as cheerful and brave. + +One solution to this was his possible coming home. But she did not, +after careful reasoning on the subject, believe that likely. She knew +exactly his business relations with his employers; that there was a +fixed time for his return to England, which nothing except the very +strongest necessity could alter. Even in the chance of his health +breaking, so as to incapacitate him for work, he should, he always +said, have to go to the hills, rather than take the voyage home +prematurely. And in that case he certainly would have informed his +friends of his movements. There was nothing erratic, or careless, or +eccentric about Robert Lyon; he was a practical, business-like +Scotchman--far too cautious and too regular in all his habits to be +guilty of those accidental negligences by which wanderers abroad +sometimes cause such cruel anxieties to friends at home. + +For the same reason, the other terrible possibility--his death--was +not likely to have happened without their hearing of it. Hilary felt +sure, with the strong confidence of love, that he would have taken +every means to leave her some last word--some farewell token--which +would reach hereafter he was gone, and comfort her with the assurance +of what, living, he had never plainly told. Sometimes, when a wild +terror of his death seized her, this settled conviction drove it back +again. He must be living, or she would have heard. + +There was another interpretation of the silence, which many would +have considered the most probable of all--he might be married. Not +deliberately, but suddenly; drawn into it by some of those impelling +trains of circumstance which are the cause of so many marriages, +especially with men; or, impelled by one of those violent passions +which occasionally seize on an exceedingly good man, fascinating him +against his conscience, reason, and will, until he wakes up to find +himself fettered and ruined for life. Such things do happen, +strangely, pitifully often. The like might have happened to Robert +Lyon. + +Hilary did not actually believe it, but still her common sense told +her that it was possible. She was not an inexperienced girl now; she +looked on the world with the eyes of a woman of thirty; and though, +thank Heaven! the romance had never gone out of her--the faith, and +trust, and tender love--still it had sobered down a little. She knew +it was quite within the bounds of possibility that a young man, +separated from her for seven years, thrown into all kinds of +circumstances and among all sorts of people, should have changed very +much in himself, and, consequently, toward her. That, without +absolute faithlessness, he might suddenly have seen some other woman +he liked better, and have married at once. Or, if he came back +unmarried--she had taught herself to look this probability also +steadily in the face--he might find the reality of her--Hilary +Leaf--different from his remembrance of her; and so, without actual +falseness to the old true love, might not love her any more. + +These fears made her resolutely oppose Johanna's wish to write to the +house of business at Liverpool, and ask what had become of Mr. Lyon. +It seemed like seeking after him, trying to hold him by the slender +chain which he had never attempted to make any stronger, and which, +already, he might have broken, or desired to break. + +She could not do it. Something forbade her; that something in the +inmost depths of a woman's nature which makes her feel her own value, +and exact that she shall be sought; that, if her love be worth +having, it is worth seeking; that, however dear a man may be to her, +she refuses to drop into his mouth like an overripe peach from a +garden wall. In her sharpest agony of anxiety concerning him, Hilary +felt that she could not, on her part, take any step that seemed to +compel love--or even friendship--from Robert Lyon. It was not pride, +she could hardly be called a proud woman; it was an innate sense of +the dignity of that love which, as a free gift, is precious as "much +fine gold." yet becomes the merest dross, utterly and insulting +poor--when paid as a debt of honor, or offered as a benevolent +largess. + +And so, though oftentimes her heart felt breaking, Hilary labored on; +sat the long day patiently at her desk; interested herself in the +young people over whom she ruled; became Miss Balquidder's right hand +in all sorts of schemes which that good woman was forever carrying +out for the benefit of her fellow-creatures; and at leisure times +occupied herself with Johanna, or with Elizabeth and the baby, trying +to think it was a very beautiful and happy world, with love still in +it, and a God of love ruling over it--only, only-- + +Women are very humble in their cruelest pride. Many a day she felt as +if she could have crawled a hundred miles in the dust--like some +Catholic pilgrim--just to get one sight of Robert Lyon. + +Autumn came--lovely and lingering late. It was November, and yet the +air felt mild as May, and the sunshine had that peculiar genial +brightness which autumnal sunshine alone possesses; even as, perhaps, +late happiness has in it a holy calm and sweetness which no youthful +ecstasy can ever boast. + +The day happened to be Hilary's birthday. She had taken a holiday, +which she, Johanna, Elizabeth, and the baby, had spent in Richmond +Park, watching the rabbits darting about under the brown fern, and +the deer grazing contentedly hard by. They had sat a long time under +one of the oak trees with which the Park abounds, listening for the +sudden drop, drop of an occasional acorn among the fallen leaves; or +making merry with the child, as a healthy, innocent, playful child +always can make good women merry. + +Still, Master Henry was not a remarkable specimen of infanthood, and +had never occupied more than his proper nepotal corner in Hilary's +heart. She left him chiefly to Elizabeth, and to his aunt Johanna, in +whom the grandmotherly character had blossomed out in full +perfection. And when these two became engrossed in his infant +majesty. Hilary sat a little apart, unconsciously folding her hands +and fixing her eyes on vacancy; becoming fearfully alive to the sharp +truth, that of all griefs, a strong love unreturned or unfulfilled is +the grief which most blights a woman's life. Say, rather, any human +life; but it is worst to a woman, because she must necessarily endure +passively. So enduring, it is very difficult to recognize the good +hand of God therein. Why should He ordain longings, neither selfish +nor unholy, which yet are never granted; tenderness which expends +itself in vain; sacrifices which are wholly unheeded; and sufferings +which seem quite thrown away? That is, if we dared allege of any +thing in the moral or in the material world, where so much +loveliness, so much love, appear continually wasted, that it is +really "thrown away." We never know through what divine mysteries of +compensation the Great Father of the universe may be carrying out his +sublime plan; and those three words, "God is love," ought to contain, +to every doubting soul, the solution of all things. + +As Hilary rose from under the tree there was a shadow on her sweet +face, a listless weariness in her movements, which caught Johanna's +attention. Johanna had been very good to her child. When, do what she +would, Hilary could not keep down fits of occasional dullness or +impatience, it was touching to see how this woman of over sixty years +slipped from her due pedestal of honor and dignity, to be patient +with her younger sister's unspoken bitterness and incommunicable +care. + +She now, seeing how restless Hilary was, rose when she rose, put her +arm in hers, and accompanied her, speaking or silent, with quick +steps or slow, as she chose, across the beautiful park, than which, +perhaps, all England can not furnish a scene more thoroughly sylvan, +thoroughly English. They rested on that high ground near the gate of +Pembroke Lodge, where the valley of the Thames lies spread out like a +map, stretching miles and miles away in luxuriant greenery. + +"How beautiful! I wonder what a foreigner would think of this view? +Or any one who had been long abroad? How inexpressibly sweet and +home-like it would seem to him!" + +Hilary turned sharply away, and Johanna saw at once what her words +had implied. She felt so sorry, so vexed with herself; but it was +best to leave it alone. So they made their way homeward, speaking of +something else; and then that happened which Johanna had been almost +daily expecting would happen, though she dared not communicate her +hopes to Hilary, lest they might prove fallacious. + +The two figures, both in deep mourning, might have attracted any +one's attention: they caught that of a gentleman, who was walking +quickly and looking about him, as if in search of something. He +passed them at a little distance, then repassed, then turned, holding +out both his hands. + +"Miss Leaf; I was sure it was you." + +Only the voice; every thing else about him was so changed that Hilary +herself would certainly have passed him in the street, that brown, +foreign looking, middle aged man, nor recognized him as Robert Lyon. +But for all that it was himself; it was Robert Lyon. + +Nobody screamed, nobody fainted. People seldom do that in real life, +even when a friend turns up suddenly from the other end of the world. +They only hold out a warm hand, and look silently in one another's +faces, and try to believe that all is real, as these did. + +Robert Lyon shook hands with both ladies, one after the other, Hilary +last, then placed himself between them. + +"Miss Leaf, will you take my arm?" + +The tone, the manner, were so exactly like himself, that in a moment +all these intervening years seemed crushed into an atom of time. +Hilary felt certain, morally and absolutely certain, that, in spite +of all outward change, he was the same Robert Lyon who had bade them +all good-by that Sunday night in the parlor at Stowbury. The same, +even in his love for herself, though he had simply drawn her little +hand under his arm, and never spoken a single word. + +Hilary Leaf, down, secretly, on your heart's lowest knees, and thank +God! Repent of all your bitterness, doubts, and pains; be joyful, be +joyful! But, oh, remember to be so humble withal. + +She was. As she walked silently along by Robert Lyon's side, she +pulled down her veil to hide the sweetest, most contrite, most +child-like tears. What did she deserve, more than her neighbors, that +she should be so very, very happy? And when, a good distance across +the park, she saw the dark, solitary figure of Elizabeth carrying +baby, she quietly guided her companions into a different path, so as +to avoid meeting, lest the sight of her happiness might in any way, +hurt poor Elizabeth. + +"I only landed last night at Southampton," Mr. Lyon explained to Miss +Leaf, after the fashion people have, at such meetings, of falling +upon the most practical and uninteresting details. "I came by the +Overland Mail. It was a sudden journey, I had scarcely more than a +few hours' notice. The cause of it was some very unpleasant +defalcations in our firm." + +Under any other circumstances Hilary might have smiled; maybe she did +smile, and tease him many a time afterward, because the first thing +he could find to talk about, after seven years' absence, was +"defalcations in our firm. But now she listened gravely, and +by-and-by took her part in the unimportant conversation which always +occurs after such a meeting as this. + +"Were you going home, Miss Leaf? They told me at your house you were +expected to dinner. May I come with you? for I have only a few hours +to stay. To-night I must go on to Liverpool." + +"But we shall hope soon to see you again?" + +"I hope so. And I trust, Miss Leaf, that I do not intrude to-day." + +He said this with his Scotch shyness, or pride, or whatever it was; +so like his old self, that it made somebody smile! But somebody loved +it. Somebody lifted up to his face eyes of silent welcome; sweet, +soft, brown eyes, where never, since he knew them, had he seen one +cloud of anger darken, one shadow of unkindness rise. + +"This is something worth coming home to," he said in a low voice, and +not over lucidly. Ay, it was. + +"I am by no means disinterested in the matter of dinner, Miss Leaf; +for I have no doubt of finding good English roast beef and plum +pudding on your sister's birth day.--Happy returns of the day, Miss +Hilary." + +She was so touched by his remembering this, that, to hide it, she put +on a spice of her old mischievousness, and asked him if he was aware +how old she was? + +"Yes; you are thirty; I have known you for fifteen years." + +"It is a long time," said Johanna, thoughtfully. + +Johanna would not have been human had she not been a little +thoughtful and silent on the way home, and had she not many times, +out of the corners of her eyes, sharply investigated Mr. Robert Lyon. + +He was much altered; there was no doubt of that. Seven years of +Indian life would change any body; take the youthfulness out of any +body. It was so with Robert Lyon. When coming into the parlor he +removed his hat, many a white thread was visible in his hair, and +besides the spare, dried-up look which is always noticeable in people +who have lived long in hot climates, there was an "old" expression in +his face, indicating many a worldly battle fought and won, but not +without leaving scars behind. Even Hilary, as she sat opposite to +him, at table, could not but feel that he was no longer a young man +either in appearance or reality. We ourselves grow old, or older, +without knowing it, but when we suddenly come upon the same fact in +another it startles us. Hilary had scarcely recognized how far she +herself had left her girlish days behind till she saw Robert Lyon. + +"You think me very much changed?" said he, guessing by his curiously +swift intuition of old what she was thinking of. + +"Yes, a good deal changed," she answered truthfully; at which he was +silent. + +He could not read--perhaps no man's heart could--all the emotion that +swelled in hers as she looked at him, the love of her youth, no +longer young. How the ghostly likeness of the former face gleamed out +under the hard worn lines of the face that now was touching her with +ineffable tenderness. Also, with solemn content came a sense of the +entire indestructibleness of that love which through all decay or +alteration traces the ideal image still, clings to it, and cherishes +it with a tenacity that laughs to scorn the grim dread of "growing +old." + +In his premature and not specially comely middle age, in his gray +hairs, in the painful, anxious, half melancholy expression which +occasionally flitted across his features, as if life had gone hard +with him, Robert Lyon was a thousand times dearer to her than when +the world was all before them both in the early days at Stowbury. + +There is a great deal of a sentimental nonsense talked about people +having been "young together." Not necessarily is that a bond. Many a +tie formed in youth dwindles away and breaks off naturally in maturer +years. Characters alter, circumstances divide. No one will dare to +allege that there may not be loves and friendships formed in middle +life as dear, as close, as firm as any of those of youth; perhaps, +with some temperaments, infinitely more so. But when the two go +together, when the calm election of maturity confirms the early +instinct, and the lives have been parallel, as it were, for many +years, there can be no bond like that of those who say as these two +did, "We were young together." + +He said so when, after dinner, he came and stood by the window where +Hilary was sitting sewing. Johanna had just gone out of the room; +whether intentionally or not, this history can not avouch. Let us +give her the benefit of the doubt; she was a generous woman. + +During the three hours that Mr. Lyon had been with her, Hilary's +first agitation had subsided. That exceeding sense of rest which she +had always felt beside him--the sure index of people who, besides +loving, are meant to guide and help and bless one another--returned +as strong as ever. That deep affection which should underlie all love +revived and clung to him with a chidlike confidence strengthening at +every word he said, every familiar look and way. + +He was by no means so composed as she was, especially now when coming +up to her side and watching her hands moving for a minute or so, he +asked her to tell him, a little more explicitly, of what had happened +to her since they parted. + +"Things are rather different from what I thought;" and he glanced +with a troubled air round the neat but very humbly furnished parlor. +"And about the shop?" + +"Johanna told you." + +"Yes; but her letters have been so few, so short--not that I could +expect more. Still--now, if you will trust me--tell me all." + +Hilary turned to him, her friend for fifteen years. He was that if he +was nothing more. And he had been very true; he deserved to be +trusted. She told him, in brief, the history of the last year or two, +and then added: + +"But after all it is hardly worth the telling, because, you see, we +are very comfortable now. Poor Ascott, we suppose, must be in +Australia. I earn enough to keep Johanna and myself, and Miss +Balquidder is a good friend to us. We have repaid her, and owe nobody +any thing. Still, we have suffered a great deal. Two years ago; oh! +it was a dreadful time." + +She was hardly aware of it, but her candid tell-tale face betrayed +more even than her words. It cut Robert Lyon to the heart. + +"You suffered, and I never knew it." + +"I never meant you to know." + +"Why not?" He walked the room in great excitement. "I ought to have +been told; it was cruel not to tell me. Suppose you had sunk under +it; suppose you had died, or been driven to do what many a woman does +for the sake of mere bread and a home--what your poor sister +did--married. But I beg your pardon." + +For Hilary had started up with her face all aglow. + +"No," she cried; "no poverty would have sunk me as low as that. I +might have starved, but I should never have married." + +Robert Lyon looked at her, evidently uncomprehending, then said +humbly, though rather formally, + +"I beg your pardon once more. I had no right to allude to any thing +of the kind." + +Hilary replied not. It seemed as if now, close together, they were +further apart than when the Indian seas rolled between them. + +Mr. Lyon's brown cheek turned paler and paler; he pressed his lips +hard together; they moved once or twice, but still he did not utter a +word. At last, with a sort of desperate courage, and in a tone that +Hilary had never heard from him in her life before, he said: + +"Yes, I believe I have a right, the right that every man has when his +whole happiness depends upon it, to ask you one question. You know +every thing concerning me; you always have known; I meant that you +should--I have taken the utmost care that you should. There is not a +bit of my life that has not been as open to you as if--as if--. But I +know nothing whatever concerning you." + +"What do you wish to know?" she faltered. + +"Seven years is a long time. Are you free? I mean, are you engaged to +be married?" + +"No." + +"Thank God!" + +He dropped his head down between his hands and did not speak for a +long time. + +And then with difficulty--for it was always hard to him to speak +out--he told her, at least he somehow made her understand, how he had +loved her. No light fancy of sentimental youth, captivated by every +fresh face it sees, putting upon each one the coloring of his own +imagination, and adorning not what is, but what itself creates; no +sudden, selfish, sensuous passion, caring only to attain its object, +irrespective of reason, right, or conscience; but the strong deep +love of a just man, deliberately choosing one woman as the best woman +out of all the world, and setting himself resolutely to win her. +Battling for her sake with all hard fortune; keeping, for her sake, +his heart pure from all the temptations of the world; never losing +sight of her; watching over her so far as he could, consistently with +the sense of honor (or masculine pride--which was it? but Hilary +forgave it, any how) which made him resolutely compel himself to +silence; holding her perfectly free, while he held himself bound. +Bound by a faithfulness perfect as that of the knights of old--asking +nothing, and yet giving all. + +Such was his love--this brave, plain spoken, single hearted Scotsman. +Would that there were more such men and more such love in the world! +Few women could have resisted it, certainly not Hilary, especially +with a little secret of her own lying perdu at the bottom of her +heart; that "sleeping angel" whence half her strength and courage had +come; the noble, faithful, generous love of a good woman for a good +man. But this secret Robert Lyon had evidently never guessed, or +deemed himself wholly unworthy of such a possession. + +He took her hand at last, and held it firmly. + +"And now that you know all, do you think in time--I'll not hurry +you--but in time, do you think I could make you love me?" + +She looked up in his face with her honest eyes. Smiling as they were, +there was pathos in them; the sadness left by those long years of +hidden suffering, now forever ended. + +"I have loved you all my life," said Hilary. + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +Let us linger a little over this chapter of happy love: so sweet, so +rare a thing. Aye, most rare: though hundreds continually meet, love, +or fancy they do, engage themselves, and marry; and hundreds more go +through the same proceeding, with the slight difference of the love +omitted--Hamlet, with the part of Hamlet left out. But the real love, +steady and true: tried in the balance, and not found wanting: tested +by time, silence, separation; by good and ill fortune; by the natural +and inevitable change which years make in every character--this is +the rarest thing to be found on earth, and the most precious. + +I do not say that all love is worthless which is not exactly this +sort of love. There have been people who have succumbed instantly and +permanently to some mysterious attraction, higher than all reasoning; +the same which made Hilary "take an interest" in Robert Lyon's face +at church, and made him, he afterward confessed, the very first time +he gave Ascott a lesson in the parlor at Stowbury, say to himself, +"If I did marry, I think I should like such a wife as that brown-eyed +bit lassie." And there have been other people, who choosing their +partners from accidental circumstances, or from mean worldly motives, +have found Providence kinder to them than they deserved, and settled +down into happy, affectionate husbands and wives. + +But none of these loves can possibly have the sweetness, the +completeness of such a love as that between Hilary Leaf and Robert +Lyon. + +There was nothing very romantic about it. From the moment when +Johanna entered the parlor, found them standing hand-in-hand at the +fireside, and Hilary came forward and kissed her, and after a slight +hesitation Robert did the same, the affair proceeded in most millpond +fashion: + + "Unruffled by those cataracts and breaks, + That humor interposed too often makes.': + +There were no lovers' quarrels; Robert Lyon had chosen that best +blessing next to a good woman, a sweet tempered woman; and there was +no reason why they should quarrel more as lovers than they had done +as friends. And, let it be said to the eternal honor of both, now, no +more than in their friendship days, was there any of that hungry +engrossment of each other's society, which is only another form of +selfishness, and by which lovers so often make their own happy +courting time a season of never-to-be-forgotten bitterness to every +body connected with them. + +Johanna suffered a little: all people do when the new rights clash +with the old ones; but she rarely betrayed it. She was exceedingly +good: she saw her child happy, and she loved Robert Lyon dearly. He +was very mindful of her, very tender; and as Hilary still persisted +in doing her daily duty in the shop, he spent more of his time with +the elder sister than he did with the younger, and sometimes declared +solemnly that if Hilary did not treat him well he intended to make an +offer to Johanna! + +Oh, the innumerable little jokes of those happy days! Oh, the long, +quiet walks by the river side, through the park, across Ham +Common--any where--it did not matter; the whole world looked lovely, +even on the dullest winter day! Oh, the endless talks; the renewed +mingling of two lives, which, though divided, had never been really +apart, for neither had any thing to conceal; neither had ever loved +any but the other. + +Robert Lyon was, as I have said, a good deal changed, outwardly and +inwardly. He had mixed much in society, taken an excellent position +therein, and this had given him not only a more polished manner, but +an air of decision and command, as of one used to be obeyed. There +could not be the slightest doubt, as Johanna once laughingly told +him, that he would always be "master in his own house." + +But he was very gentle with his "little woman" as he called her. He +would sit for hours at the "ingle-neuk"--how he did luxuriate in the +English fires!--with Hilary on a footstool beside him, her arm +resting on his knee, or her hand fast clasped in his. And sometimes, +when Johanna went out of the room, he would stoop and gather her +close to his heart. But I shall tell no tales; the world has no +business with these sort of things. + +Hilary was very shy of parading her happiness; she disliked any +demonstrations thereof, even before Johanna. And when Miss +Balquidder, who had, of course, been told of the engagement, came +down one day expressly to see her "fortunate fellow countryman," this +Machiavellian little woman actually persuaded her lover to have an +important engagement in London! She could not bear him to be "looked +at." + +"Ah, well, you must leave me, and I will miss you terribly, my deal," +said the old Scotch woman. But it's an ill wind that blows nobody +good, and I have another young lady quite ready to step into your +shoes. When shall you be married?" + +"I don't know--hush: we'll talk another time," said Hilary, glancing +at Johanna. + +Miss Balquidder took the hint and was silent. + +That important question was indeed beginning to weigh heavily on +Hilary's mind. She was fully aware of what Mr. Lyon wished, and +indeed, expected; that when, the business of the firm being settled, +in six months hence he returned to India, he should not return alone. +When he said this, she had never dared to answer, hardly even to +think. She let the peaceful present float on, day by day, without +recognizing such a thing as the future. + +But this could not be always. It came to an end one January +afternoon, when he had returned from a second absence in Liverpool. +They were walking up Richmond Hill. The sun had set frostily and red +over the silver curve of the Thames, and Venus, large and bright, was +shining like a great eye in the western sky. Hilary long remembered +exactly how every thing looked, even to the very tree they stood +under, when Robert Lyon asked her to fix definitely the day that she +would marry him. Would she consent--there seemed no special reason to +the contrary--that it should be immediately? Or would she like to +remain with Johanna as she was, till just before they sailed? He +wished to be as good as possible to Johanna--still. + +And something in his manner impressed Hilary more than ever before +with the conviction of all she was to him; likewise, all he was to +her. More, much more than even a few short weeks since. Then, intense +as it was, the love had a dream like unreality; now it was close, +home-like, familiar. Instinctively she clung to his arm; she had +become so used to being Robert's darling now. She shivered as she +thought of the wide seas rolling between them; of the time when she +should look for him at the daily meal and daily fireside, and find +him no more. + +"Robert, I want to talk to you about Johanna." + +"I guess what it is," said he, smiling; "you would like her to go out +to India with us. Certainly, if she chooses. I hope you did not +suppose I should object." + +"No; but it is not that. She would not live six months in a hot +climate; the doctor tells me so." + +"You consulted him?" + +"Yes, confidentially, without her knowing it. But I thought it right. +I wanted to make quite sure before--before-- Oh, Robert--." + +The grief of her tone caused him to suspect what was coming, He +started. + +"You don't mean that? Oh no, you can not! My little woman, my own +little woman--she could not be so unkind." + +Hilary turned sick at heart. The dim landscape, the bright sky, +seemed to mingle and dance before her, and Venus to stare at her with +a piercing, threatening, baleful lustre. + +"Robert, let me sit down on the bench, and sit you beside me. It is +too dark for people to notice us, and we shall not be very cold." + +"No, my darling;" and he slipped his plaid round her shoulders, and +his arm with it. + +She looked up pitifully. "Don't be vexed with me, Robert, dear; I +have thought it all over; weighed it on every side; nights and nights +I have been awake pondering what was right to do. And it always comes +to the same thing." + +"What?" + +"It's the old story," she answered with a feeble smile. "'I canna +leave my minnie.' There is nobody in the world to take care of +Johanna but me, not even Elizabeth, who is engrossed in little Henry. +If I left her, I am sure it would kill her. And she can not come with +me. Dear!" (the only fond name she ever called him) "for these three +years--you say it need only be three years--you will have to go back +to India alone." + +Robert Lyon was a very good man; but he was only a man, not an angle; +and though he made comparatively little show of it, he was a man very +deeply in love. With that jealous tenacity over his treasure, hardly +blamable, since the love is worth little which does not wish to have +its object "all to itself," he had, I am afraid, contemplated not +without pleasure the carrying off of Hilary to his Indian home; and +it had cost him something to propose that Johanna should go too. He +was very fond of Johanna; still-- + +If I tell what followed will it forever lower Robert Lyon in the +estimation of all readers? He said, coldly, "As you please, Hilary;" +rose up, and never spoke another word till they reached home. + +It was the first dull tea table they had ever known; the first time +Hilary had ever looked at that dear face, and seen an expression +there which made her look away again. He did not sulk; he was too +gentlemanly for that; he even exerted himself to make the meal pass +pleasantly as usual; but he was evidently deeply wounded; nay, more, +displeased. The strong, stern man's nature within him had rebelled; +the sweetness had gone out of his face, and something had come into +it which the very best of men have sometimes: alas for the woman who +cannot understand and put up with it! + +I am not going to preach the doctrine of tyrants and slaves; but when +two walk together they must be agreed, or if by any chance they are +not agreed, one must yield. It may not always be the weaker, or in +weakness may lie the chiefest strength; but it must be one or other +of the two who has to be the first to give way; and, save in very +exceptional cases, it is, and it ought to be, the woman. God's law +and nature's which is also God's, ordains this; instinct teaches it; +Christianity enforces it. + +Will it inflict a death blow upon any admiration she may have +excited, this brave little Hilary, who fought through the world by +herself; who did not shrink from traversing London streets alone at +seemly and unseemly hours; from going into sponging houses and +debtor's prisons; from earning her own livelihood, even in a shop--if +I confess that Robert Lyon, being angry with her, justly or unjustly, +and she, looking upon him as her future husband, her "lord and +master" if you will, whom she would one day promise, and intended, +literally "to obey"--she thought it her duty, not only her pleasure +but her duty, to be the first to make reconciliation between them? +ay, and at every sacrifice, except that of principle. + +And I am afraid, in spite of all that "strong-minded" women may +preach to the contrary, that all good women will have to do this to +all men who stand in any close relation toward them, whether fathers, +husbands, brothers, or lovers, if they wish to preserve peace, and +love, and holy domestic influence; and that so it must be to the end +of time. + +Miss Leaf might have discovered that something was amiss; but she was +too wise to take any notice, and being more than usually feeble that +day, immediately after tea she went to lie down. When Hilary followed +her, arranged her pillows, and covered her up, Johanna drew her +child's face close to her and whispered, + +"That will do, love. Don't stay with me. I would not keep you from +Robert on any account." + +Hilary all but broke down; and yet the words made her stronger +firmer; set more clearly before her the solemn duty which young folks +in love are so apt to forget, that there can be no blessing on the +new tie, if for any thing short of inevitable necessity they let go +one link of the old. + +Yet, Robert-- It was such a new and dreadful feeling to be standing +outside the door and shrink from going in to him; to see him rise up +formally, saying, "Perhaps he had better leave;" and have to answer +with equal formality, "Not unless you are obliged;" and for him then, +with a shallow pretence of being at ease, to take up a book and offer +to read aloud to her while she worked. He--who used always to set his +face strongly against all sewing of evenings--because it deprived him +temporarily of the sweet eyes, and the little soft hand. Oh, it was +hard, hard! + +Nevertheless, she sat still and tried to listen; but the words went +in at one ear and out at the other; she retained nothing. By-and-by +her throat began to swell, and she could not see her needle and +thread. Yet still he went on reading. It was only when, by some +blessed chance, turning to reach a paper cutter, he caught sight of +her, that he closed the book and looked discomposed; not softened, +only discomposed. + +Who shall be first to speak? Who shall catch the passing angel's +wing? One minute, and it may have passed over. I am not apologizing +for Hilary the least in the world. I do not know even if she +considered whether it was her place or Robert's to make the first +advance. Indeed, I fear she did not consider it at all, but just +acted upon impulse, because it was so cruel, so heart breaking, to be +at variance with him. But if she had considered it I doubt not she +would have done from duty exactly what she did by instinct--crept up +to him as he sat at the fireside, and laid her little hand on his. + +"Robert, what makes you so angry with me still?" + +"Not angry; I have no right to be." + +"Yes, you would have if I had really done wrong. Have I?" + +"You must judge for yourself. For me--I thought you loved me better +than I find you do, and I made a mistake; that is all." + +Ay, he had made a mistake, but it was not that one. It was the other +mistake that men continually make about women; they can not +understand that love is not worth having, that it is not love at all, +but merely a selfish carrying out of selfish desires, if it blinds us +to any other duty, or blunts in us any other sacred tenderness. They +can not see how she who is false in one relation may be false in +another; and that, true as human nature's truth, ay, and often +fulfilling itself, is Brabantio's ominous warning to Othello-- + + "Look to her, Moor! have a good eye to see; + She has deceived her father, and may thee." + +Perhaps as soon as he had said the bitter word Mr. Lyon was sorry, +any how, the soft answer which followed it thrilled through every +nerve of the strong willed man--a man not easily made angry, but when +he was, very hard to move. + +"Robert, will you listen to me for two minutes?" + +"For as long as you like, only you must not expect me to agree with +you. You can not suppose I shall say it is right for you to forsake +me." + +"I forsake you? Oh, Robert!" + +Words are not always the wisest arguments. His "little woman" crept +closer, and laid her head on his breast: he clasped convulsively. + +"Oh, Hilary, how could you wound me so?" + +And in lieu of the discussion, a long silence brooded over the +fireside--the silence of exceeding love. + +"Now, Robert, may I talk to you?" + +"Yes. Preach away, my little conscience." + +"It shall not be preaching, and it is not altogether for conscience," +said she smiling. "You would not like me to tell you I did not love +Johanna?" + +"Certainly not. I love her very much myself, only I prefer you, as is +natural. Apparently you do not prefer me, which may also be natural." + +"Robert!" + +There are times when a laugh is better than a reproach; and something +else, which need not be more particularly explained, is safer than +either. It is possible Hilary tried the experiment, and then resumed +her "say." + +"Now, Robert put yourself in my place, and try to think for me. I +have been Johanna's child for thirty years; she is entirely dependent +upon me. Her health is feeble; every year of her life is at least +doubtful. If she lost me I think she would never live out the next +three years. You would not like that?" + +"No." + +"In all divided duties like this somebody must suffer; the question +is, which can suffer best? She is old and frail, we are young; she is +alone, we are two; she never had any happiness in her life, except, +perhaps me; and we--oh how happy we are! I think, Robert, it would be +better for us to suffer than poor Johanna." + +"You little Jesuit," he said: but the higher nature of the man was +roused; he was no longer angry. + +"It is only for a short time, remember--only three years." + +"And how can I do without you for three years?" + +"Yes, Robert, you can." And she put her arms round his neck, and +looked at him, eye to eye. "You know I am your very own, a piece of +yourself, as it were; that when I let you go it is like tearing +myself from myself; yet I can bear it, rather than do, or let you do, +in the smallest degree, a thing which is not right." + +Robert Lyon was not a man of many words; but he had the rare faculty +of seeing a case clearly, without reference to himself, and of +putting it clearly also, when necessary. + +"It seems to me, Hilary, that this is hardly a matter of abstract +right or wrong, or a good deal might be argued on my side of the +subject. It is more a case of personal conscience. The two are not +always identical, though they look so at first; but they both come to +the same result." + +"And that is--" + +"If my little woman thinks it right to act as she does, I also think +it right to let her. And let this be the law of our married life, if +we ever are married," and he sighed, "that when we differ each should +respect the other's conscience, and do right in the truest sense, by +allowing the other to do the same." + +"Oh, Robert! how good you are." + +So these two, an hour after, met Johanna with cheerful faces; and she +never knew how much both had sacrificed for her sake. Once only, when +she was for a few minutes absent from the parlor, did Robert Lyon +renew the subject, to suggest a medium course. + +But Hilary resolutely refused. Not that she doubted him--she doubted +herself. She knew quite well by the pang that darted through her like +a shaft of ice, as she felt his warm arm round her, and thought of +the time when she would feel it no more, that, after she had been +Robert Lyon's happy wife for three months, to let him go to India +without her would be simply and utterly impossible. + +Fast fled the months; they dwindled into weeks, and then into days. I +shall not enlarge upon this time. Now, when the ends of the world +have been drawn together, and every family has one or more relatives +abroad, a grief like Hilary's has become so common that nearly every +one can, in degree, understand it. How bitter such partings are, how +much they take out of the brief span of mortal life, and, therefore, +how far they are justifiable, for any thing short of absolute +necessity, Heaven knows. + +In this case it was an absolutely necessity. Robert Lyon's position +in "our firm," with which he identified himself with the natural +pride of a man who has diligently worked his way up to fortune, was +such that he could not, without sacrificing his future prospects, and +likewise what he felt to be a point of honor, refuse to go back to +Bombay until such time as his senior partner's son, the young fellow +whom he had "coached" in Hindostanee, and nursed through a fever +years ago, could conveniently take his place abroad. + +"Of course," he said, explaining this to Hilary and her sister, +"accidental circumstances might occur to cause my return home before +the three years were out, but the act must be none of mine; I must do +my duty." + +"Yes, you must," answered Hilary, with a gleam lighting up her eyes. +She loved so in him this one great principle of his life--the +back-bone of it, as it were--duty before all things. + +Johanna asked no questions. Once she had inquired, with a tremulous, +hardly concealed alarm, whether Robert wished to take Hilary back +with him, and Hilary had kissed her, smilingly, saying, "No, that was +impossible." Afterward the subject was never revived. + +And so these two lovers, both stern in what they thought their duty, +went on silently together to the last day of parting. + +It was almost as quiet a day as that never-to-be-forgotten Sunday at +Stowbury. They went a long walk together, in the course of which Mr. +Lyon forced her to agree to what hitherto she had steadfastly +resisted, that she and Johanna should accept from him enough, in +addition to their own fifty pounds a year, to enable them to live +comfortably without her working any more. + +"Are you ashamed of my working?" she asked, with something between a +tear and a smile. "Sometimes I used to be afraid you would think the +less of me because circumstances made me an independent woman, +earning my own bread. Do you?" + +"My darling, no. I am proud of her. But she must never work any more. +Johanna says right; it is a man's place, and not a woman's. I will +not allow it." + +When he spoke in that tone Hilary always submitted. + +He told her another thing while arranging with her all the business +part of their concerns, and to reconcile her to this partial +dependence upon him, which, he urged, was only forestalling his +rights; that before he first quitted England, seven years ago, he had +made his will, leaving her, if still unmarried, his sole heir and +legatee, indeed in exactly the position that she would have been had +she been his wife. + +"This will exists still; so that in any case you are safe. No further +poverty can ever befall my Hilary." + +His--his own--Robert Lyon's own. Her sense of this was so strong that +it took away the sharpness of the parting, made her feel, up to the +very last minute, when she clung to him--was pressed close to +him--heart to heart and lip to lip--for a space that seemed half a +life-time of mixed anguish and joy--that he was not really going; +that somehow or other, next day or next week he would be back again, +as in his frequent re-appearances, exactly as before. + +When he was really gone--when, as she sat with her tearless eyes +fixed on the closed door--Johanna softly touched her, saying, "My +child" then Hilary learned it all. + +The next twenty-four hours will hardly bear being written about. Most +people know what it is to miss the face out of the house--the life +out of the heart. To come and go, to eat and drink, to lie down and +rise, and find all thing the same, and gradually to recognize that it +must be the same, indefinitely, perhaps always. To be met continually +by small trifles--a dropped glove, a book, a scrap of handwriting +that yesterday would have been thrown into the fire, but to-day is +picked up and kept as a relic; and at times, bursting through the +quietness which must be gained, or at least assumed, the cruel +craving for one word more--one kiss more--for only one five minutes +of the eternally ended yesterday! + +All this hundreds have gone through; so did Hilary. She said +afterward it was good for her that she did; it would make her feel +for others in a way she had never felt before. Also, because it +taught her that such a heart-break can be borne and lived through +when help is sought where only real help can be found; and where, +when reason fails, and those who, striving to do right irrespective +of the consequences, cry out against their torments and wonder why +they should be made so to suffer, childlike faith comes to their +rescue. For, let us have all the philosophy at our fingers' ends, +what are we but children? We know not what a day may bring forth. All +wisdom resolves itself into the simple hymn which we learned when we +were young: + + "Deep in unfathomable mines + Of never-failing skill. + He treasures up His vast designs, + And works His sovereign will. + + "Blind unbelief is sure to err. + And scan His work in vain: + God is His own interpreter. + And He will make it plain." + +The night after Robert Lyon left, Hilary and Johanna were sitting +together in their parlor. Hilary had been writing a long letter to +Miss Balquidder, explaining that she would now give up in favor of +the other young lady, or any other of the many to whom it would be a +blessing, her position in the shop; but that she hoped still to help +her--Miss Balquidder--in any way she could point out that would be +useful to others. She wished, in her humble way, as a sort of thank +offering from one who had passed through the waves and been landed +safe ashore, to help those who were still struggling, as she herself +had struggled once. She desired, as far as in her lay, to be Miss +Balquidder's "right hand" till Mr. Lyon came home. + +This letter she read aloud to Johanna, whose failing eye sight +refused all candle light occupation, and then came and sat beside her +in silence. She felt terribly worn and weary, but she was very quiet +now. + +"We must go to bed early," was all she said. + +"Yes, my child." + +And Johanna smoothed her hair in the old, fond way, making no attempt +to console her, but only to love her--always the safest consolation. +And Hilary was thankful that never, even in her sharpest agonies of +grief, had she betrayed that secret which would have made her +sister's life miserable, have blotted out the thirty years of +motherly love, and caused the other love to rise up like a cloud +between her and it, never to be lifted until Johanna sank into the +possibly not far-off grave. + +"No, no," she thought to herself, as she looked on that frail, old +face, which even the secondary, grief of this last week seemed to +have made frailer and older. "No, it is better as it is; I believe I +did right. The end will show." + +The end was nearer than she thought. So, sometimes--not often, lest +self-sacrifice should become a less holy thing than it is--Providence +accepts the will for the act, and makes the latter needless. + +There was a sudden knock at the hall door. "It is the young people +coming in to supper." + +"It's not," said Hilary, starting up--"it's not their knock. It is--" + +She never finished the sentence, for she was sobbing in Robert Lyon's +arms. + +"What does it all mean?" cried the bewildered Johanna, of whom, I +must confess, for once nobody took the least notice. + +It meant that, by one of these strange accidents, as we call them, +which in a moment alter the whole current of things, the senior +partner had suddenly died, and his son, not being qualified to take +his place in the Liverpool house, had to go out to India instead of +Robert Lyon, who would now remain permanently, as the third senior +partner, in England. + +This news had met him at Southampton. He had gone thence direct to +Liverpool, arranged affairs so far as was possible, and returned, +traveling without an hour's intermission, to tell his own tidings, as +was best--or as he thought it was. + +Perhaps at the core of his heart lurked the desire to come suddenly +back, as, it is said, if the absent or the dead should come, they +would find all things changed; the place filled up in home and +hearth--no face of welcome--no heart leaping to heart in the ecstasy +of reunion. + +Well, if Robert Lyon had any misgivings--and being a man, and in +love, perhaps he had--they were ended now. + +"Is she glad to see me?" was all he could find to say when, Johanna +having considerately vanished, he might have talked as much as he +pleased. + +Hilary's only answer was a little, low laugh of inexpressible +content. + +He lifted up between his bands the sweet face, neither so young nor +so pretty as it had been, but oh! so sweet, with the sweetness that +long outlives beauty--a face that a man might look on all his life +time and never tire of--so infinitely loving, so infinitely true! And +he knew it was his wife's face, to shine upon him day by day, and +year by year, till it faded into old age--beautiful and beloved even +then. All the strong nature of the man gave way; he wept almost like +a child in his "little woman's" arms. + +Let us leave them there, by that peaceful fireside--these two, who +are to sit by one fire-side as long as they live. Of their further +fortune we know nothing--nor do they themselves--except the one fact, +in itself joy enough for any mortal cup to hold, that it will be +shared together. Two at the hearth, two abroad; two to labor, two to +rejoice; or, if so it must be, two to weep, and two to comfort one +another; the man to be the head of the woman, and the woman the heart +of the man. This is the ordination of God; this is the perfect life; +none the less perfect that so many fall short of it. + +So let us bid them good-by: Robert Lyon and Hilary Leaf, "Good-by; +God be with ye!" for we shall see them no more. + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +Elizabeth stood at the nursery window, pointing out to little Henry +how the lilacs and laburnums were coming into flower in the square +below, and speculating with him whether the tribe of sparrows which +they had fed all the winter from the mignonette boxes on the window +sill would be building nests in the tall trees of Russell Square; for +she wished, with her great aversion to London, to make her nursling +as far as possible "a country child." + +Master Henry Leaf Ascott was by no means little now. He would run +about on his tottering fat legs, and he could say, "Mammy Lizzie," +also, "Pa-pa," as had been carefully taught him by his conscientious +nurse. At which papa had been at first excessively surprised, then +gratified, and had at last taken kindly to the appellation as a +matter of course. + +It inaugurated a new era in Peter Ascott's life. At first twice a +week, and then every day, he sent up for "Master Ascott" to keep him +company at dessert; he then changed his dinner hour from half past +six to five, because Elizabeth, with her stern sacrifice of every +thing to the child's good, had suggested to him, humbly but firmly, +that late hours kept little Henry too long out of his bed. He gave up +his bottle of port and his after-dinner sleep, and took to making +water-lilies and caterpillars out of oranges and boats out of walnut +shells, for his boy's special edification. Sometimes when, at half +past six, Elizabeth, punctual as clock-work, knocked at the dining +room door, she heard father and son laughing together in a most +jovial manner, though the decanters were in their places and the wine +glasses untouched. + +And even after the child disappeared, the butler declared that master +usually took quietly to his newspaper, or rang for his tea, or +perhaps dozed harmlessly in his chair till bedtime. + +I do not allege that Peter Ascott was miraculously changed; people do +not change, especially at his age; externally he was still the same +pompous, overbearing, coarse man, with whom, no doubt, his son would +have a tolerably sore bargain in years to come. But still the child +had touched a soft corner in his heart, the one soft corner which in +his youth had yielded to the beauty of Miss Selina Leaf; and the old +fellow was a better fellow than he had once been. Probably, with +care, he might be for the rest of his life at least manageable. + +Elizabeth hoped so for his boy's sake, and little as she liked him, +she tried to conquer her antipathy as much as she could. She always +ways took care to treat him with extreme respect, and to bring up +little Henry to do the same. And, as often happens, Mr. Ascott began +gradually to comport himself in a manner deserving of respect. He +ceased his oaths and his coarse language; seldom flew into a passion; +and last, not least, the butler avouched that master hardly ever went +to bed "muzzy" now. Toward all his domestics, and especially his +son's nurse, he behaved himself more like a master and less like a +tyrant; so that the establishment at Russell Square went on in a way +more peaceful than had ever been known before. + +There was no talk of his giving it a new mistress; he seemed to have +had enough of matrimony. Of his late wife he never spoke; whether he +loved her or not, whether he had regretted her or not, the love and +regret were now alike ended. + +Poor Selina! It was Elizabeth only, who, with a sacred sense of duty, +occasionally talked to little Henry about "mamma up there"--pointing +to the blank bit of blue sky over the trees of Russell Square, and +hoped in time to make him understand something about her, and how she +had loved him, her "baby." This love, the only beautiful emotion her +life had known, was the one fragment that remained of it after her +death; the one remembrance she left to her child. + +Little Henry was not in the least like her, nor yet like his father. +He took after some forgotten type, some past generation of either +family, which reappeared in this as something new. To Elizabeth he +was a perfect revelation of beauty and infantile fascination. He +filled up every corner of her heart. She grew fat and flourishing, +even cheerful; so cheerful that she bore with equanimity the parting +with her dear Miss Hilary, who went away in glory and happiness as +Mrs. Robert Lyon, to live in Liverpool, and Miss Leaf with her. Thus +both Elizabeth's youthful dreams ended in nothing, and it was more +than probable that for the future their lives and hers being so +widely apart, she would see very little of her beloved mistresses any +more. But they had done their work in her and for her; and it had +borne fruit a hundred fold, and would still. + +"I know you will take care of this child--he is the hope of the +family," said Miss Leaf, when she was giving her last kiss to little +Henry. "I could not bear to leave him, if I were not leaving him with +you." + +And Elizabeth had taken her charge proudly in her arms, knowing she +was trusted, and in vowing to be worthy of that trust. + +Another dream was likewise ended; so completely that she sometimes +wondered if it was ever real, whether she had ever been a happy girl, +looking forward as girls do to wifehood and motherhood; or whether +she had not been always the staid middle aged person she was now, +whom nobody ever suspected of any such things. + +She had been once back to her old home, to settle her mother +comfortably upon a weekly allowance, to 'prentice her little brother, +to see one sister married, and the other sent off to Liverpool, to be +servant to Mrs. Lyon. While at Stowbury, she had heard by chance of +Tom Cliffe's passing through the town as a Chartist lecturer, or +something of the sort, with his pretty, showy London wife, who, when +he brought her there, had looked down rather contemptuously upon the +street where Tom was born. + +This was all Elizabeth knew about them. They, too, had passed from +her life as phases of keen joy and keener sorrow do pass, like a +dream and the shadows of a dream. It may be, life itself will seem at +the end to be nothing more. + +But Elizabeth Hand's love story was not so to end. + +One morning, the same morning when she had been pointing out the +lilacs to little Henry, and now came in from the square with a branch +of them in her hand, the postman gave her a letter; the handwriting +of which made her start as if it had been a visitation from the dead. + +"Mammy Lizzie, mammy Lizzie!" cried little Henry, plucking at her +gown, but for once his nurse did not notice him. She stood on the +door-step, trembling violently; at length she put the letter into her +pocket, lifted the child, and got up stairs somehow. When she had +settled her charge to his mid-day sleep, then, and not till then, did +she take out and read the few lines, which, though written on shabby +paper, and with more than one blot, were so like--yet so terribly +unlike--Tom's calligraphy of old: + +"DEAR ELIZABETH,--I have no right to ask any kindness of you; but if +you would like to see an old friend alive, I wish you would come and +see me. I have been long of asking you, lest you might fancy I wanted +to get something out of you; for I'm as poor as a rat; and once +lately I saw you, looking so well and well-to-do. But it was the same +kind old face, and I should like to get one kind look from it before +I go where I sha'n't want any kindness from any body. However, do +just as you choose. + +"Yours affectionately, +T. CLIFFE. + +"Underneath is my address." + +It was in one of those wretched nooks in Westminster, now swept away +by Victoria Street and other improvements. Elizabeth happened to have +read about it in one of the many charitable pamphlets, reports, etc., +which were sent continually to the wealthy Mr. Ascott, and which he +sent down stairs to light fires with. What must not poor Tom have +sunk to before he had come to live there? His letter was like a cry +out of the depths, and the voice was that of her youth, her first +love. + +Is any woman ever deaf to that? The love may have died a natural +death; many first loves do: a riper, completer, happier love may have +come in its place; but there must be something unnatural about the +woman and man likewise, who can ever quite forget it--the dew of +their youth--the beauty of their dawn. + +"Poor Tom, poor Tom!" sighed Elizabeth, "my own poor Tom!" + +She forgot Esther; either from Tom's not mentioning her, or in the +strong return to old times which his letter produced; forgot her for +the time being as completely as if she had never existed. Even when +the recollection came it made little difference. The sharp jealousy, +the dislike and contempt had all calmed down: she thought she could +now see Tom's wife as any other woman. Especially if, as the letter +indicated, they were so very poor and miserable. + +Possibly Esther had suggested writing it? Perhaps, though Tom did +not, Esther did "want to get something out of her"--Elizabeth Hand, +who was known to have large wages, and to be altogether a thriving +person? Well, it mattered little. The one fact remained: Tom was in +distress; Tom needed her; she must go. + +Her only leisure time was of an evening, after Henry was in bed. The +intervening hours, especially the last one, when the child was down +stairs with his father, calmed her; subdued the tumult of old +remembrances that came surging up and beating at the long shut door +of her heart. When her boy returned, leaping and laughing, and +playing all sorts of tricks as she put him to bed, she could smile +too. And when kneeling beside her in his pretty white night gown, he +stammered through the prayer she had thought it right to begin to +teach him, though of course he was too young to understand it--the +words "Thy will be done;" "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive +those who trespass against us;" and lastly, "Lead us not into +temptation, but deliver us from evil," struck home to his nurse's in +most soul. + +"Mammy, mammy Lizzie's 'tying." + +Yes, she was crying, but it did her good. She was able to kiss her +little boy, who slept like a top in five minutes: then she took off +her good silk gown, and dressed herself; soberly and decently, but so +that people should not suspect, in that low and dangerous +neighborhood, the sovereigns that she carried in an under pocket, +ready to use as occasion required. Thus equipped, without a minute's +delay, she started for Tom's lodging. + +It was poorer than even she expected. One attic room, bate almost as +when it was built. No chimney or grate, no furniture except a box +which served as both table and chair; and a heap of straw, with a +blanket thrown over it. The only comfort about it was that it was +clean; Tom's innate sense of refinement had abided with him to the +last. + +Elizabeth had time to make all these observations, for Tom was +out--gone, the landlady said, to the druggist's shop, round the +corner. + +"He's very bad, ma'am," added the woman, civilly, probably led +thereto by Elizabeth's respectable appearance, and the cab in which +she had come--lest she should lose a minute's time. "Can't last long, +and Lord knows who's to bury him." + +With that sentence knelling in her ears, Elizabeth waited till she +heard the short cough and the hard breathing of some one toiling +heavily up the stair. Tom, Tom himself. But oh, so altered! with +every bit of youth gone out of him; with death written on every line +of his haggard face, the death he had once prognosticated with a +sentimental pleasure, but which now had come upon him in all its +ghastly reality. + +He was in the last stage of consumption. The disease was latent in +his family, Elizabeth knew: she had known it when she belonged to +him, and fondly thought that, as his wife, her incessant care might +save him from it; but nothing could save him now. + +"Who's that?" said he, in his own sharp, fretful voice. + +"Me, Tom. But don't speak. Sit down till your cough's over." + +Tom grasped her hand as she stood by him, but he made no further +demonstration, nor used any expression of gratitude. He seemed far +too ill. Sick people are always absorbed in the sad present; they +seldom trouble themselves much about the past. Only there was +something in the way Tom clung to her hand, helplessly, imploringly, +that moved the inmost heart of Elizabeth. + +"I'm very bad, you see. This cough; oh, it shakes me dreadfully; +especially of nights." + +"Have you any doctor?" + +"The druggist close by, or rather, the druggist's shopman. He's a +very kind young fellow, from our county, I fancy, for he asked me +once if I wasn't a Stowbury man; and ever since he has doctored me +for nothing, and given me a shilling too, now and then, when I've +been a'most clemmed to death in the winter." + +"Oh, Tom, why didn't you write to me before. Have you actually wanted +food?" + +"Yes, many a time. I've been out of work this twelvemonth." + +"But Esther?" + +"Who?" screamed Tom. + +"Your wife?" + +"My wife? I've got none? She spent every thing till I fell ill, and +then she met a fellow with lots of money. Curse her!" + +The fury with which he spoke shook him all over, and sent him into +another violent fit of coughing, out of which he revived by degrees, +but in a state of such complete exhaustion that Elizabeth hazarded no +more questions. He must evidently be dealt with exactly like a child. + +She made up her mind in her own silent way, as indeed she had done +ever since she came into the room. + +"Lie down, Tom, and keep yourself quiet for a little. I'll be back as +soon as I can--back with something to do you good. You won't +object." + +"No, no; you can do any thing you like with me. You always could." + +Elizabeth groped her way down stairs strangely calm and +self-possessed. There was need. Tom, dying, had come to her as his +sole support and consolation--throwing himself helplessly upon her, +never doubting either her will or her power to help him. Neither must +fail. The inexplicable woman's strength, sometimes found in the very +gentlest, quietest, and apparently the weakest character, nerved her +now. + +She went up and down, street after street, looking for lodgings, till +the evening darkened, and the Abbey towers rose grimly against the +summer sky. Then she crossed over Westminster Bridge, and in a little +street on the Surrey side she found what she wanted--a decent room, +half sitting, half bedroom, with what looked like a decent landlady. +There was no time to make many inquiries; any thing was better than +to leave Tom an other night where he was. + +She paid a week's rent in advance; bought firing and provisions; +every thing she could think of to make him comfortable; and then she +went to fetch him in a cab. + +The sick man offered no resistance; indeed, he hardly seemed to know +what she was doing with him. She discovered the cause of this half +insensibility when, in making a bundle of his few clothes, she found +a package labeled "opium." + +"Don't take it from me," he said pitifully, "it's the only comfort I +have." + +But when he found himself in the cheerful room, with the fire blazing +and the tea laid out, he woke up like a person out of a bad dream. + +"Oh, Elizabeth, I'm so comfortable!" + +Elizabeth could have wept. + +Whether the wholesome food and drink revived him, or whether it was +one of the sudden flashes of life that often occur in consumptive +patients, but he seemed really better, and began to talk, telling +Elizabeth about his long illness, and saying over again how very kind +the druggist's young man had been to him. + +"I'm sure he's a gentleman, though he has come down in the world; +for, as he says, 'misery makes a man acquainted with strange +bedfellows, and takes the nonsense out of him.' I think so too, and +if ever I get better, I don't mean to go about the country speaking +against born gentlefolks any more. They're much of a muchness with +ourselves--bad and good; a little of all sorts; the same flesh and +blood as we are. Aren't they, Elizabeth?" + +"I suppose so." + +"And there's another thing I mean to do. I mean to try and be good +like you. Many a night, when I've lain on that straw, and thought I +was dying, I've remembered you and all the things you used to say to +me. You are a good woman; there never was a better." + +Elizabeth smiled, a faint rather sad smile. For, as she was washing +up the tea things, she had noticed Tom's voice grow feebler, and his +features sharper and more wan. + +"I'm very tired," he said. "I'm afraid to go to bed, I get such +wretched nights; but I think, if I lay down in my clothes, I could go +to sleep." + +Elizabeth helped him to the small pallet, shook his pillow, and +covered him up as if he had been a child. + +"You're very good to me," he said, and looked up at her--Tom's +bright, fond look of years ago. But it passed away in a moment, and +he closed his eyes, saying he was so terribly tired. + +"Then I'll bid you good-by, for I ought to have been at home by now. +You'll take care of yourself, Tom, and I'll come and see you again +the very first hour I can be spared. And if you want me you'll send +to me at once? You know where?" + +"I will," said Tom. "Its the same house, isn't it, in Russell +Square?" + +"Yes." And they were both silent. + +After a minute, Tom asked, in a troubled voice. + +"Have you forgiven me?" + +"Yes, Tom, quite." + +"Won't you give me one kiss, Elizabeth?" + +She turned away. She did not mean to be hard, but somehow she could +not kiss Esther's husband. + +"Ah, well; it's all the same! good-by!" + +"Good-by, Tom." + +But as she stood at the door, and looked back at him lying with his +eyes shut, and as white as if he were dead, Elizabeth's heart melted. +He was her Tom, her own Tom, of whom she had been so fond, so proud; +whose future she had joyfully anticipated long before she thought of +herself as mixed up with it; and he was dying, dying at +four-and-twenty; passing away to the other world, where, perhaps, she +might meet him yet, with no cruel Esther between. + +"Tom," she said, and knelt beside him, "Tom, I didn't mean to vex +you. I'll try to be as good as a sister to you. I'll never forsake +you as long as you live." + +"I know you never will." + +"Good-by, then for to-night." + +And she did kiss him, mouth to mouth, quietly and tenderly. She was +so glad of it afterward. + +It was late enough when she reached Russell Square; but nobody ever +questioned the proceedings of Mrs. Hand, who was a privileged person. +She crept in beside her little Henry, and as the child turned in his +sleep and put his arms about her neck, she clasped him tight, and +thought there was still something to live for in this weary world. + +All night she thought over what best could be done for Tom. Though +she never deceived herself for a moment as to his state, still she +thought, with care and proper nursing, he might live a few months. +Especially if she could get him into the Consumption Hospital, newly +started in Chelsea, of which she was aware Mr. Ascott--who dearly +loved to see his name in a charity list--was one of the governors. + +There was no time to be lost; she determined to speak to her master +at once. + +The time she chose was when she brought down little Henry, who was +now always expected to appear, and say, "Dood morning, papa," before +Mr. Ascott went into the city. + +As they stood, the boy laughing in his father's face, and the father +beaming all over with delight, the bitter, almost fierce thought, +smote Elizabeth, Why should Peter Ascott be standing there fat and +flourishing, and poor Tom dying? It made her bold to ask the only +favor she ever had asked of the master whom she did not care for, and +to whom she had done her duty simply as duty, without, until lately, +one fragment of respect. + +"Sir, if you please, might I speak with you a minute before you go +out?" + +"Certainly, Mrs. Hand. Any thing about Master Henry? Or perhaps +yourself? You want more wages? Very well. I shall be glad, in any +reasonable way, to show my satisfaction at the manner in which you +bring up my son." + +"Thank you, Sir," said Elizabeth, curtseying. "But it is not that." + +And in the briefest language she could find she explained what it +was. + +Mr. Ascott knitted his brows and looked important. He never scattered +his benefits with a silent hand, and he dearly liked to create +difficulties, if only to show how he could smooth them down. + +"To get a patient admitted at the Consumption Hospital, is, you +should be aware, no easy matter, until the building at Queen's Elm is +complete. But I flatter myself I have influence. I have subscribed a +deal of money. Possibly the person may be got in in time. Who did you +say he was?" + +"Thomas Cliffe. He married one of the servants here, Esther--" + +"Oh, don't trouble yourself about the name; I shouldn't recollect it. +The housekeeper might. Why didn't his wife apply to the housekeeper?" + +The careless question seemed hardly to expect an answer, and +Elizabeth gave none. She could not bear to make public Tom's misery +and Esther's shame. + +"And you say he is a Stowbury man? That is certainly a claim. I +always feel bound, somewhat as a member of Parliament might be, to do +my best for any one belonging to my native town. So be satisfied, +Mrs. Hand; consider the thing settled." + +And he was going away; but time being of such great moment, Elizabeth +ventured to detain him till he had written the letter of +recommendation, and found out what days the application for admission +could be received. He did it very patiently, and even took out his +purse and laid a sovereign on the top of the letter. + +"I suppose the man is poor; you can use this for his benefit." + +"There is no need, thank you, Sir," said Elizabeth, putting it gently +aside. She could not bear that Tom should accept any body's money but +her own. + +At her first spare moment she wrote him a long letter explaining what +she had done, and appointing the next day but one, the earliest +possible, for taking him out to Chelsea herself. If he objected to +the plan, he was to write and say so; but she urged him as strongly +as she could not to let slip this opportunity of obtaining good +nursing and first rate medical care. + +Many times during the day the thought of Tom alone in his one +room--comfortable though it was, and though she had begged the +landlady to see that he wanted nothing--came across her with a sudden +pang. His face, feebly lifted up from the pillow, with its last +affectionate smile, the sound of his cough as she stood listening +outside on the stair head, haunted her all through that sunshiny June +day; and, mingled with it, came ghostly visions of that other day in +June--her happy Whitsun holiday--her first and her last. + +No letter coming from Tom on the appointed morning, she left Master +Henry in the charge of the house-maid, who was very fond of him--as +indeed he bade fair to be spoiled by the whole establishment at +Russell Square--and went down to Westminster. + +There was a long day before her, so she took a minute's breathing +space on Westminster Bridge, and watched the great current of London +life ebbing and flowing--life on the river and life on the shore; +every body so busy and active and bright. + +"Poor Tom, poor Tom!" she sighed, and wondered whether his ruined +life would ever come to any happy ending, except death. + +She hurried on, and soon found the street where she had taken his +lodging. At the corner of it was, as is too usual in London streets, +a public house, about which more than the usual number of +disreputable idlers were hanging. There were also one or two +policemen, who were ordering the little crowd to give way to a group +of twelve men, coming out. + +"What is that?" asked Elizabeth. + +"Coroner's inquest; jury proceeding to view the body." + +Elizabeth, who had never come into contact with any thing of the +sort, stood aside with a sense of awe, to let the little procession +pass, and then followed up the street. + +It stopped; oh no! not at that door! But it was; there was no +mistaking the number, nor the drawn-down blind in the upper +room--Tom's room. + +"Who is dead?" she asked, in a whisper that made the policeman stare. + +"Oh! nobody particular; a young man, found dead in his bed; supposed +to be a case of consumption; verdict will probably be, 'Died by the +visitation of God!' " + +Ay, that familiar phrase, our English law's solemn recognition of our +national religious feeling, was true. God had "visited" poor Tom; he +suffered no more. + +Elizabeth leaned against the door-way, and saw the twelve jurymen go +up stairs with a clatter of feet, and come down again, one after the +other, less noisily, and some of them looking grave. Nobody took any +notice of her, until the lodging house mistress appeared. + +"Oh, here she is, gentlemen. This is the young woman as saw him last +alive. She'll give her evidence. She'll tell you I'm not a bit to +blame." + +And pulling Elizabeth after her, the landlady burst into a torrent of +explanation; how she had done her very best for the poor fellow; how +she listened at his door several times during the first day, and +heard him cough, that is, she thought she had, but toward night all +was so very quiet; and there having come a letter by post, she +thought she would take it up to him. + +"And I went in, gentlemen, and I declare, upon my oath, I found him +lying just as he is now, and as cold as a stone." + +"Let me pass; I'm a doctor," said somebody behind; a young man, very +shabbily dressed, with a large beard. He pushed aside the landlady +and Elizabeth, till he saw the latter's face. + +"Give that young woman a chair and a glass of water, will you?" he +called out; and his authoritative manner impressed the jurymen, who +gathered around him, ready and eager to hear any thing he could say. + +He gave his name as John Smith, druggist's assistant; said that the +young man who lodged up stairs, whose death he had only just heard +of, had been his patient for some months, and was in the last stage +of consumption. He had no doubt the death had ensued from perfectly +natural causes, as he explained in such technical language as +completely to overpower the jury, and satisfy them accordingly. They +quitted the parlor, and proceeded to the public house, where, after a +brief consultation, they delivered their verdict, as the astute +policeman had foretold, "Died by the visitation of God;" took pipes +and brandy all round at the bar, and then adjourned to their several +homes, gratified at having done their duty to their country. + +Meantime, Elizabeth crept up stairs. Nobody hindered or followed her; +nobody cared any thing for the solitary dead. + +There he lay--poor Tom! almost as she had left him; the counterpane +was hardly disturbed, the candle she had placed on the chair had +burned down to a bit of wick, which still lay in the socket. Nobody +had touched him, or any thing about him, as, in all cases of "Found +dead," English law exacts. + +Whether he had died soon after she quitted him that night, or whether +he had lingered through the long hours of darkness, or of day-light +following, alive and conscious perhaps, yet too weak to call any one, +even had there been any one he cared to call--when, or how, the +spirit had passed away unto Him who gave it, were mysteries that +could never be known. + +But it was all over now; he lay at rest with the death smile on his +face. Elizabeth, as she stood and looked at him, could not, dared not +weep. + +"My poor Tom, my own dear Tom," was all she thought, and knew that he +was all her own now; that she had loved him through every thing, and +loved him to the end. + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +Elizabeth spent the greatest part of her holiday in that house, in +that room. Nobody interfered with her; nobody asked in what relation +she stood to the deceased, or what right she had to take upon herself +the arrangements for his funeral. Every body was only too glad to let +her assume a responsibility which would otherwise have fallen on the +parish. + +The only person who appeared to remember either her or the dead man +was the druggist's assistant, who sent in the necessary medical +certificate as to the cause of death. Elizabeth took it to the +Registrar, and thence proceeded to an undertaker hard by, with whom +she arranged all about the funeral, and that it should took place in +the new cemetery at Kensal Green. She thought she should like that +better than a close, noisy London church yard. + +Before she left the house she saw poor Tom laid in his coffin, and +covered up forever from mortal eyes. Then, and not till then, she sat +herself down beside him and wept. + +Nobody contested with her the possession of the few things that had +belonged to him, which were scarcely more than the clothes he had on +when he died; so she made them up into a parcel and took them away +with her. In his waistcoat pocket she found one book, a little +Testament, which she had given him herself. It looked as if it had +been a good deal read. If all his studies, all his worship of "pure +intellect," as the one supreme good, had ended in that, it was a +blessed ending. + +When she reached home Elizabeth went at once to her master, returned +him his letter of recommendation, and explained to him that his +kindness was not needed now. + +Mr. Ascott seemed a good deal shocked, inquired from her a few +particulars, and again took out his purse, his one panacea for all +mortal woes. But Elizabeth declined; she said she would only ask him +for an advance of her next half-year's wages. She preferred burying +her old friend herself. + +She buried him, herself the only mourner, on a bright summer's day, +with the sun shining dazzlingly on the white grave stones in Kensal +Green. The clergyman appeared, read the service, and went away again. +A few minutes ended it all. When the undertaker and his men had also +departed, she sat down on a bench near to watch the sexton filling up +the grave--Tom's grave. She was very quiet, and none but a closely +observant person watching her face could have penetrated into the +truth of what your impulsive characters, always in the extremes of +mirth or misery, never understand about quiet people, that "still +waters run deep." + +While she sat there some one came past her, and turned round. It was +the shabby-looking chemist's assistant, who had a appeared at the +inquest, and given the satisfactory evidence which had prevented the +necessity of her giving-hers. + +Elizabeth rose and acknowledged him with a respectable courtesy; for +under his threadbare clothes was the bearing of a gentleman, and he +had been so kind to Tom. + +"I am too late," he said; "the funeral is over. I meant to have +attended it, and seen the last of the poor fellow." + +"Thank you, Sir," replied Elizabeth, gratefully. + +The young man stood before her, looking at her earnestly for a minute +or two, and then exclaimed, with a complete change of voice and +manner. + +"Elizabeth, don't you know me? What has become of my aunt Johanna?" + +It was Ascott Leaf. + +But no wonder Elizabeth had not recognized him. His close cropped +hair, his large beard hiding half his face, and a pair of spectacles +which he had assumed, were a sufficient disguise. Besides, the great +change from his former "dandy" appearance to the extreme of +shabbiness; his clothes being evidently worn as long as they could +possibly hold together, and his generally depressed air, giving the +effect of one who had gone down in the world, made him, even without +the misleading "John Smith," most unlikely to be identified with the +Ascott Leaf of old. + +"I never should have known you, Sir!" said Elizabeth truthfully, when +her astonishment had a little subsided; "but I am very glad to see +you. Oh how thankful your aunts will be!" + +"Do you think so? I thought it was quite the contrary. But it does +not matter; they will never hear of me unless you tell them--and I +believe I may trust you. You would not betray me, if only for the +sake of that poor fellow yonder?" + +"No, Sir." + +"Now, tell me something about my aunts, especially my aunt Johanna." + +And sitting down in the sunshine, with his arms upon the back of the +bench, and his hand hiding his eyes, the poor prodigal listened in +silence to every thing Elizabeth told him; of his Aunt Selina's +marriage and death, and of Mr. Lyon's return, and of the happy home +at Liverpool. + +"They are all quite happy, then?" said he, at length; "they seem to +have begun to prosper ever since they got rid of me. Well, I'm glad +of it. I only wanted to hear of them from you. I shall never trouble +them any more. You'll keep my secret, I know. And now I must go, for +I have not a minute more to spare. Good-by, Elizabeth." + +With a humility and friendliness, strange enough in Ascott Leaf, he +held out his hand--empty, for he had nothing to give now--to his +aunt's old servant. But Elizabeth detained him. + +"Don't go, Sir, please, don't; not just yet." And then she added, +with an earnest respectfulness that touched the heart of the poor, +shabby man, "I hope you'll pardon the liberty I take. I'm only a +servant, but I knew you when you were a boy, Mr. Leaf: and if you +would trust me, if you would let me be of use to you in any way--if +only because you were so good to him there." + +"Poor Tom Cliffe; he was not a bad fellow; he liked me rather, I +think; and I was able to doctor him and help him a little. Heigh-ho; +it's a comfort to think I ever did any good to any body." + +Ascott sighed, drew his rusty coat sleeves across his eyes, and sat +contemplating his boots, which were any thing but dandy boots now. + +"Elizabeth, what relation was Tom to you? If I had known you were +acquainted with him I should have been afraid to go near him; but I +felt sure, though he came from Stowbury, he did not guess who I was; +he only knew me as Mr. Smith; and he never once mentioned you. Was he +your cousin, or what?" + +Elizabeth considered a moment, and then told the simple fact; it +could not matter now. + +"I was once going to be married to him, but he saw somebody he liked +better, and married her." + +"Poor girl; poor Elizabeth?" + +Perhaps nothing could have shown the great change in Ascott more than +the tone in which he uttered these words; a tone of entire respect +and kindly pity, from which he never once departed during that +conversation, and many, many others, so long as their confidential +relations lasted. + +"Now, Sir, would you be so kind as to tell me something about +yourself? I'll not repeat any thing to your aunts, if you don't wish +it." + +Ascott yielded. He had been so long, so utterly forlorn. He sat down +beside Elizabeth, and then, with eyes often averted, and with many +breaks between, which she had to fill up as best as she could, he +told her all his story, even to the sad secret of all, which had +caused him to run away from home, and hide himself in the last place +where they would have thought he was, the safe wilderness of London. +There, carefully disguised, he had lived decently while his money +lasted, and then, driven step by step to the brink of destitution, he +had offered himself for employment in the lowest grade of his own +profession, and been taken as assistant by the not over scrupulous +chemist and druggist in that not too respectable neighborhood of +Westminster, with a salary of twenty pounds a year. + +"And I actually live upon it!" added he, with a bitter smile. "I +can't run into debt; for who would trust me? And I dress in rags +almost, as you see. And I get my meals how and where I can; and I +sleep under the shop counter. A pretty life for Mr. Ascott Leaf, +isn't it now? What would my aunts say if they knew it?" + +"They would say that it was an honest life, and that they were not a +bit ashamed of you." + +Ascott drew himself up a little, and his chest heaved visibly under +the close buttoned, thread bare coat. + +"Well, at least, it is a life that makes nobody else miserable." + +Ay, that wonderful teacher, Adversity, + + "Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, + Wears yet a precious jewel in its head," + +had left behind this jewel in the young man's heart. A disguised, +beggared outcast, he had found out the value of an honest name; +forsaken, unfriended, he had learned the preciousness of home and +love; made a servant of, tyrannized over, and held in low esteem, he +had been taught by hard experience the secret of true humility and +charity--the esteeming of others better than himself. + +Not with all natures does misfortune so work, but it did with his. He +had sinned; he had paid the cost of his sin in bitter suffering; but +the result was cheaply bought, and he already began to feel that it +was so. + +"Yes," said he, in answer to a question of Elizabeth's, "I really am, +for some things, happier than I used to be. I feel more like what I +was in the old days, when I was a little chap at Stowbury. Poor old +Stowbury! I often think of the place in a way that's perfectly +ridiculous. Still, if any thing happened to me, I should like my +aunts to know it, and that I didn't forget them." + +"But, Sir," asked Elizabeth earnestly, "do you never mean to go near +your aunts again?" + +"I can't say; it all depends upon circumstances. I suppose," he +added, "if, as is said, one's sin is sure to find one out, the same +rule goes by contraries. It seems poor Cliffe once spoke of me to a +district visitor, the only visitor he ever had; and this gentleman, +hearing of the inquest, came yesterday to inquire about him of me; +and the end was that he offered me a situation with a person he knew, +a very respectable chemist in Tottenham Court Road." + +"And shall you go?" + +"To be sure. I've learned to be thankful for small mercies. Nobody +will find me out or recognize me. You didn't. Who knows? I may even +have the honor of dispensing drugs to Uncle Ascott of Russell +Square." + +"But," said Elizabeth, after a pause, "you will not always remain as +John Smith, druggist's shopman, throwing away all your good +education, position, and name?" + +"Elizabeth," said he, in a humbled tone, "how dare I ever resume my +own name and get back my rightful position while Peter Ascott lives? +Can you or any body point out a way?" + +She thought the question over in her clear head; clear still, even at +this hour, when she had to think for others, though all personal +feeling and interest were buried in that grave over which the sexton +was now laying the turf that would soon grow smoothly green. + +"If I might advise, Mr. Leaf, I should say, save up all your money, +and then go, just as you are, with an honest, bold front, right into +my master's house, with the fifty pounds in your hand--" + +"By Jove, you've hit it!" cried Ascott, starting up. "What a thing a +woman's head is! I've turned over scheme after scheme, but I never +once thought of any thing so simple as that. Bravo, Elizabeth! You're +a remarkable woman." + +She smiled--a very sad smile--but still she felt glad. Any thing that +she could possibly do for any creature belonging to her dear +mistresses seemed to this faithful servant the natural and bounden +duty of her life. + +Long after the young man, whose mercurial temperament no trouble +could repress, had gone away in excellent spirits, leaving her an +address where she could always find him, and give him regular news of +his aunts, though he made her promise to give them, as yet, no +tidings in return, Elizabeth sat still, watching the sun decline and +the shadows lengthen over the field of graves. In the calmness and +beauty of this solitary place an equal calm seemed to come over her; +a sense of how wonderfully events had linked themselves together and +worked themselves out; how even poor Tom's mournful death had brought +about this meeting, which might end in restoring to her beloved +mistresses their lost sheep, their outcast, miserable boy. She did +not reason the matter out, but she felt it, and felt that in making +her in some degree His instrument God had been very good to her in +the midst of her desolation. + +It seemed Elizabeth's lot always to have to put aside her own +troubles for the trouble of somebody else. Almost immediately after +Tom Cliffe's death her little Henry fell ill with scarlatina and +remained for many months in a state of health so fragile as to +engross all her thought and care. It was with difficulty that she +contrived a few times to go for Henry's medicines to the shop where +"John Smith" served. + +She noticed that every time he looked healthier, brighter, freer from +that aspect of broken-down respectability which had touched her so +much. He did not dress any better, but still "the gentleman" in him +could never be hidden or lost, and he said his master treated him +"like a gentleman," which was apparently a pleasant novelty. + +"I have some time to myself also. Shop shuts at nine, and I get up at +5 A. M.--bless us! what would my Aunt Hilary say? And it's not for +nothing. There are more ways than one of turning an honest penny, +when a young fellow really sets about it. Elizabeth, you used to be a +literary character yourself; look into the ---- and the ----," +(naming two popular magazines), "and if you find a series of +especially clever papers on sanitary reform, and so on, I did 'em:" + +He slapped his chest with Ascott's merry laugh of old. It cheered +Elizabeth for a long while afterward. + +By-and-by she had to take little Henry to Brighton, and lost sight of +"John Smith" for some time longer. + +It was on a snowy February day, when, having brought the child home +quite strong, and received unlimited gratitude and guineas from the +delighted father, Master Henry's faithful nurse stood in her usual +place at the dining-room door, waiting for the interminable grace of +"only five minutes more" to be over, and her boy carried +ignominiously but contentedly to bed. + +The footman knocked at the door. "A young man wanting to speak to +master on particular business. + +"Let him send in his name." + +"He says you wouldn't know it, Sir." + +"Show him in, then. Probably a case of charity, as usual. Oh!" + +And Mr. Ascott's opinion was confirmed by the appearance of the +shabby young man with the long beard, whom Elizabeth did not wonder +he never recognized in the least. She ought to have retired, and yet +she could not. She hid herself partly behind the door, afraid of +passing Ascott; dreading alike to wound him by recognition or +non-recognition. But he took no notice. He seemed excessively +agitated. + +"Come a-begging, young man, I suppose? Wants a situation, as hundreds +do, and think that I have half the clerkships in the city at my +disposal, and that I am made of money besides. But it's no good, I +tell you, Sir; I never give nothing to strangers, except--Here, +Henry, my son, take that person there this half crown." + +And the little boy, in his pretty purple velvet frock and his +prettier face, trotted across the room and put the money into poor +Ascott's hand. He took it; and then to the astonishment of Master +Henry, and the still greater astonishment of his father, lifted up +the child and kissed him. + +"Young man, young fellow--" + +"I see you don't know me, Mr. Ascott, and it's not surprising. But I +have come to repay you this--" he laid a fifty pound note down on the +table. "Also, to thank you earnestly for not prosecuting me, and to +say--" + +"Good God!"--the sole expletive Peter Ascott had been heard to use +for long. "Ascott Leaf, is that you? I thought you were in Australia, +or dead, or something." + +"No, I'm alive and here, more's the pity perhaps. Except that I have +lived to pay you back what I cheated you out of. What you generously +gave me I can't pay, though I may sometime. Meantime, I have brought +you this. It's honestly earned. Yes." observing the keen doubtful +look, "though I have hardly a coat to my back, I assure you it's +honestly earned." + +Mr. Ascott made no reply. He stooped over the bank-note, examined it, +folded it, and put it into his pocket-book; then, after another +puzzled investigation of Ascott, cleared his throat. + +"Mrs. Hand, you had better take Master Henry up stairs." + +An hour after, when little Henry had long been sound asleep, and she +was sitting at her usual evening sewing in her solitary nursery, +Elizabeth learned that the "shabby young man" was still in the +dining-room with Mr. Ascott, who had rung for tea, and some cold meat +with it. And the footman stated, with undisguised amazement, that the +shabby young man was actually sitting at the same table with master! + +Elizabeth smiled to herself and held her tongue. Now, as ever, she +always kept the secrets of the family. + +About ten o'clock she was summoned to the dining-room. + +There stood Peter Ascott, pompous as ever, but with a certain kindly +good-humor lightening up his heavy face, looking condescendingly +around him, and occasionally rubbing his hands slowly together, as if +he were exceedingly well pleased with himself. There stood Ascott +Leaf, looking bright and handsome, in spite of his shabbiness, and +quite at his ease--which small peculiarity was never likely to be +knocked out of him under the most depressing circumstances. + +He shook hands with Elizabeth warmly. + +"I wanted to ask you if you have any message for Liverpool. I go +there to-morrow on business for Mr. Ascott, and afterward I shall +probably go and see my aunts." He faltered a moment, but quickly +shook the emotion off. "Of course, I shall tell them all about you, +Elizabeth. Any special message, eh?" + +"Only my duty, Sir, and Master Henry is quite well again," said +Elizabeth, formally, and dropping her old-fashioned courtesy; after +which, as quickly as she could, she slipped out of the dining-room. + +But, long, long after, when all the house was gone to bed, she stood +at the nurser window, looking down upon the trees of the square, that +stretched their motionless arms up into the moonlight sky--just such +a moonlight as it was once, more than three years ago, the night +little Henry was born. And she recalled all the past, from the day +when Miss Hilary hung up her bonnet for her in the house-place at +Stowbury; the dreary life at No. 15; the Sunday nights when she and +Tom Cliffe used to go wandering round and round the square. + +"Poor Tom," said she to herself, thinking of Ascott Leaf, and how +happy he had looked, and how happy his aunts would be to-morrow. +"Well, Tom would be glad too, if he knew all." + +But, happy as every body was, there was nothing so close to +Elizabeth's heart as the one grave over which the snow was now lying, +white and peaceful, out at Kensal Green. + +Elizabeth is still living--which is a great blessing, for nobody +could well do without her. She will probably attain a good old age; +being healthy and strong, very equable in temper now, and very +cheerful too, in her quiet way. + +Doubtless, she will yet have Master Henry's children climbing her +knees, and calling her "Mammy Lizzie." + +But she will never marry--She never loved any body but Tom. + +THE END. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mistress and Maid +by Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISTRESS AND MAID *** + +***** This file should be named 13461.txt or 13461.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/4/6/13461/ + +This ebook was formatted and edited by Robin Eugene Escovado + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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